If my lungs are going to be on fire, I would much rather it be here than in freezing cold Spokone/Spokompton. If I’m going to be slightly lost, I would much rather be slightly lost here in gorgeous Nicaragua than back home. If it’s going to be so difficult to drag myself out of bed in the morning, I would much rather it be for the purpose of running on the beach, volcano lookin’ high and mighty, waves grabbing at my feet, and sun glistening off the waves.
(So I went for a run on the beach this morning. Best run I’ve had in months. Only run I’ve had in months. Still, best run I’ve had in months.)
After my run, I went back and did some yoga to stretch out. It wouldn’t be anything special except I did it while staring at the morning clouds whisping around a VOLCANO. Sorry I keep bringing it up, but it’s a fweaking VOLCANO. IN MY BACKYARD. After yoga, I said good morning to our beautiful ministry host Sara, whose church we are working with, her 13 year old daughter Escarlette, her 18 year old son Andersen, and Sara’s future husband Jener. We already invited ourselves to their wedding. Engagement coming this Christmas. Love is in the air people! We ate a breakfast of toquito things and fried plantain bananas, with a very large side of, you guessed it, rice and beans! Woohoo! I actually love having this stuff everyday. It grows on you.
Wash dished, then all of us (my team of 6 girls plus our leader Abi who just joined us) headed into our little cement house to have a “soak session”, or some worship music and time with Jesus. Prayer walk after that! We split into two groups and walked along the beach praying for the people here and asking God if He had anyone specific He needed us to pray for. My lil group prayed for and talked to a wonderful woman with her two daughters at the beach that day. She and her husband got divorced this year, so we prayed that the Lord would heal her pain with that. We invited her to church this evening with us, and she sounded very interested! I hope she comes. It would be fun to see her again. We said goodbye and I started watching a man out kite surfing in the water. My adventurous side was very obsessed with this guy out tearing it up, and I started praying that he would see God in the joy he was feeling through that sport. As we walked towards him, he came out of the water right as we passed, and I told him he did great out there. He didn’t speak english, but his brother-in-law that he was with did, so we started up a great conversation of pure spanglish mixed with some hand motions. (I’ve gotten pretty good at the whole hand motioning to communicate thing). We prayed for him, and he thanked us and told us he would be praying for all of us as we head to Africa next month! So cool. Awesome guy. We said goodbye, as we had to head back to the church for ministry that day.
Ministry Monday through through Friday is pretty similar everyday, at least from 11-2. We usually…
-give very big hugs to all the kids as they arrive on their lunch break from school
-play “down by the banks”, a fun hand game, with them until the food is ready
-help them all wash up for lunch, and I get a huge smile on my face when the older kids help the younger kids out. So sweet
-sit them all down and serve them a plate of delicious Central American carbohydrates
-pray with them and then watch as they devour their food
-we eat, then help clean up, then get pumped for two more hours of play time with them!
-coloring bible story pictures, games, learning english and spanish, getting my hair done, holding the little ones while they sleep, making up cool handshakes with the older ones
-say “see ya later” as they head back to school
Basically, we get to show kids the love of Jesus every day. It’s awesome. The kids aren’t necessarily from impoverished houses, but they are on the poorer side and love taking in all the attention we give them! Sometimes the older boys (8-12) pretend they don’t, but we know they love us. We have spent the month building great relationships with them and showing them that they are so worthy of God’s love.
The rest of our day looks different all the time. Sometimes we play an aggravatingly long game of really intense baseball with the teenagers who go to youth group and help out at the church, sometimes we take much needed naps in hammocks outside, sometimes we watch movies inside, sometimes we have night church or youth group, sometimes we go for slightly terrifying motorcycle rides with men with mustaches who we don’t know and are slightly convinced we might die or something. But you know. It’s casual. (It was only scary because I didn’t have my phone or money, he didn’t speak english, it was a much longer ride than expected, my team didn’t know where I was, I didn’t know the man was Sara’s friend, I had no idea where we were, and we pulled up to a gas station with a whole lot of tough looking Central American men. I was a tiny bit nervous, and rightfully so. But we made it back to the church and everything was fine! I even got a delicious empanada out of it).
We have made such great friends here. It’s amazing how much you can come to care for people who don’t even speak the same language as you. From our ministry host, Sara, and her family to the teenage guys who tease us and hangout at the church with us to the kids we see everyday, the people here have opened up their hearts to us and loved us so well, even with the little things. And it’s great, you don’t even have to wait for the shower to warm up here! (That’s actually because the water is ALWAYS at a constant luke-warm/ coldish temperature, but it’s really not that bad). I’ve even learned to handle the constant wolf-whistles and awkward winks we get from the guys here (though I will never understand why they blow us kisses when we are in large, sweaty, filthy t-shirts, overly modest athletic shorts, hair in a greasy bun, and sneakers [apparently East coasters say that instead of tennis shoes- I’m being forced to convert], but that’s their deal I guess).
We leave in about a week for our groups first “debrief”, a sort of relaxing and processing time for us all to be together here in Nica, then onto Ethiopia!
Mom, I hope this was a satisfactory blog, and I hope the question of “what am I even doing on this crazy adventure?!” is finally answered to you and everyone asking you. Friends, please make sure she stays sane through all this 🙂
FIVE RANDOM FACTS ABOUT NICA: the toilet paper smells like baby powder (?), people are hit by motorcycles on the road and people barely look twice, you can buy a pack of six oreos for 7 cents (USD), it’s not uncommon for women to not shave their armpits, baseball was the most popular sport for a really really long time (they finally converted to soccer).
Feel free to facebook message me or email me ([email protected]) if you need anything or have any questions, I love you guys, thank you for supporting me so much!!
P.S. I still haven’t shaved my legs.
