Nicaragua2012 (Part 1)

*Post one of my Nicaragua2012 Posts. For the rest of the story read the next few posts!*
*This is partially for you, and partially so I have a place to write it all so I remember it. So pardon all the horrific details.*

If you didn't know, I went to Nicaragua (in Central America) a few weeks ago!
It was an incredible experience, I learned a lot, and I will for sure be going next year!
We first got started back in January/February, when we got to know who all was going, and then we had 3 other meetings between that and the trip. I had so much help from people paying for the trip. I had to raise $2100 dollars (if you include my Chicago trip), and I got it completely paid for by peoples fabulous donations!

So the day of the trip arrives. We have our packing party, go over final details, and head home for a few hours before we leave. Some people slept, I on the other hand watch The Batman movies, and an episode of The Walking Dead. :D
Then we head back, take the 2 hour drive to Chicago, and fly from there to Miami, and then to Managua, Nicaragua. (That's fun to say!) We spend the night in a hotel there. It consists of tons of pizza, even more pool-dunking, an hour long talk with Riley and Jeffrey about awesome movies, and my headphones disappearing overnight. Then we take a smaller propeller plane (a 46-seater) to Puerta (Port) Cabezas. Surprisingly that was my favorite flight! I sat next to Austin, and played solitaire, war, and chess. And then we were there.

The night we got there, all we did was play with the kids. Me and Brennan were chasing around a little boy and girl, letting them go chasing them some more...and so on. We also sat around for a bit, and learned this weird hand pounding rhythm thingy. (I forgot that one, but I learned another one later which I remember!)

Day 2:
We went to Church this day! It was a flipping awesome experience! There were three different languages being sung, but even if they were singing in one of the other languages, I could still understand, and connect in my own. It just really showed how Jesus isn't American. He is universal. We so often think of Him as our own, and this was just awesome to see how much He did in the lives of people who wouldn't understand a word of our English bible, but have there own way of sharing the Good News. And then we got to hear a great message from our very own John Keim, in English, and translated to Spanish. Their services are long! Johny even had a short message, and the service was still two hours long! But I wouldn't have missed any of it for the world!
After church, we took all of the kids to the beach. It's Nicaragua, so of course it started raining as soon as we got there. But after the initial ten seconds of disappointment, (and after I covered Katie and I's bags with my poncho) everyone started having even more fun! Some people were playing beach-rain-soccer, others were building sand castles, and others (me) were having an all out war, dunking, throwing sand, etc. No casualties though! One little girl kept throwing sand at me, so i would scare her, or throw sand at her or something. At the end we shook hands, which I thought meant we were cool. But then she threw sand at me again!! What a jerk...haha
Gotta love those children...(but boy are they tiring!)


Well, I'd say thats a good place to end this one. You can find the next one here: