Well, it has certainly been awhile since I’ve posted anything on here… Much has happened and I just haven’t documented it here. From Nicaragua we headed on to El Salvador, then to Guatemala and finished the Race with a final debrief time in the beautiful city of Antigua, Guatemala. O-Squad finished up strong and headed home after 11 months of being a family; however two stayed… my buddy Jennifer and I grabbed a bus and headed on to San Pedro Sula, Honduras where we parted ways. She headed to visit an orphanage where her friend works, and I met up with my parents and Melissa and continued on to Nicaragua for a week with them. We headed to the beautiful old colonial town of Granada and spent some time touring around the area and hanging out around the pool. The last two days we headed back to Jinotepe to visit the ministry I worked with and I got to spend a few more days with my kids out at La Quinta Esperanza! It was fantastic!
Here are some photos from La Quinta:
Afterwards my family left and I headed north to the coffee growing region of Matagalpa for two weeks of Spanish language school and total immersion with a Nicaraguan family. I greatly enjoyed my extra month in Nicaragua and feel I really have a solid foundation of Spanish now – especially in everyday use. Now I just have to keep it up!
My time in El Salvador was interesting – it was certainly different than either Nicaragua or Guatemala. It was a more modern looking country with tons of U.S. food chains and Walmart stores… certainly a different feel. We also worked with a legitimate mega-church and lived with a family in a gated community with an in-ground pool. We worked with many different programs, but one of my favorites was with a program at the Church’s school. The church has a program that helps some of the kids from the poorer neighborhoods in their area get an education by admitting them into the school with no fees. This is important in Central America as even public schools have fees and require families to buy specific expensive uniforms or do not allow admission of the child. The church here takes care of all of this and even buys the children the required uniforms for the school. We did skits and sang song and played lots of soccer in the parking lot and just had a wonderful time. One day we walked the kids home through a very poor barrio close to the church and met many of their families outside of their homes. You can’t hardly imagine some of these makeshift homes, yet the children were so proud for us to meet their families and visit where they live.
Here’s a photo of us making our way across a makeshift bridge in the barrio… literally boards across an old railroad track:
Guatemala however was a totally different ballgame. We had nice weather all month in El Salvador and suddenly we were in a city on the highly tropical Caribbean coast. Of course there is no A/C basically anywhere in the world and we sweated in out with 100 degree humid weather for a few weeks. Our contacts however were very open to letting us get involved with whatever we felt the Lord wanted us to do there and so we prayed and met about it. The biggest thing we felt called to do something about and where much of our time was devoted was an orphanage in town. I use the term orphanage lightly here b/c it was actually a closed orphanage with some of the kids still remaining there with nowhere else to go. They were basically street kids with a roof over their head. To read more about this situation please see the following link written by the missionary there: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150171265616772
We spent as much time with these kids and worked to bring the issues here to light and into the attention of more people. Many of the kids were special needs and required assistance which was administered by two volunteer women from the community who used to work there. The facts are very blurry here, but our contact has put some of the pieces together in his writeup. The main fact is this is a serious problem that needs a serious solution! We’re praying that the right people with the right motivations and resources find out about this and give these kids and others in the future a fighting chance. Right now their only future is uncertainty.
So after a long journey back to the US (via a 3 hour chicken bus [just google it!] from the mountains, another 3 hour bus to Managua, three taxis, and two plane rides) I am exhausted but most grateful for this year long journey. I don’t know how to adequately thank all of those people (and there are so many!) who made this a possibility. I hope in the next few weeks to meet with as many of you as possible to share in more detail some of what I’ve learned and experienced. I believe I’m going to continue writing more blogs… possibly on another site and try to ad more images and such now that I actually have consistent and fast internet access! What a luxury! Again thank you all that made this a possibility, who believed in me and what I was setting out to accomplish and to all of you who wrote encouraging words to me throughout. I can’t adequately explain how important each of you were during this time. Until I hopefully see each of you in person, May the Lord bless and keep you…
-Jeremiah
