Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5

Thursday, July 23 – We started off the day with egg casserole, muffins, fruit, and the obligatory rice and beans, then we headed to the village for a shortened day of work. Jerod and I decided to focus on our family today rather than building homes. Building relationships with the people is just as important, and we wanted to make sure to do that. After our morning worship, we found an interpreter to talk with Gizelle and find out more about her, her family, and her walk with God. We found out that she grew up Catholic and was baptized as a baby, and her family is going to church regularly outside the village (by foot or by bike). She wasn’t ready to be baptized as an adult, as she was still studying the Bible. (We gave them a Spanish Bible a couple of days prior.) Gizelle studied journalism and wants to help people look up information(?) – she plans to find a job once the home is built. She also told us how grateful they were, because without Project H.O.P.E., it would have taken many years to save up enough money for a home. She said she couldn’t imagine leaving Sebasian like we’d left Lil’ Miss K, and that she would have been constantly worried about him. Overall we had a nice, fairly long talk.

After our conversation, I was planning on going up the mountain with another team member to get a good overall photo of the village, but the taxi, the hike, and the water tower climb ended up being no-no’s, so I worked on blocking with Gizelle for a while instead. Abby and I had previously joked that we were tough and could mix concrete by hand, so she stopped by the house and asked if I wanted to give it a shot. The guys were more than willing to give us their shovels, take a break, and use us as entertainment, so they watched us mix two batches of concrete. After about 30 minutes we were happy to hand the shovels back over. Despite what the guys said, we both thought we did pretty good – our time wasn’t that much slower than theirs!

We had lunch at the community center, then had a shortened women’s Bible study. At the end, each woman got to keep their notebook and they were all given aprons made by the women at Plaza Heights. I took photos of the women in their aprons – a lot of them liked looking at their picture and were very grateful for the aprons. Next was a quick, very crowded children’s Bible study, where they got to do a craft, color, and eat gummy worms. During the Bible studies, the men played the Nicas two quick games of baseball and won both games this time! Jerod grabbed a ladder for me and we climbed on top of an abandoned house near the community center, which overlooked the entire village, Lake Managua, and the volcano, so I could get my photo. Like lemmings, several people followed suite and joined us to take in the gorgeous view.

We left the village around 2 and took two buses down to a lake for baptisms. We had two people – one Nica baptized by Jim, and Hunter from our group, who was baptized by his step-father. I don’t think they could have had a more beautiful setting for a baptism – it was pretty neat to witness.

Back at basecamp we cleaned up and ate a delicious dinner of sea bass, veggies, and mashed potatoes. It was my favorite meal of the trip. Evening service was really emotional for myself and several others, I think. Between Holy Communion and awesome music from Nate, I just felt really close to God.

We quickly packed rice sacks full of donated clothes we’d brought for our families, which turned out to be hectic and disorganized. It was a let down going from such a touching service to a stressful process. Some of the guys did have fun putting on crazy outfits, which lightened the mood a bit. Luckily we’ve already made plans to make it go smoother next year. We stayed up until almost midnight – but we’re enjoying each other’s company more and more every night.