After having a conversation with the pastor’s son one day, I
learned a bit of the church’s heart. The
church here understands God’s call to service, and simply looks for ways to
serve and love on the community that men might give glory to God.
family have been running a feeding program, serving many of the local children
a good, nutritious meal for lunch every day; as some of the men here make only
$1 a day (I have heard that the average pay is anywhere from $1-3 a day). We were able to help serve the kids a couple
days and it was really neat to see all of the kids coming to the pastor’s house
each day knowing there would be food awaiting them, and to see the kids praying
with an adult before they could eat their food (by the way: I believe the
organization that helps provide the food is called “Feed My Starving Children.”
I don’t know much about them, but maybe you should check them out.). Because of this growing ministry, the
pastor’s son and another man from the church have spent the last two months
working to construct a kitchen building at the church to serve the children out
of. I was able to spend several days helping
them doing anything from mixing concrete to mixing concrete and more stuff
involving concrete and got a chance to get to know them better. Every time we
finish a section we get to celebrate with either a game of soccer or “baseball”
which is a ton of fun, and has allowed us to get to know a few more of the
local children and church members.
Sometimes these guys just do things… like one day they took
us to the local park and we all cut the grass that had been overgrown, which
turned out to be quite the experience. A lawn mower looks a bit different in
Nicaragua. The Spanish word for mower
here is “Machete.” Yes, we cut grass
with a machete. And, your first thought
is probably, “Wow, I bet that is difficult and time consuming and
exhausting.” But then you might start to
think that once you get used to it, that it’s probably not that bad… that would
be wrong. After cutting the grass and
the humiliation involved, we were able to play with some of the kids in the park.
Another thing you don’t often see in the states is trash
burning in the middle of the street, here you do. For better or worse, instead of burning the
trash at Cicrin in the middle of the street, they dig massive holes to burn it
in and then bury the remaining. Matthew,
Will, Brad, and I, all had the opportunity to spend a few days digging such
holes. They turned out to be some pretty
enjoyable days… You start digging at around 8am uncovering all kinds of
critters while enjoying some good conversation with the guys. At around 10:30am or so, you take a break and
go jump in the lake. Eat lunch at 12,
take a nap, and go back to digging at 2pm for a few more hours, before
finishing the day off playing soccer with the kids. We dug three holes in
total, each being about 5 or 6 feet deep and about 7 or 8 feet in length and
around 5 feet wide. One day we even
turned the dirt we dug up into a bicycle jump… that might not have been the
best idea, but it was thoroughly enjoyable.
One day Matthew and I got “stuck” on kitchen duty. What a
great idea? After breakfast we cleaned up after all the children and the
kitchen, peeled oranges (with some pretty scary knifes) for the lunch time
juice, and entertained everyone with my Spanish skills and lack of
coordination.
Robert, an agricultural engineer, arrived here at Cicrin the
other day. Robert is spending the next
year here helping to make Cicrin more sustainable. I was able to help him a few days, and learn
a little about gardening and growing things hydroponically. I also got to water
the squash and help reconstruct a green house that had blown over. Hopefully, I will have the opportunity to
learn some more from him before we leave.
Yesterday, I planted Cucumbers and Radishes to be grown
hydroponically and then was taken to the house of one of the workers here to
cut down several trees for the greenhouse construction.
Today, after breakfast we headed into town to help the
pastor do some work at the local school.
do physical labor helping Cicrin, the church, and the community. I have been able to play with and love on the
children both here and in the community. And I have been able to enjoy this beautiful place.
