Everyday I rode in the back of a work truck 20 minutes to the city of Leon Nicaragua where we began the process of building a house for a woman named Estella and a roof for her sister Antonia. They live a few blocks away from each other and are the cooks at the compound we lived at for the month of December.
When we arrived to the city of Leon the kids in the neighborhood waved their arms to get our attention and yelled “Gringos, Gringos, Gringos” in our direction every time we drove by. If you are not familiar with the term Gringos it means White People in Spanish. Most of the families here travel by bicycle. The most people I have seen on one bicycle had a family of four peddling down the street from our construction site. Many Nicaraguans also travel by horse and buggy or by foot. As we drove through this community we clearly did not fit in. I felt a part of a parade every time we passed through.
The community is made up of three different types of homes; tin houses, homes that are wrapped in black plastic tarp, and homes that are made of brick. All of these homes are situated on a narrow dusty dirt road that is covered in trash. The people in Leon are humble, hospitable, generous, and they are so kind. Every person that I have met here has welcomed me into their home and has offered me a seat to sit down with their family on their porch. What I love about this place is that they do not have much but what they do have they give FREELY to others and are content in what they have in CHRIST!
Estella is a single woman who saved up enough money to purchase land and the materials to build a home for her family, which is no easy task for anyone to accomplish here in Nicaragua. This was our second week on the job and when I got to work I quickly realized that Nicaraguans have a different way of going about things.
There are no cement trucks. There is however a well to pump water, shovels, dirt and buckets. While we were making cement Don Felix, Josue and Mario our contact for the month laughed at our attempts to stir the cement with our shovels. It took four Gringos to stir cement. It only takes two Nicaraguans. We had a lack of tools so we used a baseball bat at one point in place of a hammer and to cut wood it was necessary to use a person to hold the wood in place by standing on it.
At the end of the day I would reflect on my life and I could not help but LOVE every part of it. If it was legal to ride in the back of a truck in the states I would do that all the time. I loved eating enchiladas down the street from our construction site after a hard day of work.
Everything about this month has made me appreciate where I am at in life and the people that God placed in my life both at home and the people I am with right now in Nicaragua.
Next blog I write will most likely be in Thailand! Please pray for safe travels and that God would prepare my team and I for the changes that will occur! Pray for health within our team, and for GOD to increase in every way!
