After leaving Ometepe, we traveled by truck and ferry to San Carlos. We then took a bus for about an hour to get to San Juan where our next ministry sight was located. It took more than 24 hours to do all of this traveling.
When we arrived, we found out that we were staying in a house on stilts. We affectionately refer to it as our “tree house.” We talked about how we were going to live like “Swiss Family Robinson.” Since we were only there for 3 nights, we did not get a chance to make any cool gadgets though.
We were doing ministry for a church who do not have a building currently. They are meeting in a hut temporarily. The hut only has room for the 20-30 kids in it while the adults sit outside on the benches. They are working on raising money to build a church building but as of yet, are still working on it.
The pastor, Martine, is an incredible man of God. While we were with him, we led the kids and adults in activities and biblical study. We also walked door to door in the communitty on the last day we were there. We could see the trust that he has built here by investing in relationships. Coincidentally, he had been a pastor at a large church in Ometepe (the island we had just been on) for 11 years. He has been at this church for the past 5 months but has already made a huge impact.
Our “tree house” did not have electricity which was the first time that we had experienced this on the race. In fact, the whole town does not have electricity but will hopefully have it in the next few months.
Our team could not charge the electronics that had been used on the travel day/overnight ferry ride. Most team members could not use their electronics. I also had the unfortunate occurence that my camera stopped working and still does not work. As many of you know, I like to take a lot of pictures so it has been odd not having a camera.
Our teaam also did not have the luxury of piped showers. We also had our first bucket showers of the race here. Our amazing cooks would actually fill buckets with well water for us to use.
In order to have our church services, we had to finish by sundown or we could not read the bibles in front of us because of the lack of light. The sun sets at about 5:30pm and it is dark at 6pm here in Central America. We ended up using our headlamps to continue one or two church services. When we went to the “tree house” after a late dinner, we would get ready for bed quickly since the bugs were attracted to our headlamps and lit candles. We also had the option of climbing into our tents or mosquito nets (my option) to avoid the bugs.
Although this community did not have electricity, they were full of God’s light. Although they do not have a church building, they are the church. They showed us how much they loved God, each other, and us strangers by “going the extra mile for us.” I expect amazing growth from this church because of their love.
How did we survive our three night (imposed) technology fast as a team? We actually bonded more because of it. We did not have the distractions that the technology provided.
