Day 7: Saturday, May 29

Today was a nice change of pace. As with the rest of the week (except Tuesday) there was no school…only this time it was because it’s Saturday, not because it was pouring rain. There was however, no rain today, rather a nice bright, hot sunshine. It felt and looked glorious, though at times a bit warm (oh well, I can’t expect anything else being in Central America). This afternoon we went into Managua to get some shopping done, mostly groceries, but the boys also got new shoes, which they were all quite excited about.
This afternoon I took part in a great little game of 4v4 soccer. The boys all played, plus Daniel, Kinly, myself, and a few others from the neighborhood. Our team won, but most importantly it was just a good fun time. At one point it was starting to mist (not quite rain) which felt amazing, and also looked really cool in the sun. Tonight I went to the bible study which is led by and for the youth, which was followed by a birthday party. The bible study included a great discussion on 1 Peter 1:5-15. The party was also a ton of fun, I even won at musical chairs :)
Tomorrow is Mother’s day here in Nicaragua, a few weeks after ours in the States, and I know they have a few things planned for church. Should be interesting/fun….
Y por esto deben esforzarse en añadir a su fe la buena conducta; a la buena conducta, el entendimiento; al entendimiento, el dominio propio; al dominio propio, la paciencia; a la paciencia, la devoción; a la devoción, el afecto fraternal; y al afecto fraternal, el amor.
- 1 Pedro 1:5-7

Speaking Spanish

Today I’m in a thankful mood. I was thinking this morning about the simple fact that I am in a completely Spanish speaking community, as a Gringo in an area where nobody speaks English but me. Thankfully my life has followed a path that has allowed me to learn Spanish and maintain the ability to speak it. I’m thankful to God for putting my family in the Dominican Republic as I was growing up, helping me learn Spanish at a very young age. I also want to thank my parents for putting me in a Spanish immersion school when we moved back to the US, and ensuring that my language development would continue. Thankfully through the years I’ve maintained my Spanish speaking, so here I am in Nicaragua, living with a community of people who don’t speak English, able to communicate perfectly well. I hope that one day, if I have kids, they can have the same opportunity that I have had.

Day 5: Thursday, May 27

No classes again today. It’s been raining on and off now for 36 hours, so again the students couldn’t get to school, in fact, many of the teachers couldn’t make it either.  Normally on Thursday afternoons after school gets out Daniel leads a class for the teachers, which I guess is primarily aimed at faith development.  Today, since there was no class in the morning, he held this class in the morning.  It was quite an interesting time.  Daniel spoke for awhile, leading us through some scripture and a message, and then it continued on into a conversation between Daniel and the group.  The key point of the whole discussion today, or at least one of the key points, was that Christianity, and our faith, should not be about religion, but about relationship.  It’s about our relationship with Jesus Christ. 

One thing that was mentioned, was something I hadn’t really thought of before. We got to talking about the resurrection, and the story of Jesus raising Lazarus, and how Martha had said she believed that at the last day there would be resurrection (John 11:24).  So then we were talking about the end times a bit, and how there would be a new heaven and a new earth.  So Daniel asked, “why will there be a new earth?” to which someone responded “because there is sin on earth.”  So logically the next question was “okay, so if there will be a new earth because there is sin on earth, and there will be a new heaven, is there sin in heaven?”  My initial thought was of course not, how could there be sin in heaven.  Then someone mentioned that Satan had been angel, had sinned, and been cast out of heaven.  So based on that, there once was sin in heaven.  That caught me off guard, because I’ve always thought of the sin in the Garden of Eden as the first sin, so I’m still not sure what to think about this.  I would appreciate some opinions here.  If Satan did commit sin in order to be cast out of heaven, what significance does that have?   This was the first time that had ever occurred to me, so I don’t really know…

La Lluvia

It’s winter here right now. Basically all that means is that there’s more rain, cause it certainly isn’t cold. Although I guess the rain does cool things off a bit. But wow, when it rains, it rains. Unfortunately there also aren’t very good drainage systems here, so that means lots of flooding. This afternoon as Daniel and I were driving home from the Nehemiah Center we had to take a different route than usual because the normal road was flooded. On our way down the other route we had to stop because there was a van stuck in the road. It had to be pulled out by a pick-up truck, and then as we continued on the road Daniel had to pick and choose his route because in most cases, there was on available path on the road, and the rest was filled with holes and running currents.
Because of the rain there isn’t a whole lot going on around here. There aren’t classes when it rains like this because the students walk to school, so when it floods the roads, and it rains like this they can’t get to school. Classes this morning were cancelled, and most likely they will also be cancelled tonight (the adult ed classes) because it’s been raining all day.
That makes for an afternoon of hanging around the house with the kids. That should be pretty fun, they’re a blast!

