Day Eight: February 9th, 2012

Dear Internet,

I had tried to pack most of my "stuff" the night before, but I still had more packing to do this morning. I left most of my clothes there for the kids.

We had breakfast 8AM, and Christina told us that we would be leaving at 10AM. Someone had mentioned doing a prayer walk, and we all thought it was a good idea. I had missed praying over the first two houses (the older boys' and girls' houses) as I had forgotten to give Christina the files to some of the photos I had taken and was putting them on her jump drive. I caught up with them while they were finishing at the older girls' house and were going to the Casa Bernabe building. We also prayed for the Team Center.

My Small Group
Carolyn, Lindee, Me,
Karen, Kristin, and Emily

Before we left we took our "group" photos: each small group and the whole group. We then all got on the bus and were off to the airport. :( We dropped Indiira and Cairo off on the way.

We got to the airport, and unloaded all of our luggage. Emily (the leader trainee) was also leaving that day, although not on the same flight, so she stayed with us. We got our tickets and checked in our luggage without an issue. Then we all said our goodbyes to Christina. :(

The Team

We all headed towards the security check point. I got thru customs without a problem, no surprise. The security people opened up my bag because of my printer. :) We then had the go ahead to go "up" to our gate. At the end of the walk way there were escalators going up to the terminal.

You would think by this point, I'd have stopped being surprised when my assumptions were proven wrong. :) We went up the escalator and I expected to see the typical American terminal. Instead, it was a large room with four gates and a hallway leading towards the other two. SIX gates. There was a little book store, a coffee shop, a Subway (as in the sandwich), a duty free store, and a little deli/cafe combo.

We kind of scattered thru-out the room. I sat down in a very cold metal chair and opened up my computer to see if I could get wifi access. Success! It was pretty slow, but it was Internet none the less. :)

What I found when I logged in.

My plan was to update my status and log out, but God had other plans. Mom happened to be logged in, and I talked to her via chat for a while. I guess I made her cry. :) I kind of lost track of time and had to scramble a little to get a snack and a drink for the flight. I didn't really realize that this was my lunch opportunity, and should have went with Subway over the Pringles. :)

The flight to Miami was very uneventful. I had an aisle seat next to Eric, which was the only seating change on the trip. I was very excited to see Carolyn and Steve sitting in the row behind me and to my left. We talked a lot on the flight. It was definitely not a boring flight, as Shawn was sitting behind me. Shawn and Eric had become pretty good friends on the trip, and are quite the comedians.

We safely landed in Miami. We then had to take the train to the "passport checkpoint." It was so nice to have the signs be in English and be able to understand the lady on the loudspeaker! It was quite the walk to the checkpoint, and I managed to be with the overachiever group once again who chose not to use the moving walk ways. By this point, I had discovered I could strap my backpack to my suitcase so it wasn't quite so hard to walk.

Landing in Miami

We went thru the checkpoint with our small groups, except for Lindee. Her seat was in the front of the plane, so she was ahead of us most of the time. The lady scanned my passport, and I was off to the next customs checkpoint! Woohoo! They checked our customs form that we had gotten in Nicaragua, and then we proceeded to baggage claim. I thought this was kind of weird since we had another flight.

We got our bags and went thru the "connecting flights" gate. We had to go thru yet another checkpoint, and then were instructed to "follow the yellow dots". No kidding.  On the floor there were different colored dots leading to different checkpoints. The yellow dots led to where you could recheck your bags.

They took my bag, and then I realized that I shouldn't have done that. I had tried to give them my backpack too, but they told me that they didn't need carry-on items. Confused, I had Kristin come over to where I was. I told her what had happened, and she very confidently told the TSA agent that we needed the bright green bag back, as it wasn't really a checked luggage. I got my bag back and we continued on.

The next step was going thru security again. I was not very happy to learn this. I think going thru security is very annoying and time consuming. There was some discussion as to which check point we were supposed to use. One TSA lady said to go thru #2, as there were more food options. The TSA guy at checkpoint #2 told us it would really make more sense to go thru #4 as it was closer to our gate. The teams decision was to go thru #4, but by this point Lindee was already almost thru security at #2.

We all walked to #4. We were in line when Steve pointed out that he didn't think my Gatoraid was under 3ozs. I then had to duck under the ropes to get to the garbage and back, but fortunately it was only our team in line.

FINALLY we were thru customs and several security checkpoints. We then split up to find food and meet at the gate. I found a Wendys on the way and I was very excited. :)

Flight to Minneapolis

The flight back to Minneapolis from Miami felt like it took forever. About an hour into it, I was very much ready to be back home. I had a window seat again, and I had a fun view of the lights below us.

We landed without a problem, and headed towards the baggage claim. Mom and the other people who were waiting were at the bottom of the escalator to meet us.

It was tough to say good-bye to my team mates. I knew I'd see them in two weeks at our meeting, but I had just spent a life changing week with them and we had grown close.

Even though I didn't have a checked bag, mom and I were one of the last ones to leave. We got back home around midnight.

In Christ,

Laura

Day Seven: February 8th, 2012

Dear Internet,

Day Seven was our last full day in Nicaragua. :(

That morning Christian brought with some jewelry from the church's store. After breakfast, we once again got on the bus. This time we were headed to the market!

