WCC College Nicaragua Mission - Day 5

French toast again for breakfast, and thank goodness, because we needed the sugar. Some days here may make for “better” stories than others, but it may be that the “boring” days are the days that we leave the most lasting physical impact of our presence. The ladies went back to their painting of the main building and the fellas split into two groups, with one of the groups painting the boy’s living area and the other pouring cement at the school. The work broke only for lunch, and in shifts, for teaching English.

This evening was the second time that all of the Virginia schools gathered with us for games and a speaker. The group game was to come up with songs which incorporate the “key word” into their lyrics. So when “fire” was announced as the keyword in one round, we responded by singing the line from Adele’s song “Set Fire to The Rain” that has “fire” in it. There have probably been more challenging games, but groups of friends singing together is about as fun as it gets.

After the games were over, Eddie, the national coordinator for Orphan Network in Nicaragua, spoke to use about ordinary versus extraordinary, and that the way to be “written in the history books of our country, state, or town is by faith and decision making—as is illustrated in Hebrew. He told us that Orphan Network feeds over 11,000 children five days a week, and that such a miracle is an example of what God can do. He told us that God has invited each of us to be a part of similar such miracles, that they may look different, and that we should remember when deciding between ordinary and extraordinary, the stories of Abraham and Moses.

Thank you for your prayers, and if you have supported Orphan Network, special thanks to you tonight. We have heard how your support changes lives, that these meals are sometimes the greatest meals that these children have ever had, and that it is only possible by the grace of God and his work through you who support.

WCC College Nicaragua Mission - Day 4

Shortly after this morning’s breakfast we headed towards one of the feeding centers supported by Orphan Network. The bus left paved roads for dirt paths, and meager homes for shacks. We stopped outside of a small rectangular church building consisting of four block-walls and a tin roof. The pastor and his wife warmly greeted us, he through words and she through hugs, and then led our cluster on a tour through dusty and uneven “streets”.  The shacks that we walked shared the same floor as the road outside of them, lacked restrooms or running water, and except for a couple of jimmy-rigged splitters, none had electricity. Our pastor/guide knocked on the blue wooden door of a blue-block house that was behind a blue fence. A mom of three answered with one of hers’ in her arms, and opened her door wide for us to walk through. The pastor wanted us to see how the people in his neighborhood were living, and we did.

But the walk ended back at the church where it had begun, and we served lunch to the school children and moved blocks from carts pulled by donkeys. After the meal we played red-rover with the children from the neighborhood and then loaded them into our buses with us. We were off to a Super Secret Location.  Light chatter ended when Rihanna started singing about her “Umb-er-ella ella ella a a a”. Everyone, including the old old leathery grandma’s from the neighborhood started raising their arms above their heads and singing the same sounds that we were. A moment of certain joy, for sure, but a moment small in comparison to when the children realized that we were on the long windy road up the small hill to the Super Secret Location---AKA, La Piscina—AKA, The Pool.  So the children started screeching and slamming their little excited fists against the walls and roof of the bus, and we remembered that we too are not too old to be excited about La Piscina, and so we too started screaming and hitting things until the doors burst open and released a rushing stumbling flood of child like spirits rushing towards the mirage like rectangle of blue amongst all of the brown. We danced in the pool, threw balls in the pool, wrestled in the pool, and did pretty much everything else in the pool that anyone would want to do.

We closed the night by sharing a warm meal back at the orphanage with the children we’re sharing a home with. At the end of each night we share stories or moments when we “saw Jesus”. Tonight there were many of those moments to share. Thank you for your prayers.

WCC College Nicaragua Mission - Day 3

Yesterday was another great day. After splitting into two smaller groups, we started out the morning with work projects around Casa Bernabe. The first team helped remove a hot water heater from the roof of the older boys' house. They helped fix some of the pipelines from the broken water heater and sealed the cracked cement on the roof caused by the leaky water heater. The other team  painted pillars where the younger girls of the orphanage stay. These work projects were a great way to serve the kids we have been building relationships with so far.

After completing the work projects in the morning, our team took the kids from Casa to a waterfall. God's presence was evident as the kids joyfully laughed and played with us .Whether jumping off rocks and playing in the water or dancing and singing on the bus rides to and from Casa, the kids joy was obvious and contagious. After a great day of work and play, we sat down for dinner and porch time under the rancho where we shared with each other where we saw Jesus throughout the day.

We look forward to seeing how God is going to show up in the next couple days. Look for another update tonight or early tomorrow.

WCC College Nicaragua Mission - Day 2

Travel fatigue resulted in an early end to the first night, and the many hours of sleep made morning welcome. Our breakfast of local fruits and French toast seemed an appropriate illustration of our combo crowd of Nicaraguans and Americans. Between breakfast and church we filled the hammock-chairs and rocking chairs and each in our own ways went to the Lord. Excited and filled with the Spirit we joined the children in the buses, turned up the music, and spent the ride dancing and playing.