Day 4: Wednesday, May 26

No school today.  It rained all night last night and all morning this morning so far.  Since there are no classes, I’m going with Daniel to the Nehemiah Center.   While I have the chance I want to write a bit about the family life that I’ve experienced so far.  One thing I’ve greatly appreciated is the way in which Daniel and his family make me feel as if I am part of their family.  The family dynamic here in Nicaragua is quite different from in the US.  For one, we eat almost every meal together.  Breakfast, lunch, and supper.   The kids and I are done with school by noon, so we’re all there for lunch, and Daniel and his wife also come home for lunch.  That is something that I think is super cool. 

It’s also cool for me to see how excited Axel, Jerril, and Holly (their 3 adopted sons) are to see Daniel and his wife whenever they come home.  They always go running to give them hugs, and beg for attention as if they hadn’t seen them in weeks.  The family’s are all so tight, and the community is like one big family, something that I’ve really enjoyed experiencing.  Because of this, everyone is quite closely involved in almost everything that goes on in the community.  The night classes for adults which I’ve been helping out with are led almost entirely by the youth (high school and college age).

Y me ha dicho: «Bástate mi gracia, porque mi poder se perfecciona en la debilidad». Por tanto, de buena gana me gloriaré más bien en mis debilidades, para que repose sobre mí el poder de Cristo.

-2 Corintios 12:9

Day 3: Tuesday, May 25

Today was the first time that I helped teach classes.  It was quite an interesting experience, though for today it was mostly observation.  As the days go on I think I’ll be more involved in helping teach, but for now I was just watching and learning.  The teacher I’m working with is named Reina.  I’m not sure how long she’s been teaching, she seems to know what she’s doing pretty well, but she’s also pretty young, though most of the teachers are. 

Classes started at 7am and went until 12 noon.  It’s an early start, but it also makes for an early end to the school day.  Today we taught 2 Bible classes, and 2 English classes.  To be honest I’m not sure how valuable the English classes are.   We spent some time talking about classroom objects, and modes of transportation, but most of the conversation is still in Spanish.

As I’m writing this, I’m being interrupted by Holly, he’s one of the boys who recently began living with Daniel.  They have three boys who have been living with them now for four months.  This morning at breakfast Daniel was asking them if they wanted to change their last name to Aragon, which is Daniel’s last name. 

Now back to the classroom.  All the kids wore uniforms, blue pants (or skirts for the girls), with white button down shirts tucked in.  They all refer to every teacher as “Profe” never once mentioning the teacher’s name.  I was somewhat surprised to see that the school, called Escuela Cristiana Monte Hermon, had a decent sized library.  Most of the books are for teachers to check out to use during class, such as dictionaries, Bibles, etc.  As we (the teacher and I) entered the classroom all the students stood up to greet us.  One thing I was happy to see was that in class the teacher would give instruction, and then proceed to have the students review/practice what they had learned in groups.  When we were in the Dominican Republic last year it seemed as if most of the instruction we saw was simply the teacher feeding information, and the students copying it down.  Seeing Reina get her students practicing what they were learning, and then showing it through various activities was encouraging. 

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this almost makes me want to move to a place like this and be a teacher.  Reina at one point had a group of students convinced that I was helping her for a few weeks and then going to be a new teacher.  Now that would be a crazy experience. 

I don’t think there is anything going on between now and classes at night.  I’ll probably take a nap sometime tonight (this heat makes me tired) and then write more after classes.

Preséntate tú en todo como ejemplo de buenas obras; en la enseñanza, mostrando integridad, seriedad, palabra sana e irreprochable, de modo que el adversario se averguence y no tenga nada malo que decir de vosotros.

