At the beginning of 2004, I prayed to God to show me His world. That summer at the age of 37 I took my first airplane flights and went to Nicaragua. I loved the experience and got to go again this year. God showed me a tiny bit of His world in Nicaragua as I encountered the people he made who lived there. This year when I went I got to sink my feet into the soft sand of His Pacific Ocean.

This was great I loved the idea of going to a real beach. In my book, a real beach is connected to a real ocean. As everyone stood in the gravelly parking lot looking out over the ocean I couldn't wait to get in the water. We didn't go swimming because of an accident on a recent past trip. But that's okay I really just wanted to get in the water. Jeff, our team captain was the first in. I quickly pulled off my tennis shoes and then peeled off my socks and went. It was great to feel the waves wash up. You never knew how far they would come in. When a wave would come in it would wash up a few sea shells. You had to get them quick before the next wave. They were fresh from the ocean. I gathered a few but this was slow. I walked over to another part of the beach. Since there were big boulder size rocks there they would catch the shells and there was a gazillion of them. A lot of them were broken. It took a bit of searching but you could find some nice ones if you looked.

I took pictures and looked for shells until Dr. Roop yelled that it was time for lunch. For lunch I had a Pimento cheese sandwich and potato salad and a chocolate moon pie kindly served by Emma Lou and her crew out of the back of pickup truck. Then I ate with Kristine and Mae as we gathered around a large aluminum paddle boat sitting in the parking lot.

All the while the sun was beating down on my light skin. I knew it wouldn't be long until I got a sunburn. Thankfully, Jane Dearman had some sunscreen and most were rubbing it all over their exposed skin except for Mae who easily tanned.

Well, I did get red anyway. In fact, by the end of the night it hurt enough that I knew it would peel. And it did, especially on the top of my right shoulder. That's okay, while my sunburn was so obvious I liked to tell how I got it wading through the waves of the Pacific Ocean.