Finally!! WIFI in the Icecream shop up the street, of all places!!!

Tuesday June 26, 2012—6:30am at the La Quinta

The following posts were written on Monday and Tuesday, but I couldn't post because we don't have any WIFI at the La Quinta that we are staying at!!

Hello Friends—

We made it to Nicaragua safe and sound! What a long day full of travel! Most of our day's yesterday started between 6:00-6:30am. We all met up at Indianapolis International Airport outside the Delta Wing. We piled our big duffle bags full of supplies on the sidewalk and all stood in a group and waited for everybody to arrive.

The airport was relatively quiet. Checking in was pretty easy.

We then proceeded to the gates, stopping to eat breakfast on the way to security. Most of us fueled up on a Starbucks coffee. We took a group picture right before we boarded our flight to Atlanta. The flight was short and smooth, only lasting about an hour.

We then had a 5 hour layover in Atlanta. We made it out to our wing, which was empty, with it being the International wing. We set our stuff out at the gate, while Scot volunteered to watch the bags while everybody else scoped out the shops and got some lunch. Most of us ate Qdoba or Panda Express, filling up on the last American Fast Food meal that we will have in over a week. We played euchre, took naps on the floor, read books, worked on computers, and told stories. We all talked about the best places to eat in West Lafayette/Lafayette, giving Dawn as many helpful tips as we could.

We laughed about Steve’s scrape on his nose, due to a brawl he had with a breathe right nose strip. For having to spend over 5 hours in the airport, we made the time go relatively fast.

We then boarded our flight to Managua, the capitol of Nicaragua, at 5:45pm. We all sat close together, and enjoyed the 3 ½ hour flight out across the Gulf of Mexico and down to Central Mexico.

When we arrived at the airport, we all met outside of the gate, waiting for Dawn to give us each $10.00 to get into the country. Customs went pretty fast for all of us to get through. We proceeded to the baggage claim, pulling off any duffel bag and luggage we saw. We worked together the entire trip, making the trip so much easier to get through the airports.

Immediately stepping off the plane we felt the change in humidity. We made it through TWA with no problems, hoping and praying none of our supplies had broken open or got lost along the way.

Ginny Campbell, a main missionary here for NRN and Nicaragua, greeted us right outside in the waiting area of the airport! We have had the privilege of meeting her daughter, Hannah, who works closely with the Carmel Campus at Northview. Ginny and her husband Cecil spend 9 months out of the year working and running the La Quinta, where we will be staying all week. They live the rest of the year in Indianapolis. Ginny was very friendly and welcomed us with a warm greeting.

We proceeded outside to wait for our bus. The bus is part of the means NRN provides for teams who come to Nicaragua. We met our bus driver, Henry, and a close friend of the Campbells and Chotuka’s , Aaron. We will be working closely with Aaron on a construction site today.

4:30pm

What a day!. Our eyes and hearts were captured by a Nicaraguan family! We helped to start to build a room for Aaron’s sisters and brothers, along with their children to share.  Our day started this morning about 6:30am. Breakfast was served at 7:15. There are 2 other teams staying at the La Quinta and it was fun to meet others at breakfast and visit with them. Breakfast was a wonderful spread adorned with fresh fruit, eggs, jams, and the most amazing coffee you could ever imagine. After breakfast, we met as a group on the massive front porches. Look at the pictures to see where we are staying! We all circled up and Garrett and Steve led us in worship. Dave then led us in a devotional. We prayed as a team and met with Ginny, who gave us the rundown on our day today. We met Juan Carlos, one of our translators for the week, who is an English teacher at the orphanage that he lives in. What a wonderful, fun guy he is!

The bus ride from La Quinta Primavera to Aaron's family home was around 15 minutes long. We were able to really see the poverty stricken streets with the sun light shining bright. Green trees with bright burnt orange flowers lined the streets, along with men, women, and children walking around. Some were barefoot and dirty. Homes did not look like anything we would call home. Cement walls lined the streets with some having cloth doors and all having a single sheet of ridged metal as a roof.

What a site to see. I found myself almost in awe. What would we do if we saw a child walking around barefoot on a dirty street in Lafayette? God really opened up our eyes today to see how most of the world lives. We live in a dream world in the United States! We are so richly blessed!

We made it to Aaron’s house, which is basically individual separate rooms, connected to each other. I don’t really have a way to describe what it looked like, but it was nothing like any home I have ever seen. Pictures of us working are where Aaron and his extended family live. We met his sister, who we are making the new room for. We introduced ourselves and Aaron introduced us to her and also translated for us. She told us how blessed and thankful she was to have us helping and working. She was brought to tears as she was speaking to us. We were all so touched by how joyful she was and thankful that we were there!

What an amazing moment that was.  We spent the morning doing various things. The men did manly work, using sledges, hammers, and chisels to break down a weak cement wall, to later put up a new one.

The women learned how to rebar. We took long iron rods and slid iron triangle rings around two of them. We then took pieces of thin wire and were taught how to place the rings and attach them to the iron rods. In total, 3 long iron roads were made into a triangle hollowed out post, to use as the support system for the new cement wall that the men are building. Pictures of rebar and us making it are here as well!

The men got the whole entire old wall knocked down, cleaned out, and a trench dug. They then made cement, working together, mixing ingredients together and put up 3 of the rebar posts us women made.

We took a lunch break, and visited the school that NRN sponsors, called Oscar's School. It was one of the four schools that are supported by NRN. Many northview members sponsor children, and they attend the school that we ate lunch at today. We got to see the classrooms, meet students, and be in interaction with the children while they came and went from school.  Every child was so excited to be there, greeted us with "Hola" and huge grins. After lunch, we went back to work till around now!

God is using us in so many wonderful ways. The work we did today might seem miniscule to some, but to the family we helped today, we are an answer to their prayers!