Nicaragua 20s #6

Hola mis amigos. Today was another amazing day. Breakfast was at 7:30 this morning instead of 7:00… Praise the Lord! We left the hotel at 8:30 to head over to the store to pick up food for 3 home visit bags. Once we got the supplies we were on our way to the church. When we arrived to the church the men and women split up, the men were on our way to give out the food to 3 different houses and the women stayed back at the church to spend quality time with the women of the community while making friendship bracelets.

I wish I could give input on the time that the women had but I am a dude so I will talk about the home visits. We had done 6 other home visits in the previous days but these today seemed extra special. We had visited 3 older gentlemen but I will only talk about one of the home visits. We had visited two older gentlemen who were sitting on the porch having a conversation. We started asking questions and the friend of the homeowner had told us they had been friends for over 40 years and he was just visiting because the homeowner had been very sick. More questions were being asked and answered and the homeowner who was 81 years old had told us he has a story. In my mind I got very excited because I love hearing stories of individuals of other cultures and life experiences. He had started to tell his story when he started tearing up while saying it makes him very emotional. I saw all of us men intently wanting to listen to what he had to say. He said he had almost died twice recently, he had gone to the doctor and they said he had a 50/50 chance of survival. I will never forget this part, he told us no matter how sick and physically ill he felt, he never lost his mind and his relationship with Jesus. His story was so inspiring to all of us. No matter how we are feeling or what we are going through we should always keep our body, soul, and spirit fixed on the Lord. He then told us he was a musician so he grabbed his guitar which clearly had been played for quite some years. He did a quick ear tune and began to play. The strings were not In perfect tune but somehow when he started playing they fell right into tune. He started singing and worshipping God. His voice was incredible and I am so grateful I got to experience what Jesus means to him. It was truly special to be able to meet these two amazing men and give them a small blessing of food.

After the home visits, us men returned to the church and the whole group began preparing to serve the kids lunch. After the kids lunch we got into the bus to eat our own lunch. After a quick meal we retuned to playing with the kids while a few of us set up for the puppet show. Although our Spanish is not very good and most likely the kids can’t even understand us, they always seem to really enjoy it. After the puppet show we had set up 2 piñatas, one for the older kids and one for the little ones. It was awesome seeing how much fun these kids were having and how excited they were for candy. We had said a very bitter sweet goodbye to majority of the kids and had loaded up the bus to head back to the hotel. We then got about an hour and a half of rest before we set out to the church again for a night of worship along with a very very good message by the pastor. After dancing with the kids to the last worship song in Nicaragua we said our goodbyes to everyone else. I had a very special moment with a guy named Carlos who was 16 years old. He had asked to keep my hat to remember me, I felt very loved in that moment and so blessed to be able to give him that hat. The hat was also a Woodmen Valley Chapel hat that says love your neighbor on it, couldn’t have been a better souvenir to remember us by. After the very sad goodbyes we left to get dinner. Dinner is always a great time with the group with so much laughter. 

Overall today was an another amazing day. Although saying goodbye to the kids and the community was very hard, it was very rewarding seeing the impact we had on the community and the inspiration they have given to all of us. I can’t wait to see all of these brothers and sisters in Christ in heaven one day and hear about all of their life stories.

Thank you for all the support and prayers to make this very special mission trip happen.

- Riley Romine for the team