March 17-23, 2013 Spring Break Missions

I love the Spring Break Mission week because for the past few years, it has been a team of Youth and Adults from FBC Rogers AR and FBC Yukon OK. I love getting to see friends and these groups are fantastic to work with!

Even though we got to bed late (1am) everyone got up early and had breakfast and then we had to reset the common area for church service. We had a joint service with some of our church plants and we bussed in some of the people. We had 36 team members here, plus translators. It was a great crowd! Some of the folks from La Quimera brought cakes to celebrate my birthday (again). I am really blessed!

Nate (Youth Pastor at FBCY) and some of his team ministered to the Nica youth boys under a big shade tree. Some of the Youth on his team also took the Nica youth girls under another tree and ministered to them. FBCR had some volunteers who helped to teach the kids at another area. It was a packed house and a lot going on. Poor Buster (the dog) had to be sequestered, but even he was excited! After service, we had baptisms in the pool. Many people from the different churches, mainly La Quimera, were baptized. It was wonderful.

After everyone left for home, we reset the common area to feed the team their lunch. Then we had orientation with the team, packing of prizes and other supplies needed for the Fiestas and VBS sessions for the week, sorting of the ministry supplies brought to us, sorting of donated clothing, etc. A very busy time for everyone! A little rest followed, and then everyone split into groups for evening worship in different churches and then came back for dinner and bedtime. It was a great first day!

Monday morning was crazy busy with everyone getting their assignments (12 translators and 4 drivers plus all the VOH staff). Even though the team is here for a jam-packed week of ministry, the usual stuff still has to go on. The Feeding Centers still feed over 600 lunch each day M-F, the meat and produce still needs to be bought weekly for the Feeding Centers, and the team house needs to be cleaned and organized and groceries bought often! I spent most of my time with the team, but also helped out with regular VOH stuff (like helping Lesly buy groceries, etc).

One of the FBCR team members (Abby) has spent her last 3 birthdays here in Nica. Also, this year, one of the adults (Deborah) and 2 of our staff (Mayela and German) shared birthdays this same week. Sherry baked some cakes and we all had a yummy time!

Everyday was so packed with ministry and teams coming and going. It was like a huge square dance. As usual, everything changes on a dime here, but the teams were very good at going with the flow. They were wonderful to work with! I was very hot hot HOT!!! We didn’t have any casualties, though! Everyone kept drinking lots of water and looking for shade. The pool got quite the workout, too. We were thankful that we didn’t have any water issues here at the house. (even though we did have some plumbing issues that just goes with an older place in a third world country). Everyone was good sports about it all.

We did 21 Fiestas, 4 VBS sessions, 1 afternoon of construction, 7 worship services, 1 delivery of food and evangelism to the folks living at the dump, visits to 5 Feeding Centers, a LOT of street evangelism, had a picnic dinner at sunset on the beach, had a picnic dinner at a worksite, changed for church in a convenience store and numerous other things that I can’t recall at this moment. It was a very busy and fun week. 614 people accepted Christ this week. Some of the team shared their testimonies for the first time ever. There were many blessings flowing all over us! God has been good to us!

On Friday morning, the FBC Yukon team packed up their luggage and both teams loaded onto 4 vans for our Fun Day in Masaya and Managua. I went this time since our 4 designated translators had never went on our Fun Day excursion before. (going on Fun Day is not all that much fun for the staff after many trips. But I enjoyed going with these teams!) We dropped the FBCY luggage at the hotel across from the airport. Then headed to the canopy tour (zip line). It was a total of 4 hours between the team house and the canopy tour. Thankfully, we got there and got right on it and did not have to wait on any big groups before us. Most of the teams zipped. The rest of us rested at the nice tables and chairs on the covered porch.

Then we headed to Managua for lunch. The construction on the highway was very slow and we hit it many times. But everyone was in good cheer. (they had no clue that we were being slowed down so much. All part of the experience for them!) We had lunch at Narcy’s. Part of it is a chicken (and other things) restaurant and part is Pappa John’s Pizza. Yummy! But like all restaurants in Nica, very slow. Part of the group had finished and gotten back on the vans while part of us were still waiting on our food. 2 of the translators actually took their food to go and ate it on the vans. But it was all okay.

We went to Catarina to shop. It’s beautiful there. In the background is a lake made from an extinct volcano. It’s a great picture spot. We took one overall group photo and then a photo of each team. I had each team make a quick video for Mary. She loved it, by the way. Everyone had 1 hour to shop. They were ready when the hour was up.

We made our way back to the hotel across from the airport and said goodbye to the Yukon group. It was 5:45pm. We were doing pretty good on time, considering we were slowed down by 2 stops at the hotel and then the road construction. On the way back to León it got a little more interesting. The AC in one of the vans quit, but everyone was great about that. I think they were happy that they could spread out in the 4 vans after leaving the 14 people at the hotel. Also on the way home, one of the vans (the one I was in) started overheating. It’s a desolate road between Managua and León, with few towns and they are small. God allowed the van to make it to Nagarote to the Palí store, where we bought water for the radiator. We then made it to the next town of La Paz Centro, where we stopped at a little gas station and put in more water, gassed up the vans and moved all the people to the 3 good vans. I sent Freddy, one of the translators with the driver in the sick van, so that I could talk to him in English to know what was going on. Danilo and the other drivers were in contact with German throughout the day, as usual, so I knew that we were going to be stranded or anything like that.

We made it back to León at 10pm. Super long day. Super long ride back from Managua. We stopped at La Unión and some people went into the grocery store to buy coffee to take home, some of the team went to Tip Top (which was extremely slow) for take out and most of the team went to Burger King (which was very fast!) and got their dinners to go. We got back to the team house, ate, and the team packed for the return trip to Managua the next morning. It was a very long day, but everyone had fun. Like I said, this is a great team to work with!

We all settled down around midnight and got up to load the vans at 3am. The team left at 3:30am for the airport. Buster and I went back to bed. He was sad to see the team leave, but I think he was ready for some peace and quiet and just chase the neighbors and their dogs and wrestle with our cat. He’s a pretty good host for the teams, though. I started missing the teams immediately. Can’t wait until they come back next Spring Break!