The students left the Managua airport early this morning, after a relaxing retreat at Playa Coco beach in southern Nicaragua. During work sessions the students took turns sharing about their experiences on service, as well as describing their findings from individual research topics. Doug marveled at their impressive work. They taught him new things about Nicaragua, and just 4 months ago he was explaining the simplest ABC’s of Nicaragua to them.

And when they weren’t sharing knowledge and planning their SST convocation for the fall, well, they enjoyed the beach in front of our lodges. We also made a couple trips to the neighboring beach of La Flor, a wildlife refuge where olive ridley sea turtles occasionally come ashore to nest. Although the turtles roam the Pacific from the coast of Canada all the way down to the coast of Peru, they will only nest at one spot – the same beach where they hatched.

Perhaps that same nesting instinct is what drew our students away from the beach and back to the land of Goshen today. However, we suspect that this summer some of them acquired another instinct that will someday bring them back to Nicaragua.

For Doug and Maria, it has been a special privilege to facilitate the interactions of the past three months between this country and the students. That they enjoyed their sojourn in Nicaragua so much is due mostly to the hospitality, patience, beauty, and laughter they found here. Hearing the students reflect on the meaning of their experiences, and seeing the friendships they made with Nicas, has been tremendously rewarding for us.

In May Doug happened to meet another college professor from the U.S. who was very pleased to be here with five students for 4 weeks of study-abroad. When he heard we were here with a whopping 23 students, all committed to spending three months living with Nica families, he was as impressed as Doug was proud to work at a school where so many students have that spirit of solidarity, sacrifice, and adventure. We’ve been equally proud to see how each of the 23 responded positively to the challenges of cross-cultural living and opened their minds.

Forty years since the first SST unit came to Nicaragua, and 30 years since the last unit left, these students reopened a path we hope many more will follow.