I feel like I am officially on the World Race now! On our first day of our ministry, we drove about an hour and a half from the capital to a town called Leon, Nicaragua. We were told it’s kind of a touristy place so we thought we would be somewhere nice with Wi-Fi, coffee shops, and shopping. We thought wrong. We drove through the city and turned down a dirt road. Then we kept driving…. and driving…and driving. We see smaller houses made of tin and logs, bulls pulling wagons, people sweeping their dirt in their lawn area, and we quickly realize we are going to be in the middle of nowhere. We finally stop at a worksite. It is a place ran by Samaritan’s Purse that builds water filters for people in nearby villages so they have fresh water. I thought, surely this isn’t where we’re staying as I look around at this place with no kitchen, place to sleep, or a bathroom. Well, it was. We pitched our tents at night, ate a nearby house for all of our meals, and went in the bathroom in an outhouse. But not at night—a bat likes to occupy it at night, which I learned the hard way:
It gets dark about six at night. I really had to use the bathroom, but hated the thought of going in an outhouse where there could be bugs. I used the bathroom very quickly and got out in record time. Next, my teammate Jake went in. Ten seconds later he came out yelling and running! Apparently when he went in he looked down into the hole part (don’t ask me why), saw something moving, then a bat started to fly out! So yes, I peed on a bat and didn’t even know it! And here I was afraid of bugs, which is obviously the least of my worries!! =) Needless to say, us girls would rather use the bathroom on the side of the road at night than use the outhouse!
Anyways, back to ministry. This organization does a great job in educating people on the importance of having clean water in their homes. They have a meeting about it while also sharing the gospel with them. These people commit to a couple of days of helping to build their own filter for their home. The process is pretty intense. They start by oiling the filter molds and its screws to assemble it together. Meanwhile, other people are sifting the dirt and digging up rocks to mix with the cement and water. And no, they do not have a cement mixer. They mix it by hand with shovels. It’s a lot harder than it sounds! After the cement is mixed, they pour it into the molds, followed by jabbing in these metal rods to get out the air bubbles. Afterwards, they use these rubber hammers and hammer on the outside of the molds to get out remaining bubbles. It takes the cement about a day to dry, then they are painted. We were not there long enough to see them assemble the filter part of it, because we mainly helped with the molds.
It was exhausting work, but we felt good helping the families in need. So far they have made close to 800 filters for families! I especially loved being able to help Samaritan’s Purse Organization because that was my first mission trip a couple years ago with disaster relief.
We were only in Leon for a week because our team is being rotated during the month to help at a different ministry every week. During this first week we spent days helping to build filters, and at night we would do different things with our contacts. We had about four guys to stay with us during the week. They work for Samaritan’s Purse and rotate weeks to go and work in Leon.
On our first night, they took us to a small community of families living close together to see how they make fried yucca and plantains to sell them. Another night, we went to take pictures in the city of old, beautiful churches. One day they took us volcano surfing when we got done with work early. My favorite part of the nights was the amazing view of stars that come out. I have never in my life seen so many beautiful stars at night. I can’t even describe how breathtaking they are. We would sometimes just stare at them in silence riding in the back of a truck somewhere or just laying on the ground looking up.
We had a great first week in Nicaragua, and next week we are off to work in the capital called Managua. We have no idea what we’re doing, but that’s ok! This weekend we are going to a retreat in Granada to be reunited with our squad while our leaders have a leader’s retreat/training.
(This is their logo for the Leon site.)
