There are about 1000 people in this town, 70% are unemployed.
There are no chain stores of any kind.
The nearest grocery store is a twenty minute car ride away in the next town over.
So is the nearest ATM.
We are staying in a newly constructed church on the outskirts of town. It was nearly an hour walk from the bus stop on the main road: with our 50-pound packs and day packs in tow: pregnant turtle style. By the time we made it to the church, I had blisters on the balls of both of my feet.
Exhibit A: An example of the 'pregnant turtle' [this one is from Chicago]
The church is called Iglesia Bautista Resureccion [Resurrection Baptist Church]. This church was constructed only a few weeks before we arrived. They finished constructed the bathrooms only a few days before we arrived. Our first night here Ed and Christopher helped do some electrical work in order for us to have electricity, which is only a limited wattage.
Our contact, Jaime, is a missionary that has been here for only two months. He is still learning about the people here, but has a heart for this town and the surrounding area. We are working with him doing various activities around town as well as helping plan and run a three-day Crusade at the end of the month. So far we have leveled ground for a parking lot, cut trees down and used them to make a fence around the property, filled in a hole at the clinic that used to gather standing water which led to a plethora of mosquitoes, picked up trash at the clinic [think used needles, gauze, test tubes, urinalysis strips, etc. in addition to litter], plastered the town with flyers for the Crusade, spent a day working at a special needs school with both physically and mentally handicapped children, attended prayer meetings and crusades, and prayed in the houses of many villagers.
The first two days we spent leveling ground outside the church for a parking lot and children's play area. In the states, you would just get a front loader and the job would be done in a day. But TINA [This Is Not America]. Here, we have two pick axes, three shovels, two bars, and three wheel barrows. And it takes much longer than a day. Our contact told us if we weren't here it would take him over a month to do this job by himself. The further we get in to leveling, the further down we have to dig. It started at about 1 ft of dirt, but at our current point, it's about two-and-a-half feet down.
Christopher worked with the pastor here [Hipolito] making a fence around the property. That involved chopping down 9-foot trees, stripping them, digging a four foot hole, and sticking the tree in the hole to be posts, and then wrapping them in barbed wire. It took about 2 days to finish.
We spent an entire day running around town hanging flyers for the Crusade. We had to ask the owners of the stores/houses for permission before we hung the flyers. Over the course of the day, we hung 100 flyers throughout the town. We split into two teams that day and my team tried to reach out to the people in conversation and prayer instead of simply asking for permission. After lunch, Alejandro, a friend of our contact joined us as we went around town. As soon as he joined us, every family we stopped to talk to invited us into their houses to pray for them. It was such a great experience getting to meet families and pray over them and their houses.
This is what we did when we ran out of flyers
At the special needs school, I was thrust into helping with physical therapy with a boy named Jose. I am not sure what exactly was wrong with him, but I was told that I had to make noises with toys and talk to him; it didn’t matter what language, he just needed to hear speech. I had no idea what to say; I prayed over him, spoke truth over him, and then resorted to singing. I did this for about an hour. Afterwards, I helped put the kids down for a nap by rubbing their backs to get them to sleep.
After nap time, I went with a few of the other World Racers to attend practice with some of the deaf kids. They are training for an Olympic-type competition in Managua at the end of the month. It was a legit practice session, with warm-up and running. We had to leave early to get back for dinner.
This month seems short compared to the last two since we are "missing out" on ministry time because of our mini debrief, retreat, and then debrief again. Even so, we are so excited to see what God has in store for this small town in the north of Nicaragua!
