Last week I headed for Nicaragua with a man from our church in Las Uvas. Pablo had heard that I was going to Nicaragua to meet a TLC team coming in from Hobe Sound. Pablo has gotten saved and has been wanting to get married, baptized and start serving in the church. The problem is though, he is Nicaraguan and needed to go to Managua to get his passport and other papers in order to get married here in Honduras. So I told him that we would leave a few days early and he could go with me to get his papers. This was the first time he had been back to see his family in six years! Here he is with his mother and two of his sisters.
We traveled all day Wednesday to get to the village where Pablo grew up. Once we got there we had to figure out where his mother lived. He had lost contact with his family and wasn't even sure if she was dead or alive. He finally found some relatives who showed us where his mother was living. This is a picture of her little hut and garden. It was getting dark when we arrived.
Looking at old family pictures together.
The next day we started working on Pablo's papers. The first stop as at the police station to get a copy of his police record. Nicaragua is becoming increasingly more communist. These faces were painted on the side of the office. On the far left is Hugo Chavez who is hailed as a hero, the second one I'm not exactly sure who it is, the third is Fidel Castro and last is Daniel Ortega, who is presently in power.
The next stop was Managua where he had to apply for his passport and other paper work. While there we stopped by a large plaza where there were several monuments, and old church and a museum.
Nicaragua has seven volcanoes. In the museum was this ancient footprint frozen in time by hardened volcanic ash.
Leg bone of a wooly mammoth.
Early Friday morning we were waiting at the Managua airport for the team of 12 who were coming in from Hobe Sound. Most of the members are studying intercultural studies at Hobe Sound Bible College.
The team's first project was to paint the two outer side walls of the church in Achuapas as well as lay a small sidewalk at the entrance.
Joseph enjoyed getting in on the action as well.
Happy to serve!
The guys did a great job hand-mixing and laying the cement for the walkway.
Mission accomplished!!
In Central America it is common to drink your soda out of a plastic bag with a straw. The red soda is called Rojita, (similar to Big Red), only found in Nicaragua.
In the evenings the team held services geared toward youth and children. They gave testimonies, and told Bible stories. This was a skit talking about different sins, this particular one was idolatry.
On Sunday morning while I spoke to the adults, the team taught a special Sunday School class with all the kids.
The team having fun chit chatting before being served a scrumptious lunch of chicken and rice.
Everyone had to wash their plates at the pila. No electric dishwashers around here!
Scrub, scrub, scrub.
The team took an hour and a half hike up into the mountains to a little village called Sosalo. There is a family from this village that makes the trek every Sunday to pastor Julio's church.
Crossing over the cow gate to head to the end of the village.
The team brought shoes with them to hand out to poor families. Pastor Julio will be distributing the shoes at Christmas time, these children will be some of the happy recipients. Pastor Julio is holding up strings that he used to take their shoe size. Wesley, standing on the right, was responsible for bringing the shoes.
We saw a beautiful double rainbow on the way back down the mountain.
The follow day the team handed out literature, plaques with scripture verses and bookmarks. The people were so happy to receive them.
As we drove down the street in the van, the young people handed out the literature through the windows to the pedestrians. A lot of them were students walking to school.
Spreading the Good News!!
Eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before catching the bus back to Managua for a late night flight home.
On the bus and ready to go!
Thanks team for doing an awesome job!! We enjoyed working with you all. Thanks for Touching Lives for Christ!!
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