My last day in Nicaragua...

One of my jobs as an ORPHANetwork summer intern is to work on collecting information from our orphanage partners for children’s biographies and updates for our sponsorship program. On Sunday we went to El Canon so that I could collect some sponsorship update information and I had the opportunity to see some of my favorite kids that I first met when I came to Nicaragua on Spring Break a year and a half ago. It was so great to see Arlen, Leyla, Eliazer, Juan, and all of my other friends there…it is amazing how much kids grow, even since I saw them in March, only 4 months ago! Eliazer is 12 now and starting to enter into his awkward years which was apparent when he started hiding from me when I first got there—he has never acted shy towards me. His voice has gotten so deep, too! I took my computer out to do some work but when all the kids gathered around me I decided to open up Photobooth and take silly pictures with the kids instead. They thought it was so funny to see their faces all distorted.

Me with two of my favorite girls (sisters) at El Canon, Arlen and Leyla.

On Saturday I had the chance to go to the La Chureca daycare center which is located right outside of the dump where women are able to bring their babies and young children to be cared for during the day. It was so neat to see this little place and hear about this awesome ministry from the pastor of the church at the dump. A little girl named Naomi who was 1 ½ years old climbed on my lap and we played together all morning. She was so adorable!

After we left the daycare center, the vision team, the nutritionist, and ONet departed for La Chureca so that Christina, the nutritionist, could do her work at the feeding center there. I was so excited when we approached the feeding center because I saw Claudia and Marielena again, two of my little friends from the dump. Claudia introduced me to her 2 younger sisters and I could tell she really takes care of them by the way she was holding the youngest sister. After the kids were weighed and measured, Marielena and I hung out together. She jumped off the back of a truck into my arms about 15 or so times laughing the entire time…it really is the little things. She is so joyful every time I see her. When we were leaving the dump, I looked out my window and sweet Marielena was standing right there just waving goodbye to me. I searched my backpack looking for something to leave for her and found a little packet of fruit snacks and a stick of gum. I gave her both and told her to put them in her pocket and to save them. We waved goodbye to each other until the bus disappeared. I will miss her.

At night the other intern, Greg, and I had the daunting task of taking care of all of the kids from about 6 pm until 9 pm so that the caretakers could have a night off and eat dinner with the team. I love giving them a night off, they are so deserving. Their work schedule consists of 15 days of work and 3 days off. Now that is a lot. I loved my time I got to spend with the younger girls. As I was tucking them into bed, JaJa (yah-yah) said, “Teresa, oremos,” which translates, “Teresa can we pray” and so JaJa said she wanted to pray and I loved listening to her thank the Lord for her little life and everyone in it and hear her repeat that God is good. After praying with JaJa, Maria wanted to pray with me, and then Ana, followed by her sister, Marisela. It was such a special time I got to spend with each one of these little girls. I chatted with Jamileth tonight for awhile. She asked to use my cell phone because she wants to call her Papa. My heart broke when she asked me this since I know her parents have abandoned her. She also told me she has been sick for 1 ½ to almost 2 years now and that she wants to be able to get out of bed. She told me she is so tired of being sick. I asked if I could pray for her and so I had the opportunity to hold her hand and lay with her while I prayed for healing and comfort to God for her fragile little body.

Today is August 13 and my flight departs at 7:00 AM tomorrow morning from Managua. As you can probably guess, it is going to be so hard to say bye to these wonderful kids and staff members I have met here at Casa Bernabe. Please be praying for me today as I say goodbye. I would also like to thank you for reading along as I have kept this blog throughout my time here in Nicaragua. Thank you for your love, prayers, and support as I have been down here the last month. I look forward to seeing you soon.

P.S. I got my name on Ervin's bus...quite an honor, I must say!

As promised...

Here is the picture I promised in my last post of Jamileth and her sweet caretaker, Maribel, who is also only 17. I had a chance the other night to sit with Jamileth and hold her hand and rub her arms and tell her that she is beautiful, that God loves her, and that I am praying for her. After I took this picture, she told me to show it to all of my friends in the United States. So, here you go, per Jamileth's request.

Here are some pictures of the nutritionist, Christina, measuring some of the younger boys here at Casa.

Panchito decided to measure himself.

"He rescued me because He delighted in me"

I am in my fourth week here in Nicaragua now. It’s really gone by so fast. We had our 3^rd team arrive on Thursday afternoon. It is a team of only 4 people. This trip is a little different than the others because it is a vision trip. So basically they only take down a few people from their church including their missions director to scope out Nicaragua and ORPHANetwork’s role here and decide if they want to plan trips down here with us. We also had another girl join the team on Friday. She is a nutrionalist and has decided she wants to use her talents the Lord has given her for people here in Nicaragua. She is using her scale and tape measure that she brought with her to determine which kids in our orphanages and feeding centers are malnourished. She is also training the people who are with these kids the most to be able to do the same thing so that we can keep track of progress of these kids as time goes on.

A few days ago a 17 year old girl named Yamilet came to the orphanage in an ambulance and on a stretcher from the Managua hospital. I sat with Don Carlos, the director of the orphanage, as he told me her story. This child is very malnourished to the point where she can barely see anything. Her parents shipped her over to her brother in Costa Rica to the hospital there where she stayed for a little while but was then sent back to Managua when they found out she was not a Costa Rican. When they put her in the hospital in Managua, her parents abandoned the poor girl because they did not have the means to care for her. A friend from the church got a hold of Don Carlos and asked if Yamilet could stay at the orphanage for a little while since the hospital made her leave because she got to be too expensive. When I walked in and saw Yamilet in the younger girls house at the orphanage, she was laying in a bed, face down, with her bones sticking up out of her back and covered in bed sores. This has been one of the harder things for me to see in our orphanage since being here for a month. I had a chance to talk with Yamilet yesterday as I sat by her side and told her my name and that I was from the States. She laughed at me for my Spanish-American accent. She is such a sweet girl. I told her she was beautiful and held her hand for a few minutes. She smiled. My prayer for Yamilet is that she would know Psalm 18 (v. 16-19) well:

“He reached down from on high and took hold of me;

He drew me out of deep waters.

He rescued me from my powerful enemy,

From my foes, who were too strong for me.

They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support.

He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.”

For her to know that the Lord is mighty to save and that He is her support and will rescue her from her sickness and sadness. He will draw her out of deep waters and bring her to a safe place because he DELIGHTS in her.

At last night’s Friday night devotional, it was announced that Don Carlos and Dona Velena are leaving the orphanage, Casa Bernabe. The girl who announced this to the kids was in tears and was joined by all the caretakers and other children soon after. What a testimony to this couple who had decided to give their lives to these children. They are such good people and personally, I am also going to be sad to see them go. Change for these kids is very hard, especially when they have gotten so attached to Carlos and Velena. They have been one of the better things to have happened to Casa Bernabe.

Many of you have asked what you can be praying for specifically for me while I am down here. Please be praying for healing for Yamilet and strength and energy for the women who are taking care of her. The younger girls have shown so much love to her and every time I go into the room, at least 2 of them are always by her side. Like Yamilet, these girls are not a stranger to abandonment and sadness. Praise God for amazing community and such love shown by these little girls for Yamilet since being at Casa. Please be praying for Don Carlos, Dona Velena, the staff at Casa Bernabe, and the 60 children that live there. Pray for a smooth transition and that the Lord will equip another wonderful director for Casa Bernabe. And finally, I would love prayer for myself. Yesterday was the first day I could feel myself becoming weak and tired from my last few weeks of being down here (and getting stung did not help either!). Please be praying for strength and energy so that I am able to give it my all this last week down here. Please pray that the Lord would prepare my heart to say goodbye on Thursday to these amazing children I have come to LOVE LOVE LOVE over the course of this last month.

I will post pictures of the nutritionist doing her work here in my next post.

Well, today is Saturday which means no school for the kids. I am going to go see if I can join in on a game of UNO with the younger girls. J

I have the best job ever.

After a full week with the Spring Branch team, we said our goodbyes at 4:00 in the morning on Tuesday. I am starting to feel that any flight that requires you to leave your house before 6:00 in the morning should be banned. It’s not that I’m not a morning person—I just don’t like leaving in the middle of the night, basically. Birds aren’t even up yet!

The girls playing a game of "UNO"...their rules tend to differ from ours a bit.

I am now finished with the trips I was assigned to this summer and it is starting to hit me that I am going to be leaving here in about a week. This internship has truly flown by! Please be praying for me as I get ready to leave next week. It has been hard seeing the other two teams leave the children this summer. Each day now at least 2 or 3 kids will ask me, “Teresa, cuando te vas?” which means, “Teresa, when do you go?” and it used to be a response I loved saying when I got here a month ago and August 14 seemed so far away, but it now is starting to make my heart ache to say I am going to be leaving in about a week. Each day I fall even more in love with all of these kids here. Each one has just captured my heart with their laughs, animated expressions, and silly little personalities. If money were never an issue, I would be down here once a month!

Ana and the rest of the kids thought it was a good idea to play with the cake instead of eat it. Everyone pretty much looked like this by the end of the night.

Walking back tonight after eating dinner and hanging out with the kids I realized how much I value that small window of time. I love to be with the kids after dinner and before bedtime. I love wrapping up their day with them by asking them what they learned in school, encouraging them to play me a song that they learned on their recorder, and loving on them with lots of hugs and kisses before they sleep. It is good to see what their everyday routine looks like without a group of gringos here and be able to encourage them in their homework, and build up their self-esteem. Many of these kids are very smart...and very cute—I love them a lot.

At the last porch time (nightly team gathering) with the Spring Branch youth group, one of the trip leaders read the group a special prayer called A Four-Fold Franciscan Blessing. It really touched my heart and sums up my emotions since being in Nicaragua this month so I wanted to share it with you all as well:

A Four-fold Franciscan Blessing

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really CAN make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God's grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.

And the blessing of God the Supreme Majesty and our Creator, 
Jesus Christ the Incarnate Word who is our brother and Saviour, 
and the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide, 
be with you and remain with you, this day and forevermore.

AMEN.

"Chains be broken. Lives be healed."

This past week I have been spending time with the Spring Branch Community Church youth group who arrived on Tuesday. I know I have a heart for youth because I feel so much more energized with this team than with my last, although my last team was really great, too. This week the team has had the opportunity to visit the feeding center in the Hurricane refugee camp, Nueva Vida, take an educational fieldtrip with the kids at the orphanage separating the older kids (who went to visit a former prison) and the younger kids (who went on a boat tour of Managua), to go to a river for the day, and spend time getting to know each other in general.

Hanging out with some friends in Nueva Vida.

Many ORPHANetwork trips do a guys night/girls night out where the boys hang out with the older boys from the orphanage and the girls spend time with the older girls from the orphanage. This gives everyone the opportunity to bond and have a chance to really get to know one another in a smaller group setting. The girls ate dinner at Valenti’s, a pizza place in Managua and went to the circus, and the guys played soccer at a nearby complex and then ate out at a Nicaraguan cuisine buffet. In the beginning of girls night, I always love watching the girls as they get on the bus with us one by one…they look so proud as they are wearing their cutest clothes, hair done up, and favorite accessories on. I love seeing them feel and look so beautiful—ready for a night away from the orphanage.

A couple of days ago I spent the morning sorting donations from Spring Branch with Doña Velena, who is the wife of the orphanage director here at Casa Bernabe and the caretakers at Casa. ORPHANetwork does not budget for clothes for the kids at the orphanage, so what people donate for clothes, is the children’s wardrobe. As I help the ladies separate boys from girls clothing, I am overwhelmed with the love these caretakers have for the kids as I watch them put clothes with tags into a bag labeled “New clothes” that they will save until December when they wrap those clothes up and give them to the kids at Christmas for presents. As we were finished sorting through the supplies people had donated, Dona Velena and I stood back and looked at the closet full of shelves of donations (brand new Youth bibles, several toothbrushes, toothpastes, shampoos, soaps, etc) and as we stood there thanking God, she told me that last month she had prayed for toothpaste, toothbrushes, and necessities such as these, and since that prayer had been answered, she said that they were able to purchase things like new rakes and brooms that the children use to do their chores. I know that many of you donate your clothes, so I tell you this to encourage you as you continue to be blessed, to keep blessing others.

Dirty with coal after the team's work project.

One of the things that we did this week was walk into the nearby community of Veracruz. Whenever I go into Veracruz, I feel like a local celebrity because they all are able to remember my name and from every direction I hear them calling out, “Teresa!” However, I will say that this status came at great price—its all because I was forced into a dancing circle by myself last year and everyone in the community who was there still remembers the event. I am never able to leave without at least 3 people asking me to repeat the performance, “Teresa, baila!” (Teresa, dance!) they say…I decline, politely. J When I told the women in the village I won’t be leaving until the 14^th of August, like the kids in the orphanage, they too respond with huge smiles of surprise. And when I told them my birthday is just 2 days later, their next reaction is to throw me a birthday party with a piñata and all. Their kindness and generosity never surprise me—I wish they could come home with me and teach everyone (including myself) about how to really love others.

Jessica, me, Selena, and Mercedes at a church carnival in Veracruz.

As I am in my third week processing through things here in Nicaragua I have come to realize that I see God here in most places. Yes, there is a lot of darkness—places like La Chureca, nights in Veracruz, in the stories of the kids I have come to know and love, but the pattern I have come to know here, is that in those dark places, Jesus has planted himself there as Light. I see Light in the face of my friend, Claudia, in La Chureca as she tells me (in English), “I am beautiful.” I hear Light every time one of my favorite little girls here at the orphanage, Ana, begins to laugh and giggle like there is no tomorrow. I see Light in the smile of a young child when a “gringo” yells, “Hola!” out the car window, as the child stands in the middle of the street in busy Managua at night begging for money. And I see Light in the lives of my friends here who willingly share their testimonies about how God has changed their lives, completely giving Him the glory.

