Nicaragua-Day 8: July 6, 2012

     This was our last full day of ministry in Nicaragua. It makes me sad to think about. We went to  a preschool and then a church (the names of where we went have escaped me.)
     We told the story of the Birth of Jesus again to them and then made bookmarks. We played some hot potato and had airplane contests. I think the airplane contests were the kids favorite. We had little foam gliders that we brought and put together and then the kids threw them to see whose would go further.
     Next we went to a church. It started out as a small group of 10 or so kids, but grew to a good 30 or more by the time we were done. We told the story of Daniel and the Lions Den and made bookmarks with them as well. Our time with them was shorter then we had thought, so we didn't get to do as much with them as we had planned.

Nicaragua-Day 6&7: July 4-5, 2012

     Today we were back in the little town by the Center. I finally learned the towns name: Rosario Murillo. It was named after President Daniel Ortega's wife. He gave the people the land after the began building there.
     We had even more kids then we did the first day we were there. One the 4th we taught the story of Jesus' resurrection and then made Salvation bracelets with them. We also brought facepaint with us this time and drew on the kid's faces. They loved this! I learned a lot of my Spanish this way. :) It started raining before we finished everything, so we got a little wet.
     It stopped raining long enough to swim and have our own little fireworks show for our Independence Day celebration.
     On the 5th we taught them the salvation story using an EvangaCube. Cari Woughter told the story in Spanish and I turned/flipped the cube around so they could see the pictures as she told the story. I think they really enjoyed it. Then we made bandanna's with the older kids. They thought that was cool. We also facepainted again.
     This was definitely my favorite place we went to. I'd love to go back to there again and work with the kids there some more.

Nicaragua-Day 5: July 3, 2012

     Today we drove between 2-3 hours to the city of Sebacco. We went with another small group of people. We taught two groups of kids at the same church. The first group was smaller then the first group. There probably around 20 kids. We told the story of the Birth of Jesus and made little cross boxes to remind them that Jesus is God's gift to us and the greatest gift of all. We also played hot potato with them. They really enjoyed it. 
     After the first group, we ate some lunch and went to see some Indian ruins. It was a lot of climbing, but it was very cool to see. We also got to see the home of a poet that used to live in the area; Rubin Dario. He was pretty popular to the Nicaraguans. 
     I fell asleep on the drive home. It was a very long day, but very fun day.

Nicaragua-Day 4: July 2, 2012

     We went to the little town by the Center today. It used to be an empty piece of land about a year ago. People started building houses there about a year ago and now it's a town of 800! The houses are pretty much just wooden or metal frames with black tarps around it or random pieces of wood or metal. Some have dug wells and planted gardens of beautiful flowers.
     There are so many
kids in this little town. The church there (their is no building yet, just a metal frame) feeds the children in the area lunch. We went to the store to buy some chicken for them. Then we went to an outdoor market a vegetable. It was a very interesting market. It can be pretty dangerous in there.
      The story and craft went well. We had a little over 100 kids. These kids aren't used to sitting for very long, but they did a pretty good job sitting there and seemed interested in what we were saying. We told the story of Daniel and the lions den. We didn't have enough cups for all the kids to make one, so we split the groups into two. The older ones made the cups and the younger ones made loin masks out of paper plates and yarn. We are going to be back here on Wednesday and Thursday,

Nicaragua-Day 3: July 1, 2012

     Today we got to teach Sunday School at the Woughter's Church. We had five kids there (four boys and one girl). Two of the older boys spoke English. All of the kids were so cute! They play the game Ninja here, so it was fun to play a game with them that I was familiar with.
     Lindsey took me around were they live to take some pictures of flowers. They have so many interesting and colorful flowers and plants here. I was able to see the national bird and the national flower.

     We are going to a little town around The Center tomorrow. A lot of the kids in this area are going to be a lot poorer. We are going to do our lion cup crafts. I think the kids would really benefit from it, because they get to take the cups home with them.

Nicaragua-Day 2: June 30, 2012

I woke up around 6 o'clock this morning. There are birds chirping constantly here, but it's been a mice change to wake up to.
We spent some time looking through all the supplies we had brought with us and decided what other things we might need still. Things here are a lot more laid back then I though it'd be.
Tomorrow we will be teaching Sunday School at the Woughter's church. They said there will probably only be five kids there, so it will be a good place for us to start and kinda get the feel for it. I'm excited to finally get to start teaching. I'm teaching about Joshua crossing the Jordan River from Joshua 3-4.
We also got to go to the Center today. It's almost like a big camp. It sounds like we will be doing some teaching and some other work there.
It's so beautiful here. There's so much color! I wish I knew more Spanish so I could communicate with the kids here better.