Update #12 [Day 10]

Sunday, June 11, 2023 (Day 10)

Today was a difficult day, knowing it was our last day here and having to say goodbye to everyone.  It was also another day of my heart being ripped to shreds over the great needs here and my little ability to do much about it.

We began the morning by going to worship at Iglesia Verbo in Veracruz.  Worship "started" at 9:30am and ended around 12pm.  When we arrived, they were still setting up and since we still had to finalize details of our dinner tonight with the VEA student leaders, Dave and Regan left to go touch base with the five students to ensure that everything was set for our time together.  They got back just in time for worship.  The music was lively and the message was focused on Luke 19 when Zacchaeus met Jesus.  

During the church service, one of the church leaders brought up to the front a 15-year-old girl and I thought he was introducing her as a new member, but we soon found out that she was one of the the young people impacted by the recent events that happened at Verbo that I will update you on when we return home.  She and 5 other students (siblings and cousins) are now living on the other side of Managua and are trying to complete their school year at Verbo School in Veracruz, but their family is extremely poor and they don't have enough money for food for everyone, much less for transportation to and from Managua for 6 children, five days a week; not to mention the danger involved in young children traveling by bus that distance without adult supervision.  The church leader was asking for help and support for this family from the congregation.  I was just imagining what she must have been thinking as she was standing in front of the congregation with the elder explaining how dire their situation was.  The strength it must have taken to be up in front of everyone like that was hard for me to imagine.

One of the difficult goodbyes was with Angel, an 18-year-old boy who has lived at Casa Bernabe the last five years, and whose older sister lived there previously also, for the last time today.  I have not mentioned him before in an update, but Angel has a beautiful smile and a sweet personality.  He is small in stature (like Zacchaeus) and a student at VEA.  He also comes from a very poor family that lives in the mountainous part of Nicaragua and has five siblings which is what led to him coming to reside at Casa Bernabe.  He finishes at Verbo school in December, but he is also a student at an English school in Managua and he has one more year to go with that school before he will be finished and can consider going to university or whatever might come next.  Please remember Angel in your prayers.

The church had prepared a "typico" lunch after the service, so we hung around to fellowship with church members for a bit afterwards.  We had made plans to meet with Dr. Bayardo and his family for lunch after church, so when we left, we headed into Managua to meet up with them.  We invited Angel to come with us so we could spend a little more time with him before we had to say goodbye.  Driving in Managua is perilous.  On the way to lunch, Regan was driving in the middle lane and a man (on his cell phone) darted into the road.  Regan braked beautifully, swerved slightly into the opposite lane (thankfully no cars were there), and came to a screeching halt just in time to avoid hitting him.  The look on his face conveyed the knowledge that this was almost his final day on earth.  Also, praise the Lord, no one was directly behind us so there was no collision.  We might need new brakes and tires on the car now, but everyone walked and drove away.

After lunch, we had a meeting with some of the leaders at Verbo Veracruz Church.  When we arrived, the girl who was presented to the congregation and her ten-year-old sister, were still with the church leaders, waiting to be driven home after the meeting.  Once the meeting was over, we said goodbye and dropped Angel off at Casa Bernabe.  Then we began picking up the VEA student leaders for our outing tonight.  Since we had a competition yesterday in Granada and they were all nervous about it, we decided to reward each of the leaders with a special event: going to the Masaya Volcano at night, and then to dinner.  As an encouragement to prepare well for Saturday's event in Granada, Dave had told the students there would be one winner, and they would win something that they would all want.  [In the group picture attached below, the students are, from left to right: Faris, Alondra, Angie, Nester, and Ian.  Also pictured are Regan, Blanca, Dave, Bethany, and myself.]

These students have lived in Veracruz their whole lives and Nicaragua is known as the "land of lakes and volcanoes" and none of them had ever visited Volcan Masaya.  They were very excited and I was as well, since I had only visited the volcano during the day.  I was most excited about seeing the parakeets, who live in the volcano but fly away during the day, and then return in the evening.  While we were threatened with rain, the weather held out and it was a beautiful night with a cool breeze and we were able to see the lava flowing and take in the magnificence of the volcano.  Unfortunately, we did not see the birds returning and because of the cloud cover we did not see many stars, but we did get to see the lights of Masaya in the distance which was really pretty.

We had a little adventure on the way into the volcano however.  We had to take two vehicles to transport everyone.  The vehicle Regan was driving (not Reddy) conked out right at the entrance to the volcano.  The guys got out and pushed the car back in the lane so it was a little more out of the way.  Regan had to call a mechanic friend to bring Reddy and see if he could fix the problem with the other vehicle.  So we all piled into the vehicle that Dave was driving to see the volcano while Regan stayed back to deal with the car.  Because of this, we didn't stay as long as we would've otherwise stayed, but we did take a few minutes to go through the museum/visitors center to see some of the displays in addition to seeing the volcano.  Since the students had never been there, they took lots of pictures of everything and it was really fun to share this with them.  Also, while we were there, we ran into Marina and Thomas (the couple we met yesterday from Austria) and Else, a woman from England that the students also interacted with yesterday.  We were able to have additional brief conversations with them at the volcano.

After the volcano, we went to dinner at Mi Ranchito, a nice open-air restaurant that serves delicious, "typico" Nicaraguan food.  This was also a huge treat for each of these students as eating out is not a regular thing they do, much less at such a nice place.  Once we ordered, we had each of the students (in English) give an evaluation of how things went with their group yesterday and the things they did well as a leader and how they could improve for next time.  Dave spoke some encouraging words to the students and he announced the winner of the competition: Alondra.  She won a credit of $100!  To get it, she has to tell her parents about it, have them communicate with Regan or Blanca, and her parents have to approve of how she spends the money.  But it is all for her to decide how she wants to spend or save it.  The students were all floored at the prize and I know the other four were surely wishing they had won, but Alondra was the unanimous winner.  By this time it was almost 10pm, so it was time to head back to Veracruz and get packed up.  After saying goodbye to the students, that is just what we did.  It is hard to believe the trip is coming to an end.

Carter Newell took us to the airport at 4am on June 2, 2023 and he is picking us up at the airport late tomorrow night when our plane lands.  By the time we land and get our luggage it will be after midnight, so we will probably get home around 2am or so Tuesday morning, June 13, 2023.  Thank you so much to Carter for being part of the team in this way!  I will update you once we are home and send more pictures and give more of an explanation on some of the things that have been happening here in Nicaragua over the last couple of weeks.

Thank you for praying us through the trip and all the way home!

In Christ,

Katy, for the team