Broken Butterflies

It’s February 2011 and I have  just returned from my fourth trip to Nicaragua, the last fact-gathering trip before book publication. 

I open my suitcases, still streaked with Nicaragua’s ubiquitous dry-season dust, and discover that, despite cushions of newspaper and clothes, one of the three ceramic butterflies has cracked in half during the flight.

I’m sad. Out-of-proportion sad.

Ever since a butterly  alighted on my wrist during outdoor morning meditation, butterflies have been a resonant image for me. A three-foot silk butterfly that emerged from its cocoon week-by-week in our church sanctuary during a fruits-of-the-spirit sermon series, now hangs in my sun porch.

On this latest Nicaragua trip, I admired the ceramic butterflies perched on cement toadstools in the courtyard of Managua’s Nehemiah Center, and asked where I could purchase them. Juan Granado, the center’s  business manager, told me that crafts people made them at Masaya,  an hour or so to the southeast.  “Great!” I said. “Our team is travelling there next Friday.”

The following Monday, however, a proudly smiling Juan presented me with three ceramic butterflies.  He reassured me that he did not make a special trip. He was passing Masaya on the weekend to visit relatives, and stopped for them.

I was touched. I had only a nodding acquaintance with Juan. I was quite certain that, as a percentage of income, those butterflies cost him more they would have cost me. I asked if I could reimburse him for the cost. No, he insisted, they were a gift. It was his pleasure. Truly.

The moment etched itself in gold letters on my heart. I thanked him profusely. I wrote him a thank-you card.

Juan, I learned later, had purchased and placed the butterfly-and-toadstool ornaments I had admired in courtyard just prior to my arrival—to varied reactions from the staff members. The Nicaraguan staff had thought they were a wonderful focal point. The North Americans had been a little less enthusiastic.

My admiration had validated Juan’s taste.

I was told about this varied reaction when our  church service-and-learning team decided to investigate distributing these yard ornaments in the U.S as a fundraiser.

And now, this butterfly--hand-painted in vibrant Latino colors, an unexpected gift, an emblem of different cultural tastes, a harbinger of future hopes--has lost its wing.

Marlo, my solution–oriented, engineer husband, picks up the pieces, nests them together, turns them over, and pronounces the wing repairable “I can glue it and reinforce the bottom with a metal strip,” he says. “From above, it will hardly show.” 

My butterfly can be transformed.

If only a little glue and a strip of metal could transform Nicaragua.

Or, for that matter, North America.

That task belongs to Bigger Hands.

And in those hands, perhaps I can be just one glue-drop of the change I hope to see.

Pella: Friday After Midnight

The van hums as we exit Highway 163 onto Washington Street.

Looking at the Pella tundra, Marlo says, “In Nicaragua, you can be poor and survive, but not in Pella.”

Through the flurries, Wal-Mart’s windows beckon across a deserted parking lot. Remembering our empty refrigerator, we turn in.

My lungs recoil and I as I exit the heated van, and I cough into my fleece sleeve. I keep my elbow in front of my face till Wal-Mart’s automatic door opens for us.

“Yes,” the wan clerk says.  “We are still open-- 24-7, 7 days a week.”

We toss hermetically sealed vegetables, shipped-from-the-south bananas, cellophaned bread, and  unsweetened almond milk into the cart, and crunch back to the van.

Our garage door yawns open as we approach.  Drying hydrangea stems and miscellaneous metals cast long shadows in the headlights.

We heave dusty suitcases into the house. Marlo turns up the thermostat and then clicks  controls of our electric mattress pad to high..

We put the food in the side-by-side refrigerator, roll the suitcases along the carpeted hall, and park them unopened on the bedroom floor.

I crawl under three layers of warmed covers. My pillow is stale with January perspiration.

This world may change by morning, but in this moment, shortly after midnight, my Pella home feels as foreign as some North Pole on another planet.

Tortillas--Start to Finish: A Blog in Pictures

STAGE ONE: TORTILLA MAKER

(Turn your head sideways) 

1. Mix corn flour and water. Pat into tortilla shape.

This streetside vendor spends about 8 hours per day making and selling 200 to 300 tortillas per day for 1 cordova (5 cents) each.

2. Fry above a wood fire.

 Other heat can be used, but wood fires produce tortillas with the best flavor.

3. Keep edges loose. Flip them periodically.

4. Supervise children joining you in the tortilla shed.

You are making and selling tortillas so you can afford their uniforms and school supplies.

STAGE 2: TORTILLA BUYER

1.Purchase a bag of tortillas

2. Fold, insert cheese, and fry.

3. Squeeze a little sour cream atop the cheese. Slice a mango, and serve.

Delicioso!

Light Bulb Moment

Josiel Hernandez is the son of our guesthouse owners who is in chef school. I ask him questions to learn about Nicaraguan tortillas.

Laptop in front of me, I type notes, handing the laptop to Josiel to type the Spanish words.

I learn that:

·         Flour tortillas are Mexican, not Nicaraguan. Most flour tortillas in Nicaragua are imported.

·         Corn tortillas can  be served soft or fried crisp (tortillas fritas)

·         Corn tortillas are essential in the Nicaraguan diet. Many Nicaraguans with few resources eat them three meals per day—along with frijoles (beans).

·         Some more affluent Nicaraguans do not eat corn tortillas because they consider them low class. But Ricardo Hernandez loves them, and the family eats them often.

·         Most tortilla makers do not have full-scale pulperias (neighborhood home-based shops), but specialize in making corn tortillas.

·         In the Hernandez neighborhood are at least ten homes where women make and sell tortillas to earn money.

My adrenaline rises. One of my assignments from my co-author, Donna Biddle, is to interview a tortilla maker, gather some tortilla-making statistics, and take a photo. I may be able to fit that in before Friday after all!

I ask Josiel if he’d be willing visit a favorite tortilla vendor and translate. I’ll give him a list of questions in advance. He consents. We set a time, and he heads for the kitchen to make our evening meal.

Josiel’s English is far better than my Spanish, but still a little hesitant. I decide that a written list might help us both.

I turn to my laptop  to start my list of questions.

Then I realize I don’t have Josiel’s email address.

I remember the Hernandez ink jet printer is out of ink.

I  decide my computer screen will make clumsy reading at the tortilla shop.

Whatever will I do?

I have a light bulb moment.

I grab a pen, rip a page from my notebook, and start to write.

Duhhhhhhhhh…….

Light Switch

Last Friday, the church team’s final night in Nicaragua, we selected special causes for a parting gift of encouragement.

“Let’s buy the Nehemiah Center a new extension cord,” said Larry. Palmer nodded. Their to-do list from the center had included putting a new plug on a 50-foot extension cord. But it was frayed and taped in multiple places, and the ends were falling apart. “It’s not worth fixing,” we concluded.

Yesterday, with the help of our taxi driver Miguel, Marlo bought an extension cord at Richardsons, which several weeks ago had been one stop in a long series in search of wood for shelving.

This afternoon, through Service and Learning Teams coordinator Steve Holtrop, we gave it to maintenance supervisor Don Antonio. (In Spanish the term “Don,” is not a name, but indicates respect for age.

We're working on our laptops at the center  when, still carrying the extension cord, Don Antonio locates us and  thanks us graciously in Spanish.

We tell him we saw the current extension cord was peligro (dangerous). Marlo advises throwing it in the basura (garbage).

If we understand him correctly, he responds that Nicaraguans know how to make things last, to fix them.

He says they had to do even more of it in the early 1980s, after the Sandinista revolution. He describes and example, but we don’t understand.

“Un momento,” he says and rushes off for a prop. He returns with a medical plastic syringe and two pieces of wire. He points to the light switch and tells us that light switches could not be bought, not anywhere. He inserts a wire into both ends of the syringe, and pushes the plunger until the wires touch. “Ven? Luz!” he says. (You see? Light!) Then he retracts the plunger to demonstrate the off position.

“Muy creativo!” says Marlo. (Very creative!) 

He smiles.

And I think, but do not know how to say, that the same is true of Don Antonio’s demonstration.

 I comment, half as a question, that I think now Nicaraguans have it better than in those times.

“Si,” he says, and nods.

But, if we understood him earlier in our conversation, that old extension cord will not go in the basura.

It will be passed on to un pobre (a poor person) who needs it and can  use it.

And rightly so.

That choice belongs, not to us, but to him.


----
PS to prevent cardiac arrest in Larry, Palmer (and other electrical-expert-readers):


The answer is, No the syringe did not have liquid in it. It was the only syringe photo I could find online.


And neither were the demonstration wires connected to any electrical circuit.