I thought the market would be an open-air type maze thing. It certainly was a maze. It was amazing! Sorry, couldn't resist. :)

The market was HUGE. The main part of it was in a large building. Our interpreters took us on a tour, and then we were free to go wherever we wanted to. The plan was to meet back at the bus at a certain time. I stuck with Kristin the whole time. :)

It was very overwhelming. Some of the shops literally had merchandise displayed from the floor all the way to the ceiling. And they had everything you could think of: food, clothes, party supplies, shoes, purses/ backpacks, electronics (pirated DVDs too!), and all of the touristy things you could ever want. :) I got a really cool hand-made hammock for my family. I also found a fun purse (again, hand-made) and a really beautiful drawing.

We had fun looking at all of the wares. Indiira (one of our interpreters, she hung out with us while we were in the market) got this really cool plum candy thing. I didn't try it, but it looked like it had the consistency of a really gummy Dot. It was also rolled in white sugar. :) Very sweet. There were a lot of booths that sold different candies, sweets, and other foods. I didn't buy any as I wasn't sure what was "safe/ ok" to eat. Most of it looked delicious!

A few of my team members found a booth that sold leather Bible covers. The artist who made them had made a beautiful drawing on the front of each using a burning tool. They were beautiful. And to add to it, the artist also wrote your name on the cover. On one of the past trips Ashley was on, some of her team members had gotten them and she really wanted to get one this trip. She did, and she was so excited!

We went back to the bus to meet up with our team. There were a few street kids selling leaf origami-type objects. They made cockroaches, flowers, and they even made this elaborate heart thing. They kept trying to sell them to us, but eventually gave up and started throwing them thru the bus windows for us.

We all got on the bus and realized that we didn't have Lindee. It took our interpreters and Christina about a half an hour to find her. :(

On the way back to Casa, we stopped at an ice cream store and picked up some ice cream for that night. It was our last night with the kids.

Walt and Eric had stayed at Casa when we went to the market. They were helping to make an amphitheater over by the school. Quite a few of the other team members went over there to help after lunch. I stayed at the Team Center and finished getting ready for the photo craft.

Ana and Maria

The night before, Christina gave us a prayer request. There was a girl who had been living at Casa, her name was Maria, and she had gone home for Christmas. Unfortunately, her father wouldn't let her return. Christina told us this because the next day (today, day seven) Christian and a few others were going to go to her village in hopes of persuading Maria's father to let her come back. I guess it was a long drive there and back. While the craft was going on, we saw the fruits of our prayers. Maria and Christian walked into the Team Center. The kids were so excited to see her. I thought Paula was going to tackle her! :) I made sure she had a photo so she could do the craft too.

Handing out the photos was the most unorganized part of the craft. Not that the rest of it was very well organized by any means. I can say that because I was the one who "organized" it. :) The kids had a blast with it, don't get me wrong, but I would describe the process as chaotic at best.

The kids came and sat down at the tables in the Team Center. We had put foam stickers and other decorations in the middle of the tables. Each kid also got a Popsicle cross to put on their "frame." The "frame" was a piece of construction paper. Most of the kids frames looked more like a scrapbook page than a frame. The girls got four photos each, and the boys got three. I took a picture of the kids that hadn't participated in the photo booth while they were creating their master pieces, and printed them right there. It was so cool to see their faces light up when I gave them their pictures!

After they were done, we hung out with them until it was time for supper. They left and had supper back at their house, and we had supper at the Team Center.

We had a little bit of down time before they came back, and that was when I signed up to sponsor Linda. It was so exciting! Christina had her laptop there and we took turns signing up. There were about eight kids who needed sponsors, and I think our team signed up to sponsor at least four. Once I was done, I had a hard time waiting for the kids to come back! :) I wanted to run over to Linda and give her a huge hug, but I knew that wasn't such a good plan. Before they came back, I talked with Indiira. She said she'd help me tell Linda.

Reactions to the slideshow!

They put up a slideshow of the photo booth pictures for the kids to see. They LOVED it! I had given Christina a cd of all the photos that day. It was fun to see their reactions.

Before everything got going, Linda, Indiira, and I went over to a quieter spot in the Team Center. Indiira translated for me. I told Linda that I had signed up to sponsor her. I told her that I would right her letters, and pray for her. Linda smiled at me, but you could kind of tell that she didn't really understand what I meant. She gave me a hug, and went over to her caretaker who was on the other side of the room. I obviously couldn't hear what she said, and even if I could I wouldn't understand it. I watched her, and I assumed, told her what I said. The caretaker grinned and then looked over at me, still smiling. She understood what I meant. She gave Linda a hug and then Linda went off to visit/ play with the other kids.

Linda and I

Our last evening was pretty informal. There were at least two games of spoons going on (the kids loved that game). A few of the kids were sitting and watching the slideshow too. Jaja came up to me and asked if she could see the video I had taken of her the day of the photo booth. It was on my other camera, and I had to get the key to get into the room to go get it. It was so worth it! She LOVED it. She dragged me across the room to show it to her caretaker too! We had ice cream soon after that. It was very sugary.

The night was coming to a close, and you could almost sense a switch in our moods. Christina had told us that we needed to make this a happy night. If we were feeling emotional or teary, we needed to leave the room for a few moments. Which, if you think about it, really made sense. These kids have people coming and going all of the time.

