Nicaragua 8/9/2012

Ok, well it’s our last day here in Nicaragua and I hate it!!! There are so many cute kids and I just want to take them all home. I got to talk with a few of the kids, short simple questions, and just make there day by smiling or just being awkward!! I can’t wait to see what God has planned for me back in the states and see my family. Also, Jason asked a question that really stuck inside and well he asked what has God told you on this trip?... My response was that he wants me to be content and just be humble with what I have. Well I will see you all when we get back Eric Hola. Mother, this post is specifically for you. I held a baby-two months old-yesterday AND today. He has a fluff of black hair, lots of black hair, on his head. No one could tell me his name so I just decided to name him Armando because that is a sweet name. And it’s a Spanish name, I’m pretty sure, so it works out. So, this is the awesome part about Armando. He slept in my arms today for like two hours. (Did you know that baby heads are super heavy?) And then when he woke up he gave me a huge smile and proceeded to pee on me. His diaper was made of cloth so I wasn’t protected at all. And also, yesterday I did things that I don’t do. I let a little girl swindle me into convincing me to let her paint my nails. And also, I sang in front of like a billion people. So yeah. There you go mother, you have my permission to be proud now. I love you. Maddie. (: This is the first mission trip I have been on and it has been an amazing, life changing experience. Getting to know my fellow team members has been great. I’ve made some friends that I know I will be in touch with for a long time, such as Justine, Tyler, Maddie, and Dylan. I never thought I would love kids this much. Even though we speak different languages it is so easy to communicate with the kids. I hope I will be able to come back to the towns and churches to see what God does with them. I hope we had as big of an impact on them as they all did on us. I’ll see everyone soon! - Jacob What a great trip :) Everything has been so great. These last two days for us have been spent at a local church in a village by the name of Tipitopa. It was awesome to spend the two days with a bunch of little kids who loved on you like crazy, but my high point of the last two days did not have to do with the kids. Over the last two days I have had the complete privilege and blessing of getting to know another girl by the name of Lilly (this Lilly is different from the one I blogged about before). She is eighteen years old and is so incredibly sweet. She was one of the translators that worked with our team. It took me pursuing a friendship with her for us to get close, but as soon as I pursued that friendship she completely opened her heart up to me. Yesterday I spent most of the day connecting with her, and today I spent most of the day getting to know her on a deeper level. This morning she shared her entire testimony with me, both the good and the bad in her life, and as the day progressed she continued to share and relate with me. I love Lilly so much, and today I had to say goodbye to her. It was one of the hardest goodbyes ever, and I hope and pray that through facebook and other sources we will be able to keep in touch. God is so good, this trip has been amazing, and I look forward to what He has in store for us when we get back. Love!! -Becca This trip has been absolutely amazing .I could not have asked for any more. The things I have been shown on this trip have been truly eye opening. One thing I really appreciated learning on this trip is the ability to let anger go. I have been struggling terribly with the concept of letting my bitterness go. On this trip I thought that God was telling me to trust in him, to trust that the point of this whole experience was to realize he can do all things. What I wasn’t expecting was that this was one of the turning points to turning over a new page in my life. With all that has happened on this trip I have also learned to listen. Sometimes when I am talking to someone I try to relate to them by sharing some of my story, what I didn’t pick up on was that I needed to just listen and understand, more than I needed to relate. I am extremely grateful that I was given the opportunity to go on this trip. Thank you Lord for the blessings you have given me. I can’t wait to start a new journey. Praying for everyone always, Allison ☺

Nicaragua 8/8/2012

Hola! Como estas?? I have said that about 100 times this past few days. :) Today we went to Tipitapa to visit a church and help serve the children lunch and play with them. Tipitapa has been the most extreme poverty we have seen yet. Most of the children and adults work in the dump looking for useful objects or food. It was really touching and tons of fun to work and play with the kids. Most of the time I was covered head to toe with kids. Anytime you walked up to them they asked to be picked up. The church has a feeding program that feeds 150-200 kids everyday except Saturday. It was very chaotic and sad because for most of them that’s all the food they get. We get to go back tomorrow and as of right now, we are all super excited to do so… and super tired. Yesterday we all spent lots of money at the market and went swimming in a dormant volcano lake. Quite fun. Anyways… I wanna go play cards… Adios! Justine So since there was a request for me to blog…here I am in C-Pad watching rummy being played and Tyler rock on a guitar. Its been a long journey and I honestly don’t ever want to leave. The people, the children, the mountains, the language; every single thing here is what I love. I promise I’ll come back though ☺. Today we were in a little neighborhood in Tipitapa and I met a 17 year old girl with a child that I shared part of my testimony to and brought back to the church. Kind of the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s really been hard, especially writing this blog because Jake is watching me being very critical. I’ve felt a lot of pain; but its necessary for a change. I’m hoping to come home to a new chance. -Breezy