Slowing Down

On the Hernandez front porch I rock in silence, cradling a mug of Nicaraguan coffee. Latino music comes from the kitchen where Leyda is making oatmeal. Doves and rooster greet the day. A short-legged, hairless dog trots past. My sinuses tingle with an emerging cold. Palm fronds wave in dappled shade.

I read, question, argue with, and find my place in Psalm 86.

I am sill and know that he is God.

I am still and know.

I am still.

I am….

Two days remain before the return flight, and momentarily I want only to rock, sit, listen, and be until take-off.

I remember an anecdote from Africa:

North Americanas were trekking strenuously thorugh a jungle, when they arrived at a clearing. Their African guides found a log and sat. And sat. The North Americans, chafing to get to their destination, asked about the reason for this long stop. Whatever were the guides doing?

“We are waiting for our souls to catch up with us,” they said.

This morning I am waiting for my soul.

In my triumphant, change-the-world-now student days, I would have pointed an accusing finger at this image and labeled it a  forbidden sacred-secular, nature-grace dichotomy.

Four decades later, I’m not so sure.

In this moment, the story works.

It is enough. 

School Visit

Nery Martinez

I need a school visit to round out the education chapter of the book. The Nehemiah Center recommends Mount Hermon school in Cedro Galan, a comarca (semi-rural area) just south of Managua.

I meet  with its principal Elsa Madrigal and its founder Daniel Aragon. I work to mask my sadness at what I hear:

·         Students do not have textbooks. Teachers have older teacher’s editions of the government-required curriculum. To learn about the current edition, they visit cyber-cafes to browse the Internet.

·         The school has 17 computers, but the electrical power can only handle 10 at one time. ___ students, grades 3 through 11 receive computer training, two per computer, jostling each other for control of the keyboard.

·         Teacher salaries are $120 per month.

·         Starting with six year olds, attendance drops in harvest season, as the students head for the fields. By age 10 students are on their own in a field, supervising younger siblings, while parents work elsewhere.

·         Each year since 2001, the school year begins with less than a month’s budget on hand.

Then Elsa and Daniel introduce me to Nery Martinez , a 23-year old, Mount Hermon teacher in third grade, who tells me her story. Nery was 13 when Mount Hermon school was born. Although she longed to go to school, she had not done so. Her single mother, who worked as a maid, could not afford the uniforms and school supplies. So Nery could  not read. Neither could the other children in Cedro Galan.

Daniel Aragon and his wife Darling did not plan to found a school. They had bought Cedro Galan land to build their home. But, working on that plot each weekend, they soon discovered the plight of neighborhood children. They did not mask their pain. They set to work: a Sunday school, a Bible club, and then a Mount Hermon, which began on the porches of two neighborhood families. Ten years later Mount Hermon has a primary school, and high school with a total of 196 students—and a multi-level preschool, as well.

When Nery finished Mount Hermon high school, she immediately started teaching third grade. She simultaneously began studying pedagogy at a Managua university and is now in her third year. 


Daniel prompts her to talk about her future. When she finishes her pedagogy study, she’d like to specialize in Spanish teaching at another university. Someday, she’d like to be a university teacher herself.

I ask where she thinks she would be without Mount Hermon.  “I would not have learned to read,” she says. She, too, might have become a single mother, a maid.  She might have been without dreams, hopes, vision. . .

Her vision lights mine. Daniel and Elsa are not indulging in a pity party. That party been mine alone. Their faces, like Nery’s, have been lit with hope.

And when Daniel takes me on a walk through the school grounds, I see with his eyes. I see children laughing, playing, learning. …

I see 196 reasons to hope.

…......

I finish this afternoon’s blog, dissatisfied.

It's longer than I'd like, and I have only told a fraction of the Mount Hermon story.

But it will have to do for now. After all, no one on the globe reads chapter-length blogs.

For the rest of this story, you will need to wait for the book. Stay tuned!

Chinandega Miracle

Today I will visit a Christian school in a comarca (semi-rural area) on the south edge of Managua.

I offered to take a taxi, but three Nehemiah Center staff members, who have all been to this school before, were unable to create a reliable set of directions for a taxi driver.

You see, Nicaraguan cities have no building numbers and no street signs.  Only a few major roads have names, and those names can be learned only through conversation with local residents. Directions are given by a mysterious combination of landmarks and number of kilometers from a city’s central point.

I learned last week, though, that this Nicaraguan shortfall has one upside.

When our team travelled three hours from Managua to Chinandega, our driver was a professional who owned his own large van and transported people for a living.

He secured our luggage to the roof of his van with a skillful web of bungee cords.

En route to Chinandega, he avoided potholes and eased gently over speed bumps. He skillfully snaked through semis, bicycles, and horse-drawn carts. He came within inches of pedestrians without touching them.

And then, in Chinandega, he did something that widened the eyes and dropped the jaws of  five of his passengers to their hairy chests.

He rolled down his window to a blast of hot Chinandega air, hailed a passerby, and without embarrassment asked directions.

Three different times.

For the same destination.

Family Pickup

Leyda has fixed Nicaraguan chicken soup for dinner. Something light and good for the stomach, she says. She joins us at the table but doesn’t eat. She had late lunch and then an afternoon coffee and her stomach is a bit off.

Her son Ariel sits at an adjacent computer, supplying occasional translation as needed.

We ask about new guests we’ve heard will be arriving. On the 24^th, she tells us. That’s our last night here. Four couples, she says. North Americans attending a conference at the university. They learned about this guesthouse by word of mouth.

We inquire about the second vehicle they had last year, a pickup. We haven’t seen it this year. “We gave it to the church,” Ariel translates.

“So now many people are now able to use it?”

No, we got it wrong. 

Ariel explains. The Hernandez family sold the pickup and gave the money to the church. 

For a special project? Yes. So the church could make its monthly loan payment. We talk about the Nicaraguan economy in recent years--r ising prices for food, electricity, gas—but no increase in wages.

It is OK, they say. It is OK without the pick-up, and if we get another sometime, that will be OK too.

We talk about the volume of Verbo church music. I show Leyda my video of morning worship with its tireless dancer in the front row.  He is a devoted man, she says, very grateful to God. His family has experienced several miracles after much prayer. A daughter with vision difficulties, a wife with asthma. . .

We hear a car pull into the driveway. Leyda greets two North Americans. They need rooms for two of the couples tonight instead of the 24^th. Is it possible? Claro gue si. (Of course.)

She returns to the table, and excuses herself with a broad smile. She needs to prepare for guests.

Trailing clouds of glory as she carries sheets to the bedroom, she says, “God provides!”

I guess he does.

Someday, perhaps, even another pickup.

Monday Morning Panic

After a week with the team, I’m back at my computer working on the Nehemiah Center book. I decide to move four interview files to the appropriate electronic folder. I hit Ctrl+ X to remove them, move to the appropriate folder, and hit Ctrl+V to paste them.

My computer launches a frenzy of activity, telling me Teracopy is working with multi-gigabytes of material. I hit “Cancel” with no effect. I hit cancel two more times. Still no effect.

Several moments later, the electronic frenzy ends. I look in my folders for the past two years’ work, and, except for the new four folders I wanted to move,  there is nothing. Nada.

I search  book folder after book folder and all are empty. No photos, no notes. . . Nada. Marlo says something to me from his adjacent chair. I don’t hear a word.

I look up JD’s PCs Pella phone number and call Jonathan Dykstra on SKYPE. I explain. He answers in his calm technician-therapist voice and takes control of my computer from Pella. He searches the recycle bin. Nada.  I show him the empty folders, where half an hour ago there was a mountain of data and photos.

I show him the four files I moved—and then I spy an extra folder, “Nehemiah Center Book” where it does not belong.

“Wait a minute,” I say. “There’s an extra folder here.”

We look. The entire Nehemiah Center book folder has simply moved to a different location--along with the four files I intended to move.

Midwestern Calvinist introvert that I am, my next words do not belong to me.

As easily as from a Nicaraguan Pentecostal, they speak themselves. And I mean them.

“Praise the Lord!”

I revert immediately to my efficient and goal-oriented self, telling Jonathan. “Email the bill to Gail as a CVK services invoice, not a Write Place item.”

Post-adrenaline-rush, I wonder.

Have I, this morning, used the best of both worlds?
............
PS to my computer-expert friends who are shaking their heads:

Yes, yes, I do have an online back-up (Carbonite). So I would have been able to retrieve data, although probably not the most recent data because my internet access has been intermittent in Nicaragua and I've taken lots of photos.

If you're still looking for an opportunity to shake your heads and cluck and smile, here's one: I would have needed technical assistance from JDs PCs to retrieve the online data. I've never had to do it.

Sunday Morning Challenge

It’s our second Sunday morning at Verbo worship in Managua, more energetic than last week’s. In the front row, a man in a lime shirt dances to the fast beat. A woman swirls aloft a long and graceful scarf. 

I clumsily clap and move to the unfamiliar rhythms. But, when the message begins, I enter home territory for a Kuyperian Calvinist.  The Guatemalan guest preacher, James Janckoviak, describes two kinds of Christians:

• Believers, waiting for Christ’s return with folded arms
• Disciples, 100 percent committed to doing Christ's work until he returns.

However, this home territory has a twist.

Pastor James says he had an organic farm 25 years ago. “I loved that farm. It was my project.”

Wanting to serve God, he tried donating 14 acres for a Christian conference center, but that fell flat. A church elder said, “You want to serve God? Sell your farm. You are married to it!”

He sold his farm for double what he had paid for it.

His church treasurer called on him. “You sold your farm?”

“Yes…”

The treasurer cited Acts 2 and said he should give it back to Jesus. He started to sweat. The whole thing?

Two weeks passed.  He sat in the back pew of church. He didn’t hear what the pastor was saying because he was having his own conversation with God.

“Lord, I’ll give you a tithe. All of it would be a lot of money.”

God was silent.

“Lord, I’ll give you a tithe AND an offering.”

Still silence.

He bargained upwards. 20, 30, 40, ... to 100 percent.

And at 100 percent, he heard, “No, not 100 percent.”

“Oh, what a good Lord, I have!” he thought. 

He pauses for the congregation to stop laughing and continues.

God added, “I don’t want 100 percent of your money but 100 percent of you.  That includes your money, your wife, your past, your future….your all.”

He answered, “Lord, I don’t want to become a fanatic. I really hope you are coming soon!”

Scripture verses and exposition follow. And then a challenge: Any congregation member wanting to commit all to Jesus today is asked to come forward. 

They may already be Christians. This isn’t a commitment to be a believer, but to be a disciple—to work instead of sitting with arms folded, waiting for the coming of Christ.

During the prayer that follows, these members file before him and he places his hand briefly on each head.

At lunch following the service, I ask two students from a Kuyperian Calvinist campus if they see differences between the Central American Biblical worldview and the one on their North American campus. “I think on campus there is more talk and less action,” one of them answers.

And from what I’ve seen both on Nicaraguan streets and in its sanctuaries, I couldn’t agree more.

High-Energy Worship at Verbo Church: Two Videos

Saturday Decompression

Leyda signals from the house that the food is ready. Marlo and I leave the  outdoor swing where we have been swaying, alternating silence and moments of slow conversation.

It’s been an overflowing week with the Faith church team. This  week, like the rest of life, was lived forward but will only be understood backward.*

Leyda joins us for dinner. Across languages, we tell Leyda about our lunch with Chinandega pastors and their work in their neighborhoods. We recount our visit to the young husband-and-wife pastor team in San Matilde who launched a church among the poorest-of-the-poor, funded only by faith, prayer, and a sense of calling.

“They touched my heart,” I say. “We have much to learn from Nicaraguan Christians.” Not knowing the Spanish words, I stumble though a list in the simplest English sentences I can create. “We learn to trust God. We learn to depend on him. We learn to. . . to want to do his will.”

Ricardo, who speaks more English, joins us, and Leyda asks me to repeat my list. “ I do, then add, "I think Nicaraguan Christians understand these better than North American Christians."

The conversation ambles along. Then they tell us a story. In Nicaragua, apparently, after course work is complete, there is a $1,700 fee for a university diploma—a very important piece of paper for employment.

Their son Ariel had completed his business finance course work, but they had no $1,700 for the fee.

So they prayed. And prayed some more. And yet again.

They do not advertise their guest house, they tell us, but they rely on the guests God sends.

God sent a team of 15 people, who needed food and housing for 10 days. The Hernandez family was able to pay the diploma fee. And in a country of rampant unemployment, Ariel now has a job.

We sit in silence a moment. Then Marlo asks if Leyda and Ricardo would like us to tell our friends coming to Nicaragua what a great guesthouse they offer. They smile and nod.

“Americans know how to plan. Nicaraguans know how to trust,” I say. “We can learn from each other.”

…

*I think I learned this lived-forward, understood-backward concept from C.S. Lewis. Based on past experience, I trust that Pastor Ryan Faber will be able to tell me which C.S. Lewis book—and which chapter of that book—upon my return to Pella.