-Tito 2:7-8

Day 2: Monday, May 24

Today was a bit of an introduction to Nicaraguan life.  Well, except for the getting up early part.  Normally they start classes at 7am, which means getting up at 6am (yay…not).  However, today Daniel said for me to relax and just enjoy the day, so I did.  I slept in, which was wonderful, and then got a tour of the community.  After lunch I hung out with the three little boys who live with Daniel, they’re all around 8-10 years old, have tons of energy, and are a blast to hang out with.  I also had the chance to play some soccer with a bunch of kids from the community, that was pretty fun, but also really tiring because of the heat. 

After some soccer we went to the school (which is right next to Daniel’s house) to do a lesson plan for classes tonight.  Each night from 6-8 they have classes for adults in the community.  Tonight I helped teach pretty basic Spanish spelling and writing.  Tomorrow I’ll start helping out at the school during the day, assuming they have school.  Today they had off because it rained so much last night, that most of the kids weren’t able to get to school today.  Classes start at 7am, which is crazy early, but hey, the early bird gets the worm right?

As I sit here writing this at 8:15, we still haven’t eaten supper.  That is quite different from what I’m used to, but it’s okay, I’ll get used to it.  It’s quite warm here, and very humid.  We also spent a good portion of the day today without power, but Daniel said that is actually quite unusual.  I’m used to frequent power outages in the Dominican Republic, so it was no big deal; thought Daniel did say that electricity here is much more consistent than in the DR. 

Tener fe es tener plena seguridad de recibir lo que se espera; es estar convencidos de la realidad de cosas que no vemos.

- Hebreos 11:1

Day 1: Sunday, May 23

Not quite sure when I’ll actually get to upload these posts, since I don’t have internet at Daniel’s house, but I’ll write them out as I go and then upload them when I get a chance.  I find it odd typing in English, since all I’ve been talking is Spanish.  Gotta say, I love the language. 

I finally made it here at around 7pm tonight, after my initial scheduled arrival of noon.  I had the pleasure of sitting on the runway in Detroit for 2 hours waiting for the fog to lift, and causing me to miss my flight out of Miami.  The next flight to Managua was a mere 7 hours later. 

When I came through customs, literally the first people I saw were Daniel and his wife.  They are great.  We talked as we drove home from the airport, mostly them telling me about the city, and explaining where we were going.  I guess the highway we were on goes all the way south to Costa Rica, I kinda think we should’ve just kept going all the way there.  Dinner was fantastic, rice with like a chicken/veggie skewer and platano maduro (yum!) 

Daniel also told me about a lot of the stuff that goes on in the community.  It sounds like the youth are pretty active leaders in the community, and that there are lots of things going on all the time, so I’m excited to get involved in that.  He also gave me a lesson in Spanish, which was cool.  Apparently in Nicaragua they don’t use the “tu” form, instead they use “vos.”   That’s not to be confused with “vosotros,” just “vos.”  (I confused them at first)

Tomorrow will be pretty chill.  Kinly, one of the young women who lives with Daniel and his wife is gonna show me around the community so I can better get to know what’s going on in this community, and get introduced to what life is like in Managua. 

I have to say, the thing I am most excited for right now is sleep. It’s almost 10pm here, which means it’s almost midnight in GR, so I’ve been up for 22 hours.  Tonight I’m thanking God for safe travel, and for the amazing opportunity that I have here.  These next few weeks are surely going to be a great adventure and and incredible experience. 

Feliz el hombre que no sigue el consejo de los malvados, ni va por el camino de los pecadores, ni hace causa común con los que se burlan de Dios, sino que pone su amor en la ley del Señor y en ella medita noche y día. 

-Salmo 1: 1-2

I’m heading to Nicaragua tomorrow to spend about 3 weeks in Managua working with a local school and church community. Before my trip I wanted to start this blog to keep all those who are interested posted on my trip. I’ll keep updating this while in Nicaragua, as well as throughout the next year as I spend semesters in Chicago and Washington D.C. I’m so thankful for the opportunities God has given me, and I can’t wait to see what He will do with my life.

Pero él me dijo: Te basta con mi gracia, pues mi poder se perfecciona en la debilidad." - 2 Corintios 12:9