The people I have encountered here in Nicaragua over the last year and a half have really shown me what an unshakeable faith looks like. Hosea chapter 6 says, “surely as the sun rises, [You] will appear,” and it is so evident these people believe that through the way I watch them live their lives and share their stories. There is a line from a song I love that repeats,

“Chains be broken, lives be healed, eyes be opened, Christ is revealed”

My prayer for the people here is just that. That they may be set free from the chains of poverty, addiction, and anything else that is keeping them in bondage. For lives to be healed through the Holy Spirit, and eyes to be opened to Christ as their Redeemer.

"Defending the fatherless and the oppressed..."

"Dios es Amor" or some other phrase having to do with faith, is what you often see painted on the back of Nicaraguans' primary mode of transportation: old, and colorfully decorated school buses. Throughout my times here in Nicaragua it has always been so evident that God is love and that He is very much present here. I decided to start a blog to update you all on my time spent here in Managua over the next 4 weeks. I want to share how God loves His people here and what I am learning. Apologies for not having written much about my time here over the last couple of weeks but I am going to try to catch you up with some of the highlights right now.

So the first week here was great. I must preface this by saying that I am an extrovert so I gain energy from being around people which is why I was so excited to help with leading teams down here and making sure that they experience Nicaragua to its maximum potential. We had two churches staying at Casa Bernabe orphanage (where I am), Cedar Run Church, from Northern Virginia, and Poplar Creek Church, from Chicago. These trips were both family trips, which means they were a mix of all ages. We had 11 year olds to 70 year olds.

Every Friday night the kids at the orphanage have devotional time as a group. The first night the team arrived they had an opportunity to take part in devotional time with the kids where we got to sing praises to God in Spanish and English. Just like at the church here, any time I am at a worship service in Spanish I become so overjoyed and comforted knowing that God crosses into every culture, He knows no language barriers—because He knows every language. It always reminds me of how GREAT and how BIG our God truly is.

Another fun activity we did with the team was take the younger kids from the orphanage (ages 4-14) to a waterpark called Hertylandia. It’s basically like Disney Land for the kids here, however, much smaller. I was able to see my friends from El Canyon orphanage because they were also at Hertylandia with another team. It was so wonderful seeing their faces, and to hear them call me by name is always a blessing.

My good friend, Ruben, striking a pose at Hertylandia. This is normal for him :)

Every team that comes to Nicaragua is given a work project. The work project for the week was to build hydroponic boxes. Basically what these will be used for is planting crops such as tomatoes, lettuce, onion, celery, and more without a large plot of land. The crops are able to grow in a box with some coal, rice, and water and are grown in about 50 days—very quick! Interesting, huh? I thought so.

During the team’s stay in Nicaragua, we took a trip into the school at La Chureca, Managua’s city trash dump where families live, and took kids out for the day to a park made by the Japanese, they call it, Parque Japon (Ha-pone). So when we arrived to the park, as usual, the kids love to take my camera and run off with it and take lots of pictures. This time, my friend from last year who I got to see again this year, Claudia, took my camera and started taking a photoshoot of her friends. They picked off large pink flowers from the trees in the park and used them as their primary prop for their photoshoot. As I was watching these girls taking pictures, I was thinking to myself that this must be so much fun for them to be able to feel so beautiful surrounded by big pink flowers and away from the trash.

My friend, Claudia, showering herself with flowers during her photoshoot in Parque Japon.

One of my favorite events with the team was when we had a YoungLife Club night where the team organized fun games to play and some of the kids, one from the church and 3 from the orphanage, had a chance to share their testimony with everyone. This was a very special time of listening to what the Lord had done in their lives and how they came to faith. Many of the kids (2 teenage girls and 1 teenage boy) shared their stories and one boy in particular got very emotional as he shared his hatred for his mother. The team had the opportunity to come together and lay hands on the boy as we prayed for him afterwards. It is so great to know that the Lord has put some wonderful people with a strong faith in these kids lives, such as their caretakers who live with them 24/7, as role models for them, and they all shared that same appreciation in their testimonies. Along with praying for the child, we also had a chance to lay hands on Danilo, a caretaker for the teenage boys at the orphanage, who has decided to completely give his entire life to be a disciple of Christ and has greatly influenced many of the kids here in their faith journeys.

The first team was wonderful and I believe that I have learned a lot already only after being here for 2 weeks. The Lord led me to a passage in Psalms chapter 10 one morning when I was searching for comfort for my friends here in Nicaragua:

“The LORD is King for ever and ever; the nations will perish from his land. You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.”

After being here for a little over 2 weeks now, my prayer is just that: that my friends here would take comfort in knowing that the Lord will arise and will defeat the enemy, whether it be something from their past they are trapped in, an addiction they are struggling with, or poverty in general. He has not forgotten the helpless and I pray that my friends here would commit themselves to Him because he is the helper of the fatherless.