Jaja and I

The plan was for the kids to come sit or stand in a circle and each of us pray for one or two of them. I, of course, made sure I was by Linda. Marbely was sitting next to her. I had the opportunity to pray over these two beautiful and wonderful girls. I prayed in English and held their hands. When I was done, Marbely asked if she could pray in English. I didn't really understand what she meant, but I got her point quick when she started to pray for ME in broken English. She eventually switched to Spanish, but it touched my heart just the same. I looked up when she was done, and they both were grinning at me. I gave them each a huge hug. Christina then told the kids that if they felt led they could pray for us. A few of the kids did, out loud for all of us to hear. It was so special. I think Paula could have gone on all night. :)

We then had about ten minutes to say our "good byes". Before this, I had went back to the room and grabbed the family photo I had brought with. It was of my parents, Chris, and I at Rebecca's wedding earlier that fall. I gave it to Linda and told her that this was my family. I told her that she was now part of my family. Her smile was priceless. THAT she understood. A family. She was part of MY family. She gave me a HUGE hug. I don't remember at what point she gave it to me that night, but she handed me the photo I had taken of her during the photo booth. You could tell that she had taken it off her frame, there was sticky glue around the edges. She had written me a note on the back too! It was so sweet.

It was hard to see them go that night. :(

Porch time was emotional. We all had made connections with these kids, and we knew that tomorrow we would leave.

In Christ,
Laura

Day Six: February 7th, 2012

Dear Internet,

At the Look-Out

We strayed from our schedule on Day Six, and I'm SO glad we did. We had originally planned to go to the feeding center only once, but for reasons I'm not aware of we changed the plan. We got to visit the same feeding center again today (Day Six).

After breakfast, we all climbed on the bus (only one today). We made a few stops before we got to Nueva Vida, though.

Our first stop was to a mountain "look-out" thing. We had a great view of Managua all around us. We all acted like the American tourists that we were and took several photos of the scenery and each other. While we were there Christina and Emily (not my team member, she was in training to do Christina's job) went to a grocery store and bought fruit and bread to bring to the feeding center.

Emily and I

Once we had all explored and taken enough pictures, Jose asked if we wanted to go look at the prison museum beneath us. That completely surprised me. I had no idea there was ANYTHING beneath us. Ok, I guess I take that back, I think I saw the stairs. My team members thought that sounded fun, so we went down to take a look.

Come to find out it wasn't just an old prison, they used to torture people there. How nice. I didn't really understand what had gone on there and didn't really want to. All of the signs were in Spanish. Jose did try to translate some of it, but it was kind of graphic. Fortunately, the photos weren't.

The Eagle Brook Team
(plus the Casa Kids)

We finished with the "Nights of Torture" (that was the name of the museum thing) and went across the street to look at the other side of the scenery. We discovered that there was a zip-line service there. :) Quite a few of my team members wanted to try it out. I informed them that I would stay here and take pictures of them, thank you very much. :) It was pretty funny to listen to them come up with ways to persuade Christina to let them go. It didn't work. We had the Casa kids with again, and from what I understood if they weren't there she probably would have let us. :)

We then got back on the bus and went to Nueva Vida! It was more fun arriving the second time, as we recognized the roads in Nueva Vida a bit more. We got there earlier than the day before, so there weren't very many kids there yet. It was neat to watch them all come!

Jaci and I

I had two things that I wish I had done the day before, and you can be sure I did them today! :) One was ask the little girl who stole my heart what her name was. I was so mad at my self for not asking her. I can't even tell you how many kids I said "como te llamas" to, but not her. I stood a little ways from the gate to make sure I was right there when she came. I was so excited to see her and her three little ones walk up the steps! I said hello, gave her a big hug, and promptly asked her what her name was. :) I didn't waste much time. She said her name was Jaci.

The second was that I didn't participate in giving the kids their food, I just photographed. I made sure I was standing next to Jaci's family when we prayed before they ate. I was so excited to take two of their plates with me and give them food!!

The rest of our experience was much like Day Five, with the exception of the food we had brought with. When the volunteers gave the kids their meal, they got a piece of bread too. Once they were done eating, we went around and gave the kids a piece of fruit (a banana or an orange). It was so fun to watch them eat the fruit! One little girl gave me a section of her orange! It was so sweet. I do confess to giving it away once she turned her back. :)

We had a few different activities for the kids too, although we did face painting again. I was swarmed with little kids! The day before we had had a piece of paper with the different things they could choose from for the face painting, but today we didn't have it. So all of the kids asked us for random things for us to paint, which was fun and overwhelming all at the same time. One little boy wanted me to paint him a cow. No kidding. This Wisconsinite was very excited. A different boy wanted a big house. And my favorite just might be the little girl who asked for a princess! One of my favorite stories from the face painting experience was when a little boy came up to Lexi and asked for a tiger. Josh (one of our wonderful interpreters) told him that was too hard and to pick something else. His second choice was an elephant! I painted a lot of "corazón"s (hearts) and "flor"s (flowers).

It was sad to tell these kids goodbye!

I actually fell asleep on the bus on the way back to Casa. I can count on one hand the times I've fallen asleep in a moving vehicle. It is totally not like me. I was SO emotionally and physically spent I could keep my eyes open. When I opened my eyes 45 minutes later, we were in Vera Cruz! :)

We had something else planned for the afternoon, but Christina wisely rescheduled it for the next day. We were all exhausted, and so were the kids. I worked on printing more pictures for the next day. The plan was for the kids to put them on construction paper and decorate it. Most of us took showers, and then some of us went up to Casa and hung out with the kids.

After we ate, the kids all came down to the Team Center. And I do mean ALL. All fifty or so of them. We watched Toy Story 3. The kids thought it was funny when Buzz gets switched to Spanish mode. :) We watched it in English with Spanish subtitles, so it was easier to follow. I sat in between Emily (who had Yolanda on her lap) and Jose. It was funny to hear his reactions to how they translated the movie into subtitles.

