Sometimes even when you are this close to the equator you can have a cool month. We are spending our final month in El Crucero, Nicaragua. It is a little town up in hills outside Managua. We are higher up so the temps are cooler and the wind reminds me of growing up in Edgerton.
Our ministry is Casa De Gozo, House of Joy. The house serves as a youth community center. Kids can come over anytime they want and play soccer, swing on the play set, challenge each other in board games, or take each other on in ping pong. They also offer some English classes and music classes. On Saturdays the have a program with music, games, a message or skit, and tacos!
This month we lived at the house with our host, Kaye. Originally from Texas, Kaye came to Nicaragua after her husband died because God laid it on her heart to bring joy to this community. She has now been coming to Nicaragua for almost a decade and lives here most of the year. Our other host is Jose. He started as Kaye’s translator and eventually became a head of the ministry that Kaye relies on to help get things done.
On a normal day, we are playmates and teachers. On Mondays and Thursdays, we taught music classes. Kristin, Alex, and I taught guitar. Cindy was our most devoted student. The first lesson, she struggled to push down the strings and hold the guitar at the same time. At our last lesson yesterday, she could play 6 different chords and was working on a couple of different songs!
Shannon taught drums and received regular headaches. At first the kids just wanted to make noise, but Shannon had no problem pushing them to learn and by the end they knew different rhythms. She also learned the phrased “no fuerte!” Which means “not loud!” Debbie taught piano. Even though she claims to not really know piano, she knew more than them. Twinkle twinkle little star is a big hit now in the town of El Crucero. We encouraged the kids to try everything and did our best to teach with the Spanish we knew. On Tuesdays, Debbie and Kaye taught English. It is a difficult task when you don’t get the same kids every week and you have a variety of skill levels in the room, but they were awesome.
When we weren’t teaching we were playing; uno, candy land, dominoes, ping pong, and soccer were the favorites. Ping pong was my favorite. Antoni was my favorite player. He was small, but he had spirit. Phase 10 was one of Danny’s favorite games, but he didn’t ever let me win.
Saturday was our busy day of the week. At 8, music class started with an actual music teacher. We supported him the best we could. He taught the kids music theory, something we couldn’t teach. At 11, the program started. We sang songs with the kids and taught them some actions to the few Spanish songs we had in our arsenal (mostly thanks to Debbie). Once or twice we also became the drama team helping out their payasas (clowns, for my English speaking friends). That’s right, they had formed a clown group with a few of the kids who frequented the center. They were so energetic and so joyful.
This month we had some lazy days and some crazy busy days. The kids were fun but sometimes exhausting. We loved getting to know them over the month. We are so blessed to get to share this time with them, to see them learn, to see them laugh, and to see them enjoy the love of God that this ministry is pouring out on them.
