Nicaragua July 29, 2010

Thursday

Woke up at 4am and started coffee and my day with a great shower. I need a shower for my heart and mind. I'm starting out with a bad attitude... critical, judgemental, ungrateful, uncooperative... Forgive me Lord. I do not have a merciful spirit or shine Your light in any way this morning. That is what I want to do most. The enemy is using this week to grab a hold of me. But You are bigger than all unrighteousness and You will overcome it for me. I love You Lord and that's all that matters.

Thank You for answering my prayers, Lord. (as You always do)

Mary, Sherry and I went to the store to buy more meat and produce. It was fun. We rode into town in one fo the vans with the team, changed to German's car at the stoplight and shopped at La Unión. German had called someone who drives a taxi to come and pick us up. We were told that he would be in a red taxi and that he would recognize Mary.

We walked outside and found a red taxi. Mary waved to the driver and he waved back, so Mary siad that he was the one. We ran over and started piling our stuff in the car. He seemed confused so I was trying to talk to him in my broken Spanish and asked if he knew Danilo and German. He kept giving me a confused expression. I'm trying to talk to him and Mary is telling me to ask certain questions. She kept trying to get me to remember him as a previous driver for us, but I had not seen him before. I had to shush her so I could complete a sentence. She saw that he didn't have a hand and thus realized that he was not the person she thought he was and she jumped out of the taxi and ran across the parking lot to another red taxi. The other driver said German's name and Mary started yelling German, German and running at him with all her speed. She had left Sherry and I just sitting in the first taxi with the confused driver. We were laughing our heads off. I kept saying "lo siento" (I'm sorry) to the driver and explaining that we were in the wrong taxi and were leaving him. It was so hilarious! Ricoberto turned out to be our correct taxi driver, so we moved all our bags into his taxi. We gave the first guy a tip and Mary gave him her ice cold pepsi. Poor guy.

On the ride back to the house, we were laughing so hard that we were crying. I had to keep turning around in the front seat to talk to Mary and Sherry and my leg kept hitting the gear shift. I kept apologizing. Mary said after the 3rd time that it was evident that it was not an accident any more. ha I talked to Ricoberto about his family and he spoke a little bit of English. He asked where we needed to go and we told him to just drive and we would tell him when to stop. He trusted us. We made it home just fine. It was so funny. We would just break out in uncontrollable laughter. No one found the story as funny as us, I guess you just had to be there.

The cooks were making grilled chicken when we got back. Oh man, it smelled great! I washed a load of clothes during the morning, which worked out great since I was going to be going on fun day and to Manauga with the girls for an overnight to catch their early flight home.

The lunch was so good. Chicken, mashed potatoes, slaw, rice, beans and tortilla. Sherry, Mary and I had a great long talk about stuff in general. We laughed a lot, too.

The team came home for lunch and rest. We are leaving at 3:30pm for clothing distribution at Monte Horeb (sewer pond village). Some of the people remembered my name and that touched my heart a lot. I got to hold baby Dariela for a short time. I would love it someday to make frequent visits to villages and have the kids run up to me for hugs. All because they can recognize Jesus in me. That's my dream.

This is the last night of the crusade for this team. We put some glow-stick bracelets on our arms and shared with some of the kids. The ushers had to surround our seating area when we ran out of glowsticks. Christopher is sick. He was a trooper, though. He spent some time talking with Bethany, Kaylie and Kearsten. They prayed with him. We got the Bibles to the invitation area on time tonight. It was a good last night.

We stopped at the Shell station so the group could say goodbye to the translators. It made me feel a part of the VOH ministry and not just a visiting missionary, because I knew I would see them next week. I was soooo tired on our way home. The girls have to pack up their stuff tonight so they can leave the house for the last time in the morning. I'm just packing an overnight bag.

The whole team is staying at the hotel across the street from the airport in Managua tomorrow night to catch early flights on Saturday. I'm going to say goodbye to the girls. I'll miss them so much. I've loved having them here.

I'm going to bed extremely tired, but very thankful.