Nicaragua 8/8/2012

Good morning prayer partners! It is currently 6:30am in Managua, Nicaragua. I am typing while most sleep even though they will be up in just a few minutes to get ready for breakfast at 7. Yesterday was our "fun" day. Every day so far has been fun, but service oriented. Yesterday was scheduled to be just a day for our students to be refreshed and renewed. We visited the Market in Managua and had the opportunity to get some items to remember Nicaragua by as we return home (as well as get presents for loved ones). We then went to Laguna de Apoyo. This is a tourist location that is a huge lake where a volcano imploded countless years ago. It was an attraction that left our students tired, a little sore possibly, and relaxed. We then ate at a local mexican food place that was incredibly good! Today we head to Tipitapa to serve the local church through home visits, crafts, music, special needs ministry, testimonies, and helping with the feeding program for the local children in that village. Thank you for your continued prayers! -Jason

Nicaragua 8/6/12 Continued...

Waddduppp Michigan!!!!!!...well we are chillin’ in Nicaragua just having fun with the special needs kids. It’s so cool how the people love on each other and are so chill. I got to walk next to a horse with the kids and it was awesome how they just loved being with you and the horse. So this is big-E spittin’ adios amigos. Love you fam seeya in a while!!!! ☺ Hola everbody!!!! I’m currently in my pajamas listening to the sounds of Nicaragua. Which consists of everyone yelling while they play soccer. Today was a pretty awesome day. We played with a bunch of awesome kids and really had a great time. Eric and I scared a horse with our camera which was very exciting. So that’s whats happening here. Ciao! DILLON MORA So yesterday when we were in Juigalpa, we hung out with some really great children. Even though we couldn’t understand them, we had a lot of fun. One of the kids I really enjoyed was name Afiet. He is 6 years old, and doesn’t really have a good pair of shoes. He was pretty shy at first but then started to talk, but not much. But he was definitely the cutest kid I have ever seen! So anyway, today we are in Managua in a special needs facility where they interact with the kids like, school, horses, and physical therapy. It was amazing to see everything those kids knew and could do. Sarah

Nicaragua 8/6/12

I wasn’t going to write a blog today, but I thought against it because my mother would kill me if I didn’t. :) It is currently 9 in the morning and we are at Cepad, a hostile type of place in Managua where we will be staying for the rest of the time. We spent yesterday in the town called Juigalpa working with a local church called Verbal. We taught the community about special needs children and visited some houses with children that have special needs. I visited a little girl named Catalina who has never had a diagnosis in her life. She has a wheelchair because her legs are very deformed. She cannot speak but it looked like she could understand some of what we said. Her parents abandoned her with her grandmother who watches over her and ten other kids. They were all so loving and it was amazing to see how much they loved on us, complete strangers. We all love the culture down here and all the children we meet are amazing at sports and laughter. Don’t be surprised if we don’t come back, because as of right now, I am going to move in with Catalina and her family. Wishing you all the best in Michigan. Please keep praying! Today we are going to visit a place called Tesoros de Dios (Treasures of God) to work with the special needs kids and do arts and crafts. Super excited!!! Love you and miss you! (ps: mom I forgot to email Coach Flynn, ☺) Never coming back to Michigan, Justine Hello everybody. It was quite an adventure to get here, but we finally made it. So far it has been super great. I am loving every minute of it. Yesterday was the best day yet, although we haven’t really been here for long. I made friends with a girl named Sharone. She spoke little English but she could understand it pretty well. She is 14. I hung out with her for much of the day, and we walked together to go to our home visit. Throughout the whole day we were trying out each others languages with each other. I was saying every word I knew in Spanish and she would smile big every time. She could have simple conversation with me. And we used her older sister as an interpreter some of the time. Her sister taught herself English and she spoke it very well. She was the same age as me. Sharone and I constantly were smiling at each other and when we finally had to leave her face dropped. She grabbed my hands and squeezed them and then pulled me into a hug multiple times. She told me in English that she was going to miss me a lot. It was very hard to leave her because we had just become friends. But she told me I was her best friend. (: Maddie Lily… There you go fam, my new friend :) But she is way too cool to just say her name. Lily was a seventeen-year old girl that I met yesterday at the church in Juigalpa. She spent most of the day translating for the pastor of the church, and she was also the translator for my team during the home visit. Throughout the day I had the absolute pleasure of getting to know this amazing girl with a beautiful heart. And actually, as a little side note, she was the sister of the girl Maddie shared about. Lily had a huge heart for serving in a variety of ways at her church, and her passion and love for God was shown in the way she served yesterday. Her love for God and for people was such an encouraging thing for me to witness, and it was so hard to leave her behind. God has a really cool way of teaching us through the people down here, and the people have a knack for touching your heart in a very special way :) Love you all!! Please continue to keep us in your prayers. Becca

Saturday Evening 8/4/2012

8/4 Nicaragua Trip I felt like I have been here for 2 weeks. Oh wait… its only been 2 days. It all started at 2AM on Friday. We took the bus to Chicago where we thought it would only be about an hour or so wait before we started to board the plane to Nicaragua. Then, our flight got delayed, and delayed, and delayed. Until eventually we had missed our flight to Nicaragua. Did I mention that by the time we had missed our flight it was only about 10:30? So what you may ask, was our solution on what to do while we were waiting? PLAY TRASH! Probably the most pointless card game in the entire world. Probably worse than go-fish. We even switched gates and were still playing… the first game. And the saddest thing is, we only finished one game before we boarded. And whom you may ask was the winner of our ONLY game of trash? Jacob Morgan. And I would say the kid has a gift at playing trash, but it even took him the whole day to finish the game. But carrying on, the people in charge of our flight were kind enough to pay for a hotel for the night and our breakfast in the morning. We woke up (still in the same clothes from the day before) and headed down to the airport! We arrived and luckily, we were able to board our flight to Nicaragua on time! Wahoo! We all arrived in Nicaragua and took a, what was supposed to be 2 hour bus trip to Juigalpa. But of course, that turned into a 4 hour deal of us waiting in the hot bus while a riot was breaking out a little bit ahead of us. I guess it wasn’t to bad because it gave us time to bond and sing worship songs with the guitar we took with us on the flight. And I wish I could say our bus trip was enjoyable but I think people were getting annoyed with Sarah and my songs that we made up. Which to me was pretty impressive, but I don’t think it was to anyone else! Hours of waiting and singing later, we arrived at our destination and were given time to talk with a pastor of a church down here. Hearing his story and what he was doing for the kids was truly amazing and touched my heart, and I’m sure a lot of other hearts! The 2 days we have been here have been very long to say the least, but I’m very excited to see what God has in store for us for the rest of the week! Love Meg ☺ We finally made it! It’s awesome to get this chance to connect with the team we are with because despite the meetings we had I feel like as a group we are much more connected now then when we were before we left. And I’m sure this would have happened eventually either way, however it feels good to be connected before we start to serve the people in Nicaragua. I’m so excited to be able to just go with whatever comes up and trust that God knows what he’s doing. Tomorrow we get to do our first home visits; we will be going out into the community and getting to know some of the local families. I’m crazy excited to get to meet some people from here and be able to see how they live everyday. Tonight we met the pastor of the church here in Juigulpa and heard his story and his mission and passion. It was amazing to hear the differences in his lifestyle and how the churches here work so differently from the ones there in the U.S. Please pray that our team is willing to flex with changes in plans (as we are learning to do) but also to give us energy and good rest because of the work ahead. Also I ask that you pray for the pastor and his wife here, Hennry and Jonaira. In specifics, he is having issues with his eyes and they have been praying for God to bless them with a child of their own. Thanks for supporting us! It’s been wonderful so far and I can’t wait for it to get even better ☺ Muchas gracias (much thanks), Kylie Well, we got stuck in traffic today for about three hours due to a riot that some people in a neighborhood setting were putting on. Now come on dad, you have been in Central America working with police that deal with a variety of issues and you didn’t prep me for a Nicaraguan riot? Well, I suppose that’s all right because shortly after the police you trained showed up the situation was taken care of, so I guess you trained them well ;) Love you guys, Becca Well then traffic was awesome as usual, lots of cars blocked us but, got to experience some Nicaraguan heat!! Amazing time. We got to meet the pastor today …what a life story! Really inspiring what he did to go out and do what God put in his heart to want to do, to take care of himself. Then to look at where he is today wow, truly showed how God moved through his life. Sadly , thanks to the traffic, didn’t get to meet with the kids, but we will get to meet with them tomorrow at church. So see you guys later. Love you all Eric!!!!;)

Final Day--Costa Rica

Today was AWESOME!!! Today Ryan, Gretchen, and some police friends we made blessed us so much for all the hard work that we did for them. First off this morning we went to a market place. It was nothing like in the states. Almost everything you can think of is sold there. Plus you get to bargain for items which is really fun. After that we went to the national soccer stadium which is HUGE! We got a private tour of the whole place. Our costa rican friend got us into the stadium. We worked at his house and his gift to us was the stadium and a private tour of the San Jose police station. He is such a godly man its unbelievable. The police station was really cool. God gave us such a great day to end on and just relax after working.
-Ryan McDonald

Oh my gosh this week was super cool! Ive found out what God had in mind for me for this trip. I cant wait to get home and use my new skills. Im gunna come back with a new attitude and understanding. I hope i can spread my experiences and just share how much of a blessing this trip was. I really would like to do this again. Ive made so many friends that im going to miss so much. But its never good bye, its see you later ;)

-Jonathan Woolf