The church we visited is very familiar with us, and some of our returners worked the room socializing as though we were in Williamsburg. Many of us have described the time of worship as an example of “reckless abandon”, and we mean so in the healthiest sense. It is clear that though they may not have silver or gold, they do have The Christ of Nazareth upon the throne of their heart. The songs were like jazz, flowing and stopping and bursting in response to the Spirit…and though we may not have moved as well, and certainly not with the same flow, we were filled with no less joy. The sermon was translated for us, and as one of us who went to Passion this winter said, “There are so many differences between here (Nicaragua), and there (40,000 college students in Atlanta), but it is the same offering of praise and the same word being taught.” And he is right. We learned about the pride of Saul, and that service in the name of one’s own glory, such as claiming credit for another’s victory in battle, is not any kind of service at all. And so we pray for humble hearts of true service.

After another meal treated as though it may be our last we thankfully enjoyed an hour of down time—an hour which cannot be reported upon for lack of non-nappers. But! Energized by our rest and excited about games with the children we tromped across the short path to their buildings and, of course, were destroyed in soccer (futbol). But the score of the game isn’t important, right? I mean it’s about relationships, right? Well fortunately whether we believed that during our competition or not, in the unique way that team sports can, the play further united us. We all walked off of the patchy grass with our arms around each other, shouting jokes in mixed languages and at least for us Americans, and hopefully for the Nicaraguans, we left carrying something rich in our hearts.

Tonight was a unique night because JMU and VaTech joined us (William&Mary and UVA), for a conglomerate “porch time.”It was great to host the other schools, but it was even better to conquer them in a food-eating contest. (Big Z, Chris Johnson, Mallory Schafer, Joe Sherman, and Abby Sams were our representatives, and Christ topped off a valiant comeback by killing a huge soda in seconds.)  Juan Carlos and Lilly, both Nicaraguan translators for Orphan Network, shared their stories of how God intervened in their lives, and He now uses them to be a part of His doing the same in the lives of Orphans.  A fellow named Eric, the Nicaraguan culturalist of the group, built a context of Nicaragua for us. He drew a timeline freckled with natural disasters and corrupt government. He told us about the many trials endured by his people, the love of his people, and the beauty of his country. And then he said something that for us was very poignant, and because our God is the God of the exodus both of the Israelites and of ourselves we may even believe it—he said that we “are making history”, that we are stepping into the cycle of depravity, both emotional and financial, and that the way that we are changing history is through our service to the children.  So we pray that his words would be true, and we ask that you would join us in doing so. Thank you for the prayers that you have already offered and for the ones that you will. !Hasta Manana!

WCC College Nicaragua Mission - Day 1

*Sorry for the delay, the orphanage had internet issues that couldn't get fixed until just recently, but we are safe and sound!*

We are in Nicaragua despite ourselves. We have only been here a short time, but we have already said, with both words and presence, that any orphan here at Casa Bernabe Orphanage who doubts their own worth, is incorrect to do so. This too we have done despite ourselves. Instead of lounging on beaches, skiing down mountains, or resting at home, we filled with He have travelled 13 hours through the middle of the night because He died for We. 

After a couple of hours packing the donations into bags and the bags into the bus, our friendly driver Drew safely conducted us to Dulles. We weighed bags, adjusted contents, weighed bags, adjusted contents, and finally boarded our flight. We scrambled for breakfast with our hour and a half layover in Miami International, boarded our last flight, and thankfully descended to Managua, Nicaragua.

The descent towards Managua looked much different than the ascent away from Miami. 

As a herd we filled out paperwork, filed through customs, and dragged our heavy luggage outside into an explosion of bright colors and foreign sounds. The mufflers gargled and spat, the cabs and buses honked and shouted, and the tin roofed buildings boasted bright hues of salmon, mustard-yellow, lime-green, and fire engine-red. 

Our hosts smiled and clapped us on the back, filled the gaps from last time to this time with stories of orphans, and drove us along the dirt-caked streets of Managua. After lunch we met or re-met the kids. Some of them ran to familiar faces and some hesitantly climbed aboard, but within only a few minutes of tickling and sinking the hesitant joined the familiar and we arrived to the pool a new group of friends.

And we all played like children:

 “I’ll race you to the other side of the pool?”

“Can you touch the bottom?”

“I bet that I can hold my breath longer than you can!”

Some of us cannon-balled or dove into the big pool to swim with the older kids, while others waded in the small pool to splash shout with the little kids. Those of us who have been here before were able to catch up with our old friends and play the games that were fun last year, and those of us who are new learned the rules, found a new Nicaraguan friend, and joined the game. The bus ride home from the pool was calm and peaceful. After excitement for hours it seemed that we all realized that we are really here, and that the Nicaraguans really haven’t left, and that we will be able to spend the week together. 

Every meal that we are fed here is perfect. Tonight grilled chicken covered in glaze rested upon rice and we ate every bit that they had to offer. The group from UVA joined us for an after-dinner introduction to the Orphan Network staff, and then each school split apart for a time of teaching, praise, and sharing that we call “porch time.”

There are times that we send and times that we go, and for us here in Nicaragua it is a time to go. We recognize that our God is a sovereign God, and we boldly accept the inherent responsibility of living in the brilliant grace that we have been granted. Tonight we sang songs of praise into the sticky heat of a foreign night, and we begged for the courage to accept our place in His plan.