One down, ten to go. It is scary to see how fast this month is already passing by. Next thing I know, we will be sitting down to a American-style Thanksgiving with Bonnie, one of the many awesome ministry contacts we have here in Nicaragua.
As of late, we are working with Ministerio Mateo 5:16 (Matthew 5:16 Ministry) in Jinotepe, Nicaragua, about 45 minutes south of the capital of Managua. After an exhausting 3 days of travel between Guatemala City and Nicaragua, we are thrilled to be settled in.
The goodbyes were just as heart-wrenching as I thought they would be. We peeled away from their arms and then departed still grasping for their hands as we left the front gates. Once we arrived at the Tica bus station, three other World Race teams were there waiting for their scheduled departure. Unfortunately, there was no room for our team on that 1:00pm bus due to the amount of travelers. Not to fear though, God indisputably had his hand on all of our travels because we ended up staying in the city, relaxing all day. I was able to upload more photos (see Facebook) and make a few calls! Praise the Lord for Skype!
We stayed in that night of the 2nd, then around 5:30am on the 3rd took a 5 hour bus ride to El Salvador, arriving around mid-day without a clue of how we would busy ourselves for 5 hours before Aimee’s friends (from Campus Crusade) picked us up. To our surprise, we saw another World Race team in the terminal and were able to catch up for 30 minutes. In the mean time, I heard Sean (World Racer) talking to a his ministry contact, Oscar, who I was able to meet. I asked him what he would do if he were going to spend 5 hours in San Salvador (Dad you’ve taught me well!) and if he knew of a good place for us to leave our packs. To our delight, he said that we could leave our things at a local church and that he would take us to a shopping mall for lunch. Once again, we were totally taken care of by the grace of God.
Oscar ended up showing incredible hospitality all day. During our time together I was able to hear his story and how he became involved in such a thriving ministry named Teen Challenge. There are many of them all across the world and they help recovering alcoholics, drug addicts, and those affected by the “street lifestyle”. We went by the house to meet a few of the guys living there and were amazed by its progress thus far.
That night we were able to relax with a group of Norteamericanos that are staying in a suburb of San Salvador, doing a “stint” with Campus Crusade. Their group is working with one of the local universities to cultivate a new ministry on the campus. Campus Crusade does this all of the world (I believe in over 150 countries). They were all super welcoming and accommodating.
The next morning we left at 4:45am to catch our bus to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. The ride was looooong (about 12 hours) but we were able to catch some z’s and watch silly movies in English that were provided by our beloved TicaBus.