I didn't notice, because they were behind me, but some of the older kids had started a few different games of cards with the team. When the movie ended, we all kind of went "ok, what now?" We had to make sure none of the kids left (it was now dark out, which made that harder), and some did (but we brought them back).

Jose giving instructions

Jose had all of us put the chairs in to a GIGANTIC circle. He then had us all sit down and announced that we would be playing "the fruit game." The only fruit game I could think of was from Drama Club. For those of you who don't know what that fruit game entails, the person in the middle has to tap a person's knees with a rolled up newspaper when he or she says the wrong fruit. I didn't think giving these kids permission to "tap" each other with, essentially, a stick was a good plan. Rest assured, it was not the same fruit game. But it was no less lethal!

The kids (and us) were split into four groups and each group was given a fruit name (ie apple). When the person in the middle said your fruit, you had to get up and run to a different chair. These kids are very competitive to say the least. The game was very loud, and very fun to watch. At one point, my fruit was called and I dodged flying children to get to a different chair. Shawn and I ended up trying to go for the same chair, but I slid into the chair first. Except the chair slid with me, and I slowly toppled onto the cement floor. I even broke the chair! In my defense this happened again to Emily, and she broke a chair too. :)

We tried a different game after the fruit game became a little too violent, but it was met with mixed reviews. We (the Eagle Brook Team) were very relieved to see the caretakers pull up to the Team Center. They said they had a good time. :)

In all, it was a great day!

In Christ,
Laura

Day Five: February 6th, 2012

Dear Internet,

The view from the bus!

Day Five was the most emotional and life changing day of the whole trip.

We had breakfast at 7AM (instead of the usual 8AM) and left the Team Center around 7:30AM. I was a little nervous because this was the day we were going to the feeding center! The older kids from Casa came with us too.

Our plan for the morning was to pick up the "Nueva Vida kids" and bring them to the pool. We would go swimming and then go to the feeding center. What I didn't realize was that the kids we were picking up go to the feeding center for their one meal a day. I didn't realize that Nueva Vida is a refugee camp.

The landscape around
the pool grounds.

The bus ride was long, as Nueva Vida and the pool are on the other side of Managua. We got stuck in stop and go traffic, which is annoying in the USA and in Managua it could be an Olympic sport. Needless to say we had ample opportunity to enjoy our surroundings. The closer we got to the pool, the more rural the landscape became. Buildings gave way to fields, and then fields gave way to mountain views.

We had two buses on this adventure as well. The other bus stopped at Nueva Vida (which was about ten minutes away from the pool) to pick up the kids and met us there. I had envisioned the pool we were going to as a run-down municipal pool. I thought there would be lots of other people besides our group there. Boy, was I wrong!

We pulled into the driveway and I was so amazed at the landscape around us! It was very rural, with lots of grass and palm trees. In the distance you could see the mountains! The driveway was kind of long. We could see goats just roaming around, eating grass! We pulled up to a building and parked. We all piled off the bus and were in for yet another surprise.

Walking to the pool.
I'm in the pink hat.

The pool was huge and lined in palm trees! We all walked down the hill to the pool and went into the "pavilion" to drop off our stuff. The team members gathered around a picnic table and applied sunscreen. Someone asked me if the kids needed sunscreen and I told them that God already gave them some. :) Jose or someone gave the kids an overview of the pool rules and turned them loose.

It was so fun to hear all of the laughter! The kids (all of them, from Nueva Vida and from Casa) had a blast. Christina had told us that most of the Nueva Vida kids had never been in a pool before, so it wasn't a surprise to us that most of them had a death grip around our necks. But that didn't stop them from having fun! A few of the Nueva Vida kids had swim suits, but the majority either wore clothes in the pool or just went in their underwear.

I don't remember her name. :(

I swam with three different girls from Nueva Vida. Two of the girls looked like they could have been sisters, and I got them confused quite a bit. :) They LOVED to jump from the side of the pool into my arms. (my arms were SO sore the next day!) There names were Emilina and something that started with Sarah.

This is the girlie that I
kept confusing with
Emilina :)

I eventually decided that it was annoying to not be able to see anyone (I didn't have my glasses on), and got out of the pool. The girl I had been playing with followed me. :) We went back towards the pool and I started to take some pictures.

Soon, our time was up and we headed back to the bus. They had bathrooms there for us to change in.

Emilina

We then went to the feeding center. Nueva Vida has at least two feeding centers, if not more. Nueva Vida was created as a refuge camp after Hurricane Mitch in the 90s and has grown into a sizable community. The feeding center is funded by ORPHANetwork and is run by a local church.

The feeding center area is surrounded with a concrete brick wall. There are steps leading up to the gate and into the center. This is also where they have church services. There are three small "buildings" inside the walls, and I do mean small! One is the pastor's home, the second is a bathroom, and I never learned the purpose of the third building. The pastor's home is divided into two rooms, a kitchen (where they cook the food for the center) and their living area.

One of the Casa girls

I walked into the center and was overwhelmed by the number of kids. The center serves about 150 kids. They offer one meal a day. There were rows of picnic tables for the kids to sit in. Most of the kids were sitting down already. They each had a plate and a cup.

The routine goes like this:
1. The kids wash their hands
2. They all sit down at the tables. A worker (that would be us) comes and takes their plate and cup.
3. We then wait in line to get to the kitchen. The food that they used while we were there was from Stop Hunger Now. The cooks put food on the plate and someone fills up the cup. I asked about what was in the drink, and they said that it was a mix of vitamins and good stuff like that.
4. They eat. :) If they don't finish what they are served, they bring it back home.

