“When Do Coconuts Start Growing Hair?”

Well here we are…four days into our trip and we are doing well.  The sun came up early – as always, and we headed out to spend time with God.  At 7:30AM, we came together for breakfast.  The menu – Huevos Rancheros, rice, fruit and toast.  Once again it was a feeding frenzy.  Oscar is keeping our team well fed.

Right after breakfast we jumped right into our workday.  We reassembled our teams and got to work.  Our paint team headed to 2 more small cabanas to paint (which they finished).  Our road repair team went and got some bottled water for us all and then proceeded to fill potholes.  And our “cliff crew” went back to creating a cliff.  Some of the cliff team planted about 40 hibiscus plants around the pool.  The weather was hot and humid, but again…no major complaining. 

Our quote today is from Amanda Blakley.  She had noticed all of the coconuts hanging from the trees and there was no fuzz/hair on the coconuts, but the ones later that we saw on the ground had fuzz/hair.  Once she noticed that she asked the question, “When do coconuts start growing hair?”  (the outside of the coconut is smooth, but once you bust it open it’s furry, like what you normally coconuts look like.) The question itself got everyone laughing and thus became a “quoteworthy” title for the day.

 We worked from about 8AM to 11:30AM, took showers had lunch (steak with chimicurri sauce, rice and beans, and tostones – fried plantains), and got ready to head out to VBS. 

Our VBS time was at Iglesia Bautista II – Cana de Galalia. (Canaan of Galilee 2^nd Baptist Church).  It is the church plant of the church we attended on Sunday.  We loaded the bus and spent about an hour on the road in route to our destination.  The traffic was still crazy and we left the city limits and what was busy roads and business we traded for lots of trees and wide open spaces.  We entered into a small rural community and pulled up in front of the church…which during the day is the pastor’s house.  (Hey David, maybe we need to just your home for an offsite location.)

We then unloaded the bus and went into the backyard.  They have an overhang that they use for worship time.  Many of the kids were already waiting for us.  We had a short opening assembly time and then broke up into our 4 teams.  All of the teams, except the recreation team, stayed at the home.  The rec team went to a local school yard to play.

Everything was moving smoothly and the kids were having fun.  Then came the torrential downpour.  Remember that word flexibility?  It came into play today.  Our teaching team had to move inside right next to the craft team.  Which in a normal setting may not be too bad, however, we were in a room about 12x18.  And there were about 40 in there…and the kids were making harmonics.  So that was a fun time.  The rec crew had to move into the school…and they still endured rain even inside the building.  They weren’t able to play all of the games planned but they had fun anyway.

All of the teams did such a great job with their groups.  The language barrier is tough for most and it is probably a lot harder than they thought it’d be.  Please pray that God does a great work and allows them to press through that difficulty.

We were supposed to leave the church at about 5:30PM, but because of the rain, we could not release the kids.  We were told to “stall” until the rain stopped.  It was really cool because we just assembled all of the kids back together and just used the time to sing songs.  I love their enthusiasm!  They sing with such passion and love to do the songs with motions.

The rain finally let up enough that we could send the kids home around 6:10PM.  We loaded up the bus and spent the next hour on the road to the center.  (It is about a 20 mile drive that takes about an hour).  The students used that time to tell stories of the day and to sing.  I used it to update the blog. :)

We arrived at the center about 7:15PM and promptly began to eat.  Tonight Oscar and crew made us steak fajitas with homemade corn tortillas, grilled onions, muy caliente (VERY HOT for you gringos) pico, and crema (much like sour cream).  The students filled themselves up and now we are about ready to have our share time, debrief, talk about tomorrow, shower and go to sleep. 

Thank you so much for your prayers!  We feel them.  God is moving in our hearts and we are loving our time in Nicaragua!

Pressing On,

Dale