Saturday Team Postscript

This morning Karen Spoelstra requested photos of the team that was "left behind"  at the Nehemiah Center for three days this week.

Thanks for asking, Karen! The left-behind-in Managua work team provided a few photos--and here they are!

Sandy Shalin Rhoades spent time with Angie De Waard and the students at Nicaragua Christian Academy.

 She also worked at Tesoros De Dios, a school for children with special needs.

Larry Groenenboom and Palmer Rhoades complete a list of maintenance requests for the Nehemiah Center, icluding making space in the roof for a growing tree,

installing bathroom fans.

assembling those fans,

and repairing an electrical extension cord. Larry and Palmer recommended that some Faith Church team discretionary funds be used to purchase a new electrical cord instead. And the team accepted that recommendation.

This morning we prayed together for Alma our host, Jose our driver, and Angie our Pella connection in Nicaragua, and for safe travel. We thanked God for a growing and learning experience and for what we have learned from Nicaraguan Christians.

There was an open window of time before departure for the airport, and Larry couldn't resist helping a Nehemiah staff person with some washer renovation to keep out the bugs.

And with this entry the Faith Church team blog ends and Carol's personal blog resumes. 

Stay tuned!

Thursday Touring

Until today our focus has been Nicaragua: The People. 

Today it was Nicaragua: the Land.

We walked on Mount Masaya, an active volcano, topped by a cross.

The smoke smelled of sulphur.

Crater walls were steep.

We used headgear to protect ourselves from the sun...

...and wore our hats in positions unusual for us because of the wind.

Some of us braved the elements bareheaded.

And others collected lava rocks as souvenirs.

We traveled on to see a lagoon in a volcano crater.

We stopped for lunch at Garden Court in Granada, aptly named...

And we took advantage of that setting for a group photo.

We walked the Granada streets.

We took a boat ride on Lake Nicaragua, the largest lake in Central America, with hundreds of tiny islands formed by a volcanic eruption.

It had homes for wealthy people...

 not-so-wealthy people,

 And thatched roof gathering places.

A local resident fished.

Mount Mombacho, a rain forest, and coffee farms lined the shore.

And as we end our last day before heading home, we think this fern, peaking from volcanic rock is an apt description of what Nicaraguans are working hard to do, and what we want to do on our return:

Bloom where we are planted.

Thursday

Today was a day of meetings, which make pretty boring pictures. So I'll spare you! (Besides, that, I didn't take any.)

After breakfast the seven team members in Chinandega brainstormed what a partnership of Faith Church with Chinandega churches might look like, based on what we had learned so far. And our vision extended beyond just Faith Church to the larger community as well.

Then we asked for input from Steve Holtrop as Nehemiah Center team coordinator.

And, finally we sat down to lunch with three Nicaraguan pastors and listened to their thoughts about how their churches have become more healthy through the training from the Nehemiah Center and their vision for the future of their church ministries.

And we're excited by some of the options emerged today. We'll be developing those even further before we return home--and after that as well. Stay tuned, and you may become excited too!

We left the Don Mario Hotel, but not before taking a few photos. Materials from the ongoing renovation had accumulated at the curbside.

Inside the hotel was an open-to-the-sky courtyard filled with tropical plants.

The lobby wall was hung with paintings by owner Don Mario.

The streets  outside our hotel...

Halfway back to Managua we made a brief stop in Leon and toured its cathedral.

Tomorrow, after another planning and strategy session with Steve Holtrop, we'll relax for a day--seeing the sights of Nicaragua.

Wednesday....

In Chinandega we are staying at a comfortable hotel, that is under construction. The second floor team members step out of their room adjacent to this view.

We toured Bayardo Arce with Nehemiah Center staff--and people from Chinandega churches who are considering holding arts camps for this community. It felt like the start of a partnership as we walked together through the streets.

Plantain tree and bicycle taxi in Bayardo Arce

Another form of Bayarde transportation. These men saw my camera and stopped so that I could take a photo.

This 11-year old showed us her art from last year's arts camp.

 This girl's mother wasn't home, so she was very shy, but she demonstrated the tamborine rhythm she learened, as we sang Alabare.

In the afternoon we toured a church which has just started hosting a Compassion program. We didn't want to take many photos because we didn't want to be more of a distraction than we already were.

This morning we will meet as a team to think of what a partnership with Chinandega churches in these ministries might look like. Then at 11:30 we meet to have conversations with Chinandega pastors. Please pray that we will be open to God's light and leading as we talk.