Looking out towards the street.

The Casa kids helped wash the Nueva Vida kids' hands. I was standing near them trying to figure out what I should be doing. I was feeling very overwhelmed and needed some direction. Christina walked past and asked me to photograph the Casa kids helping out. My direction! I told Emily later that I felt like I "hid" behind my camera while I was there.

Jaci and her cousins!

One little girl (she was no more than seven years old) came thru after getting her hands washed with her little brother. I held up my camera and asked her if I could take her photo. She nodded and smiled for me and I took her picture. She then told me to wait, and grabbed two more kids (all of whom look just like her). My heart dropped. These were her siblings. She was the one to make sure that all of them ate. Because there were three of them and only one of her, she couldn't even hold all of their hands to make sure they went in the right direction! I watched them as they ate and she made sure that they all got food before she took one bite of hers. She really stole my heart. (I learned the next day that her name is Jaci and the three younger kids aren't her siblings. They are her cousins.)

At one point, a bunch of my team members and I wound up standing along one of the walls. One of the boys came and would point to some one's shirt. If the person looked down, he'd tap their nose. He went down the whole row of us doing this! :) He got to me and pointed to my shirt, but instead of looking down I tweeked his nose. He laughed and gave me a huge smile.

After the kids ate, we had planned a few VBS-type activities. Shelli had a short message about being a friend, and then we had different stations the kids could go to. I wound up at the face painting station. I have never had so many kids trying to get my attention in my entire life! We had about five people painting and we could have used five more! I was so excited when Jaci and her little ones came over to me! As I expected, she made sure that all of them got two things painted before she even got one.

Someone came around and told us that we were leaving soon. I have to admit that I was relieved. :) I was starting to feel claustrophobic! We all said our goodbyes and got back onto the bus.

The bus ride back was long and emotional. We didn't have much planned for the evening which was good. We were all tired. I took a shower when we got back, and it felt heavenly even tho it was cold. :)

I started to print the pictures from the photo booth that afternoon. It was a big project and I'm glad I started when I did. A few of the kids were in and out of the Team Center, so they saw me printing them. They thought the printer was so cool! Emilio and Jemima (the cooking staff's kids) spent a lot of time in the Team Center. They loved watching the photos print. They were such sweet kids!

Porch Time was very emotional. We all had "remember when" stories. I talked about Jaci. Instead of her usual "and where did y'all see Jesus today," Christina smiled and said "and where DIDN'T you see Jesus today?" We chuckled at her joke, because we all felt like we saw Jesus everywhere.

Nueva Vida

The day before, Jose had said something kind of funny and at porch time someone teased him about it. He smiled and said "You guys aren't going to let me forget that, are you?" A few people said no way. So, I piped in and said "No way, Jose!" :) A few people laughed and Jose rolled his eyes. He said "Thanks, Laura, I've never heard that one before." I was laughing so hard! There was kind of a pause and someone, I think Shawn, said that I was vibrating I was laughing so hard!



In Christ,
Laura

Day Four: February 5th, 2012

Dear Internet,

The bus I rode

Just as a heads up, from here on in the days were all busy and a lot of things pulled at my heart strings. I'll try to keep these posts short, but I have a lot to say! :)

Day Four was a Sunday and we went to church! I thought we left a little early for church, but I just looked at the schedule and we actually had lunch late. I think what messed me up was that I actually woke up earlier than usual due to my extended nap the day before. :)

They had pancakes for breakfast, but didn't eat much due to my stomach. :( Some of the kids came over and had breakfast with us too.

Inside the bus

We had two buses for our church adventure and my team members split up between them. I rode on the bus that I hadn't ridden on before, easy choice. :) One really cool thing about the buses in Nicaragua is that they are rarely all one color. They are painted really fun colors and often have names painted on the front (I never figured out the reason for this). The bus I rode on was no different. Inside the bus, some of the kids' names are on really big stickers. It was way cool.

Once we were all on the bus, we went from the Team Center up to the Casa Bernabe building to pick up the rest of the kids. It was fun to see them all dressed up for church! One of the "middle-aged" kids (about 12 years old) sat with me. Her name is Candida. She read the whole way, my kind of girl! :)

Going into the church building

I found that the bus rides made me feel a little car sick from here on in in the trip... which wasn't really surprising if you think about it. The roads are pretty bumpy and we always had the windows down, letting all the lovely aromas of the street waft in. :) There was also a lot of dust. Oh and I was on the "cologne" bus too... very fragrant!

We picked up a few other people along the way too. The ride was about 45 minutes long. The church is on a side street and I had a few "aren't we there YET?" moments. :)


The church and out buildings are all walled in (which is the norm in Nicaragua). The church itself is a long, skinny building with the bathrooms on one end. It is actually air conditioned, which was very nice. There were a few other buildings, but I didn't ask what their purposes were. They have a store there called Una Mujer that is a single mom ministry. They make jewelry... very pretty! I brought some home for presents. The store wasn't open, but Christian brought some to the Team Center for us.

The layout of the church

We sat towards the back of the church. The stage and "tech booth" are in the middle of the room. There were screens that they had the words to the songs projected on. They sang a few familiar songs in Spanish. My favorite was the Revelation Song!!! It was beautiful!

