Catch up...

It got progressively harder to get an update done as our week progressed, so here is an attempt at catching you all up.

Monday: Work projects dominated the daytime. We worked assembling and installing new closets and painting the inside and out of the older boys house. Don, Tony and David did a really honorable job of working behind and beside the local carpenters who were hired to work on the project. There are so many ways that we can trounce across cultural lines down here, our skilled laborers really modelled how to engage and LEARN from people here, adding what they can to the process while lifting up and serving the locals.

While that was happening we also had a team painting, a team filming video of each of the kids and a big group that worked doing art with kids. The art was hung on the wall in our team center meeting area and became a really impactful visual piece to the experience.

In the afternoon we headed to a local market for an excercise in shopping! The team was divided into family groups and given a family story. The stories were put together using real situations from different communities we had served in (Nueva Vida) and some that we would serve at later (la Chureca). The stories included a list of things they were looking to buy including school uniforms, soap, diapers, shoes and other seemingly neccesity type items. With the money they were given though, none of the teams had enough to buy all of their items, forcing them to make decisions about what was most important. The exercise gave us much needed perspective on how tough some of the choices are for some of the people we are serving here. It will be different heading to Farm Fresh to shop for ourselves next week...

Monday night we had what has become a very special part of our trips' over the last couple years. There are so many awesome children here to serve, love and play with that it can become very easy to overlook the staff who serve them all year round. We have really tried to lift them up and honor them over the years coming up with creative ways to show them they are our heroes. This night was another great time together. We began this event days earlier by asking telling them we wanted to take some time to be together and to encourage them and to do something special for them but that it must begin by asking them what they really would like and need. Their response was that they wanted to have dinner with us and that it would be special to have hamburgers, which they don't get very often. While that is certainly not what we expected we were happy to make it happen. We thought it would be nice since burgers are certainly in our mainstream, that we would cook them and prepare a big feast for them instead of going out or bringing them in.

More to follow...

Monday late afternoon we all took our cues from James Balam who had us scrambling in preparation for

Nicaragua 2010 Day 3

Happy 4th of July from Nicaragua! Although our day was not filled with BBQ's and fireworks, we were able to celebrate, laugh and sing none the less. Church in the morning was a delight as we sang songs of worship in Spanish and raised our arms in praise. After church we headed to El Canyon to meet the children and staff at another orphanage supported by ORPHANetwork. As our bus drove down the steep hill that is the road to El Canyon, you are immediately taken in by the lush tropical beauty. We enjoyed lunch and playtime with the kids, whose ages range from 2 to 18. The highlight of this visit was meeting Maria Jose, the woman who operates the orphanage. This woman's story is one of strength, wisdom, love, and frustration. We often ask during our trips here, "Where did you see the face of God?", "Where did you see Jesus today?" All of our eyes were fixed on Him yesterday through the life of Maria Jose. We often see the love of our Creator in the eyes of the children, who so innocently steal our hearts.....how much more should we see Him in those who care for and love the children who have no one else? After being filled with her story, we loaded up two buses and headed to the movies! Toy Story 3 was a huge hit with the kids, the challenge was for the Americans who watched Woody & Buzz in Spanish! While it is true that no world problems were solved as we watched our movie and ate our popcorn, the smiles and laughter that resulted must have been heard in heaven (: The ride home from the mall happened to be the most eventful and lighthearted part of our day. About halfway home the driver realized we were driving with no headlights. After a few attempts at fixing them a call was placed to send another bus. Thankfully, a bus arrived shortly after. But a much smaller bus, maybe equipped to carry 20 people max....just so happens we crammed over 30 people on! All the while singing songs from Grease and other various hits from the 90's. Our team continues to bond and learn about each other through experiences like these, even seeing God make our plans for us rather than the other way around. We are surely where we are supposed to be in each moment here. Trying our best to walk with our eyes and hearts open to all He wants us to see. Yesterday showed us again how blessed we are to be a witness.

Saturday Recap...

What a day! We jumped into the day by looking at God's word with the older boys and girls. James Balam for the boys and Stephanie Clark led the girls. You know those moments you have when you are aware of God's presence and nothing else matters at all? That was our morning.

At breakfast we watched Germany beat Argentina in the World Cup, much to the disappointment of the kids and then continued our work projects (painting and building closets in the older boys area). Some of our team also did art projects with the kids. The result of this time are now hanging all over our team center area. It looks amazing.

After lunch we set off for a boys/girls day full of fun. The girls departed and went skating at Chava Landia. They all had a blast and most of them had not skated in years. The girls from the orphanage and from our team were having trouble a time where they all laughed as hard and long as they did watching each other "gracefully" skating. After the skate party they went out for dinner and really leaned into our main goal on this trip of building relationships with these special kids.

The guys day, well it was guys so give us grace for this...we went and played paintball. Nothing like shooting the people you came to serve right? It was awesome! Picture 30 people laughing, competing and just having an adventure together.

An interesting thing happened to both groups as they were out an about in Managua. It is the anniversary celebration of the Sandinista Revolution in 1979 and the streets were full of parades and parties and speeches and songs. As we waded through traffic to get home both teams got an up close and unique cultural experience. It was humbling, unnerving, prompted much political discussion, helped us to learn about this community in a way a book or speech never could, and drove us to prayer and confidence in a God and Kingdom that is not bound up in this temporal world.

At porch time (where we process the days events and seek God's guidance) there was a lot of laughter over moments with kids, much discussion of where we saw and felt God at work, and encouragement to make our faith matter in this world.

This was a full day and the team slept well. All are healthy save a few bumps from paintball hits and skating falls. Enjoying God's presence and each others'. These kids are precious and it is an honor to get to be with them!

Day 1 thoughts...

Just a quick update for you. Everyone arrived just fine (10 of us had an interesting run to a connecting flight that we were late for. fortunately Courtney who was ahead of the rest of us refused to get on the plane without us. it turns out creating a commotion works well for delaying a flight).

Half the team spent half a day with the kids at the orphanage while the others were still in transit (yesterday). They assisted in several English classes, got to know the kids and even found time for a game of dodgeball.

We began today by sharing in devotional time with the older boys and girls and afterward we did a service project in the community of Nueva Vida with 20 of the kids from the orphanage. Together we met Pastor Berman who showed us his church. We were really blessed to experience his church today. We saw his church in action today making bread, cutting lumber, making jewelry, teaching children and then feeding children. We commented to him that his church looks different than most, and he responded by sharing that when several years ago they began to consider how to be a blessing to the community around them and not just focus on those inside their walls (who had considerable needs by the way) that their actions, faith and mission took on a different approach. He summed it up by saying that they aim to Show people the love of Jesus instead of just telling them about it.

With the kids from the orphanage we served food at 3 different feeding centers at 3 different churches in the community. This was really interesting. All 3 churches talked about the Spirit that is creating unity in the community, that their churches are looking beyond denomination and style toward impact. So cool to hear that!

Before we left this community we shared with Pastor Berman and some of his youth volunteers what we saw and experienced in and through them today. The team told them that they saw his vision in action, that the love of Jesus was made visible in them and their ministry! The team told them that they saw great human and Spiritual leadership building something special. As we prayed for them and their ministry it felt right! It just felt right.

There is some pretty broken stuff in all of us. Some of it is easy to see, some not so much. But God is certainly on the move.

Will update again soon. For now it is off to painting, assembling some closets, English classes, dinner and then worship with the kids worship team tonight! We can't wait to tell God that He is awesome.