Go!

(There was a picture here.  It disappeared.  I will repost later.  ugh)

It's go day!  Don't you think we all look great at 5:30 in the morning? 

Our day started off great.  Everyone was on time, no overweight bags...smooth sailing.  All flights were on time, and we were in Managua by lunch time.  Everyone made it through immigration, customs...right on target.

The Managua airport was easy to navigate, and we found Adrian,one of our in-country drill leaders right away.  Our first taste of 'out of our comfort zone' came when a young boy - maybe 12 or 13 years old came up to our van.  Some of us thought that he had come with Adrian as a helper.  That was not the case.  He kept trying to grab our suitcases out of our hands.  Adrian told him no.  It became obvious that he had some sort of mental disability (or pretended well).  The guys finished loading the luggage on the top of the van, but our little friend was persistant.  He kept grunting at us, and rubbing his fingers together asking for money.  Every single one of us wanted to give him just a little I think.  But we have been warned over and over not to give to beggars - that it usually leads to no good.  So we just sat in the van feeling like a bunch of heels.  The worst part was when he put his hands and face up against the glass and looked in.  Ugh.  Right through the heart!

As we drove through Managua, every time we would stop at a stop light, the driver would turn on his windshield wipers.  We learned that that was becuase there are people waiting at every light that want to wash your windows for money.  Turning on the wipers was supposed to discourage them.  For the most part it worked.  But there was one particular window washer who was not disuaded by this tactic.  He proceeded to try to wash the windshield anyway.  What he ended up doing was lifting the wiper away from the windshield.  Our driver motioned for him to fix it, and he ignored him.  Then the driver rolled down the window and asked him to fix it.  The guy said give me money.  The drive said no.  So the guy walked away with a not so friendly gesture, and left our windshield wiper askew.  We had to find a spot to pullover so he could stop and fix it,.  Right then, it became obvious that we were not in Kansas any more.  My immediate knee-jerk response was that I wouldn't make it here on my own.  No way, no how.

Adrian took us to a place called Tip Top for lunch.  We all had chicken of some sort.  It was very very good!  After that, we headed on the 45 minute drive to Granada, where our compound is.  The drive once again pointed out the differences between the States and other countries.  We could not believe the number of people who were walking - some on the sides of the roads, some in the middle of the roads, but all FRIGHTENINGLY close to the traffic that was speeding by.  Deanna and I kept gasping and saying 'Did you see that?'  One of the things that struck Lauren was that one minute you would be driving by a row of houses that literally only consisted of pieces of corrugated tin leaning aganst each other, and the next minute you would be driving by a nice looking shopping mall.  The contrast was striking.

When we arrived at the compound, I think we were all very surprised.  It is VERY nice.  Beautifully landscaped, lovely architecture, complete with two armed guards.  EEK!  Maybe that is something that you all are used to, but it's pretty much a first for me!  We met Jorge, and I was again surprised.  Born and raised in the states. (Michigan of all places!  And yes, he bleeds Blue!  I told him that we were Buckeyes and we deciede immediately to try to put our differences aside for the good of the people.)   I was expecting that he would speak English, but still have some of the language barrier issues.  Instead, we can talk college football!  My most pleasant surprise was Max.  A huge beautiful brindle Boxer.  He immediately recognized me as a Boxer softie and his new best friend.  I plan on doing some serious hanging out with Max in the days to come.

We had a short meeting, and Jorge laid down the house rules.  All of us sat there thinking - really?  How can I tell that kid no when he asks me for something I have?  How can I tell that lady that no, I cannot eat the treat that she has brought me, that probably cost her an embarassingly high percentage of her income?  How can I refuse any of these people anything.  THE people.  The people that we came to help.  The people that we have been praying for for the better part of the year.  The people that, more than anything, we want to shower with God's love.  Not easy stuff to swallow.  But our logical sides know that he is right.  We just all dread the moment when we have to cross one of those bridges.

We then got to hang out for a while, and then we were served dinner.  YUM!  I can see why Rita on the LWI staff said that she gained 10 pounds when she came.  Larissa and her crew make a mean fried rice.  And they had a Nicaraguan version of Pico de Gallo that was out of this world!  We never quite figured out what we drank with dinner.  It was a sweet punch - I tasted cucumber or watermelon rind.  Adrien thought it was something with Grenadine..but we are still not sure what it was called. 

After dinner, some of the gang played Bananagrams.  I didn't get to play, because I am having technical problems with the blog.  The IE on Rob's laptop isn't a version that is supported, so there are functionality issues.  So we had to e-mail me the pictures, open them up and post them from Dan's tablet, then reopen it on Rob's laptop - on which I have no ability to format, spell check - any of those handy things that are going to help me out.  But it's ok.  I will post a few pictures each day, and write as well as I can, and go back and edit after we get back.  For those of you who are my Facebook friends, I can post to that fairly easily.

So it is now 9:29, and most everyone has headed to bed. I feel like I have typed forever and barely scratched the surface.  I too am tired and want to turn in.  For my English teacher friends, I need a pass on this one.  I am typing on a tiny keyboard, I have no spell check, and I am too tired to proof-read.  Check back in a few weeks, and I promise that I will go in and fix the glaring errors.

Good night friends - I hope that you will join me in praying for the days to come!



Dan Captures a moving picture.  He captions it "On a mission...the intense level of hardship and trauma we are willing to indure to lift up the impoverished"