The pastor is a Verbo Church missionary (the church that started and runs Casa Bernabe) and is from the USA. He preached in Spanish, but Christina translated for us. They had a really cool system for that too. Christina's voice came thru what I can best describe as a hearing assistance device. They look just like the OHS Auditorium's hearing device things. So only the people with the devices could hear her translating, and we could adjust our own volume. :) The sermon was about the parable of the sower and the seed. They had warned us that church often runs long, but I didn't find that it was boring or too long at all! Oh, I forgot to mention that after the worship portion of the service was done, the kids left to go to Sunday School. They came back at the end of the service. We all then piled in the buses and headed back to Casa Bernabe.

Getting ready!

I finally ate a normal lunch! Yay God!

After lunch was the second photo project that my team had planned... a photo booth! We brought down some funky hats and boas too. There were three different "stations" going on and the kids rotated between them. There were two different games and then my photo booth. Essentially I put my camera on a tripod and took pictures of them having fun. I tried putting a chalk line down and told them to stand on the line, but it quickly got worn off and I just turned the camera if they weren't in the same exact spot. :) We were set up in the overhang part of the Casa Bernabe building, so we were in the shade.

The youngest girls

The youngest girls had the most fun with it! At one point, I think Jaja had four fake mustaches on. In many of the photos you can hardly tell its her, she had that much stuff on! She and Paula LOVED it. They also enjoyed dressing US up, and even once dressed up their caretaker. :)  The older girls had fun with it too. The boys liked it for about five minutes, and then they had had enough. I laughed a lot!

This is Jaja!

It was also fun to watch the other games going on. A lot of them were what I would call "trust" games, or games that teamwork was very important. They had three legged races, and that kind of thing. Once, they expanded on the three legged race and had three people at the same time instead of two. It was so funny to watch.

That night we had dinner and porch time.

We had porch time early because we had to leave early the next day. Day Five is a busy one!

And, just for kicks and giggles, I made a map of the Casa Bernabe grounds. It is by no means to scale and there is a lot more land extending from the top and right sides. *Click to enlarge.

In Christ,
Laura

Day Three: February 4th, 2012

Dear Internet,

Chalk Fun!

I woke up around 7am feeling better, but not 100%. I decided to take it easy with breakfast, and stuck with watermelon (which turned out to be my breakfast most mornings) and a granola bar. Many of my team members checked in with me, it was very sweet.

The plan for after breakfast was a leadership training class with the caretakers. While the caretakers and a few of my team members were watching a video by Tony Dungee, the rest of us headed up to the Casa building and hung out with the younger kids.

It wasn't anything major, and we didn't have any games planned a head of time. We walked over there and realized that the chalk we brought might be fun. We played with chalk for about an hour! They loved it. Some of the boys and more "active" girls got board with it and they started an Ultimate Frisbee game. Very fun to watch and the kids loved it.

Ultimate Frisbee!

At one point I was sitting on a bench type-thing with Marbely (one of the youngest girls), and we got on the topic of family. I pulled out the family photos I had brought with me, and she LOVED looking at them. Her favorite was the photo of Kaleb. :) Yolanda wandered over when she realized what we were looking at.

The kids not only have fun being photographed, but they also enjoy being the one to take the photos. :) We took a lot of pictures while we were playing with them. Yolanda motioned for me to give her my camera, so I did. She started to back up and told me to stay there. I thought she was going to take a picture of me, but instead she turned around and walked into the dining room! I had no idea where she was going and didn't respond in time to get her to stop. My first thought was "I'm pretty sure that was something I was supposed to avoid."A little while later she came back, very excited to show me the photos she had taken of the kitchen staff and the bulletin board.

Marbely with Kaleb's photo

I noticed that on the other side of the "yard" they had a play ground. I headed over there, and watched Walt play with Jaja and one of the younger boys.

I was starting to feel worse, so I thought I should head back to the Team Center. I told Ashley where I was going before I left, don't worry. :) The older kids were having a "mock market" there, so Carolyn and a few others were there too. It was actually pretty cool. They set up a few "stores" and the kids each got a certain amount of money. They talked about tithing and being good stewards. I think they had a good time.

I ate a few of Carolyn's crackers and got a 7-Up out of the fridge. They had a dorm-sized fridge that had pop, Gatorade, and candy that we could purchase. I haven't had 7-Up in forever, so that was kind of fun!

Yolanda taking a picture of
Marbely and Lindee

The team started to straggle into the Team Center, and I really didn't feel good. Christina had come over to me to talk about how the photo scavenger hunt was supposed to go (I was in charge of planning it). My project group got together and we discussed how it was supposed to go. I told them that I wasn't going to be able to participate. (They told me that the scavenger hunt was a hit with the kids. We gave them four Bible verses and they took a picture of what each verse reminded them of. ex "I am the Light of the world", they took a picture of a light bulb)

My team prayed for me after that. Carolyn gave me some Dramamine (I had been taking pepto and tums and it hadn't helped. Kristin even had a herbal version of Dramamine and that didn't help either), and I went to bed. :(

This was about noon and I slept until about 4ish. I woke up feeling better and went out to the "porch" area.

Little did I know that my small group (Emily, Kristin, Karen, Carolyn, and Lindee) had gone on a walk and prayed for my recovery. I walked out of our room at the same time as they were getting back. They were very excited. :)

Yolanda and I

Kristin and I talked about what the cause of my nausea was. We ruled out dehydration (I was very well hydrated on this trip) and food, and then figured out that I had taken my malaria meds the night before. Ashley had mentioned that they had made her sick before. Plus, Christina said that where we were we didn't really need them. So, I didn't take it again after that. :) I felt progressively better after this point, although it was gradual. Yay God!

I again took supper easy and opted for crackers. :) The evening was very low key. The plan was for us to watch a movie with the kids. I could handle that!

We watched a movie called The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry. It was an American film, so it was filmed in English. Except we watched it with the Spanish dubbing and English subtitles. That was really funny to me! It was a good movie, very faith based.

I had missed "Porch Time" the night before as I had gone to bed early, but I was there this night! I was one of the "where did you see Jesus" moments (my recovery after they prayed for me). That made me feel pretty special!

We went to bed a little bit early, as we had to leave early for church.

In Christ,
Laura

Day Two: February 3rd, 2012

Dear Internet,

Day Two was very busy!

We had breakfast around 8AM (which the norm on the trip). They always offered a HUGE platter of fruit with breakfast, and this morning they offered cold cereal. Much to my dismay, it turned out to be a one time deal. :) One of the foods I missed while I was there cold cereal. I'm still trying to figure out the milk. It was whiter than American 1% or 2%, but not as creamy as American whole milk. It tasted too much like cow milk to be goat milk (plus I didn't see any goats at Casa, but there WAS a herd of cows).

By 9AM, we had all plied onto the bus and headed down the road to the younger kids' building. There we picked up all of the kids and went to the zoo! This was my first time interacting with the kids as we didn't really have much time with them the night before.

A little boy (I believe he's around nine years old) sat with me both to and from the zoo, which was about a half hour drive.  His name is Mangen (MAHN-jihn) and he loved playing with my camera. I was happy to oblige since he'd have to climb over me to leave the seat. :) My sponsor child Linda ended up sitting across the aisle and back a seat...

The zoo was NOTHING like I had imagined it would be. I was envisioning something like Como Zoo, maybe smaller but at that quality. Not sure why, because nothing in Managua had been like that. The zoo itself is probably about the size of Fawn-Doe-Rosa in St Croix. The pathways are really beat up, either cement or dirt, and they all loop into each other. All of the signs were in Spanish, no surprise.

At the gate one of the zoo keepers came out and told us some basic instructions. In Spanish, of course. Someone tried to translate for us, but I was at the back of the group and didn't hear much. My plan was don't loose my group, don't feed the animals, and don't stick my hands in the cages and I should be good, right? :)

Once we got in the gates and to where the animals were, the kids essentially grabbed a Gringo (an American) and ran off. I was pulled around by a few different girls, and it was fun to see their reactions to the animals.

And once again, my preconceptions were found to be wrong pretty quick. In America, you would never let a seven year old run around a zoo by themselves. I was envisioning each team member would assigned one or two kids and that we would stay with them the whole time we were there. That didn't really happen. The kids didn't really ever break off and go anywhere by themselves, but they certainly didn't all have a "chaperone" with them. :)

I was walking down the path and one of Casa kids (her name is Kimberly) grabbed my hand and started pulling me the other direction. It was "woah, guess I'm going this direction" all of a sudden. :) She stuck with me most of the time at the zoo. At one point she found one of the youngest girls (her name is Jahaira, or Jaja) and we stayed with her and her new friend Jason (one of my team members) for a while.

Sorry if it seems confusing, but it was. I didn't know hardly any of the kids' names, and the language barrier was pretty big. Little did I know that they understood MUCH more English than we gave them credit for. :)

At some point Kimberly and Jaja decided it would be much more fun to play a game of "cat and mouse" with Jason and I. It pretty much boiled down to they would run a little ways away and then stop, and Jason would run after them. I decided that this really wasn't a game I wanted to play, and followed a different group of my team members. :) It was a good decision, because a half an hour later Jason was still chasing them.

There was a butterfly garden type thing there, and that was pretty cool. They had music playing and everything. They even had Monarch butterflies.... travel all the way to Nicaragua and see a butterfly that you can actually identify. Pretty neat.

We headed back to the bus and went back to Casa Bernabe for lunch. Lunch was a big "Yay God" moment, as they served relatively plain chicken! Woo hoo! (they had a jalapeño sauce thing that you were supposed put on it)

After lunch, we had options as to what we did. The whole team didn't have to do the same thing. A few of us went and helped the English classes that were going on, some people helped organize all of the donations that we had brought down, and a few of the guys went to go dig a ditch. Seriously. They dug a ditch. I guess they had just installed a new water tank before we got there, and they had to dig a ditch from point A to point B for the pipes. I opted to help with English classes. :)

They had four different classes, and I helped with the first three. The first class was the most fun! There were only five kids (and all girls) in the class. I think there were a few boys absent. We had enough helpers that each team member helped one of the kids. I helped Jaja, who I had met at the zoo. The teacher had the kids introduce themselves in English, and then had us introduce ourselves to them. It was fun to hear them speak in English!

The teacher, who was very nice and spoke English really well, gave the kids a packet and they were to follow the instructions on each page. They were learning about family vocabulary (mother, father, sister, brother, etc). Each page was a coloring activity with instructions in English (like circle the baby and color the brother). As they were getting started, the teacher stopped in front of my desk and told me to ask Jaja questions about each page. She apparently was a little bit ahead of the others and would zoom thru the packet if you didn't slow her down. :) He was correct, she never asked me for help and was about two pages ahead of the other girls the whole time.

At one point the teacher caught her calling me the Spanish version of my name, which didn't bother me in the least. He stopped in front of her desk and said "What did you call her?". Jaja's eyes got HUGE and said my name (in Spanish its LAH-oo-rah, instead of LOH-rah). "What is her name?" he asked. She then turned to look at my name tag. She scowled at me (I'm assuming it was more directed at the offending name tag) and said "LAH-oo-rah" again. "No," he said, "that is how you say it in Spanish. What is it in English?" She turned and looked at me like she hadn't the foggiest idea. I just smiled and he gave me the go-ahead to tell her what it was. It took her a few tries to wrap her mouth around the OH sound. The "R" sound was a different matter entirely, and Reegan (the teacher's name) let that slide. Out side of the classroom, she always used the Spanish pronunciation. :)

Each class was about an hour long, so it didn't feel like we spent much time with the first class. The second class was the next age group up. Linda was in this group, and I wrote in my journal that she was very smart. Very cool to read later. It was fun to recognize some of the faces.

Before lunch, I had chatted with Ashley about some of the kids who I had interacted with at the zoo. Ashley was one of our team leaders and had been to Casa Bernabe twice already. She knew many of the kids and some of their stories. I hadn't caught Kimberly's name while we were at the zoo, and I was hoping she could help me figure out what it was. Come to find out that she has only been at Casa a few weeks. Christina wasn't even sure what her name was, only that she was new. I was very excited to see that she was in the second class. I hoped that Reegan would have everyone introduce themselves again so I could catch her name.

Reegan did have them introduce themselves, so it was fun to finally put names with some of the faces. Don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean I remembered most of their names! It took me all week to figure out what most of the girls' names where, and I'm a lost cause on the boys. :) Many of the girls I have come to love were in this class: Linda (my sponsor child), Xochilt (pronounced Soh-chee), Maria Eugenia (Ay-oo-hay-nya), Suyapa, Laisha, and Ana to name a few. :) The girls I just named were very confident in their answers and in what they were learning. I think Ana smiled the whole time! :)  Each kid said their name with their own personal flair. :)

I had asked Kimberly what her name was (in Spanish) while we were at the zoo but she never answered me and avoided my question. I think that was the phrase I used the most! When it was Kimberly's turn to answer, she looked down at her desk and didn't say anything. It probably took her a full minute, with significant prompting, to finally answer. And when she did, it was so quiet that I couldn't hear her. I was so disappointed! Later in the class when we were helping some of the kids with their home work, I saw her name at the top of her paper. She spells is "Kimberling" although its pronounced like the American name Kimberly.

This class and the class after it were tougher to help with, as there were about four kids for every team member. This second class was learning about "ing" verbs. :)

At first, the third class only had three people! And there were about six of us! Lets just say, I felt a little awkward. Emily (she was in my small group) joined us too. More kids did eventually come, but it was still really awkward. The kids didn't want to answer any of the teachers questions. We asked him after class was done if it was because there were so many of us there, but he didn't think so. Reegan has been teaching/ working at Casa Bernabe for over ten years and he is very familiar with what each kid is going thru. He knows how far they've come, but knows how far they have the potential to grow.

I was starting to not feel very good at this point. I thought that if I ate something I would feel better, so after class I started to head back to the Team Center (which was less than a hundred yards away). But before I left, one of the boys (his name is Kessling) had climbed the tree outside of the "classroom". He was sitting in one of the branches and was shaking it. The teacher explained that the tree had a fruit or a nut type thing that you could make a juice out of. He said it tasted like a SweetTart (they made it for us later and it did). Kessling spent at least an hour out there and Emily joined him. :) They were so cute! At this point Emily was sitting on the ground under the tree with him and was helping him gather them. What made me smile was that he was wearing long pants and a polar fleece sweatshirt! It was about 80*!

I went back to the team center and ate a granola bar and drank some more water. Christian Zeagler was at one of the tables talking to Kristin, Carolyn, and Steve, so I joined them. If I understood this right, Christian is the liason between the two organizations that run Casa Bernabe (ORPHANetwork and Verbo Church). He was telling us about some of the struggles and prayer requests that the orphanage had. He said something I'll never forget. He was talking about how the kids to some extent have access to a counselor/phycologist-type, and he said "All the counseling in the world can't heal these kids from what they've gone thru WITHOUT PRAYER. Don't get me wrong, it helps, but it can't heal the hurt. Only God can do that." He then stressed that if someone asked him what the ONE thing they needed was, he would say PRAYER, hands down.

About an hour later was supper, and I still wasn't feeling good. Supper didn't look appetizing at all. I was sitting next to Kristin, and she noticed I wasn't doing too well. I told her that I thought I was just tired, and I often don't feel good if I'm overtired. She encouraged me to head to bed, which I was very glad to hear! :)

After I took a shower, I felt much better. Before I go on, I have to explain the showers! We had running water but no water heater. The hotter the day, the warmer the water, but it was always pretty cold! Like hose water, pretty much. We always said it was "refreshing." One night I took a shower, and actually said out loud "OH MY GOODNESS THIS IS COLD!" My small group got a pretty good laugh over my outburst.

But back to Friday. I felt better, so I kind of blamed it on "shock" and being over tired. I talked with Emily (who had come into the bedroom while I was in the bathroom showering) about what I was feeling too, and that helped. I then made a huge mistake. I took my Malaria medication (an antibiotic) on an empty stomach! Ugh. In a half an hour I felt so horrible!

The Youth Night was going on that night, so it was pretty much impossible to fall asleep until after it ended. I fell asleep after 10, and then didn't wake up again until about 1AM. I felt pretty good. I got up to go to the restroom, but that was much harder than it sounds. I had to climb down an unfamiliar metal ladder in the dark and not wake up my room mates. Fortunately Emily, whose head was right there, was wearing ear plugs. :)

I went back to sleep and then got up for the morning around 7am. More about that morning later!

In Christ,
Laura