Here are a few details about our last few days:

On Thursday we were blessed to have a free day in the midst of our week.  After 3 full days of construction and food distribution it was a nice break.  We traveled to Granada and took a boat tour of volcanic islands full of beautiful flowers, trees and some monkeys.  We also went to an overlook in Caterina that had an amazing view of Granada as well as some mountains and volcanoes.  We headed to the market and bought a few souvenirs to return home with and ended our outing by going to a live volcano where we hiked and snapped a few pictures.  Our final stop was a chicken and pizza place called Narcy’s Pollo and Papa John’s.

Today we had a fantastic long day of sports ministry.  We traveled into the Oriental Market to Pastor Belcer’s church and played some games with the 3rd through 6th graders.  We had a blast playing balloon relays with them as well as Sharks and Minnows and a little dodgeball.  They didn’t quite understand the dodgeball game, but we tried.    It was awesome to hear their laughter and see their smiles.  After the games were done we had a snack for them and gave them a gift.  The 3rd and 4th graders received board and card games (Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, UNO, Cootie, Yahtzee Jr…) and they were so excited, but had no idea what these games were.  We had to do a little explaining and showed them that there were instuctions in Spanish they could follow.  I hope there was a lot of game playing going on tonight!  We gave the 5th and 6th graders frisbees which they first used as a plate, but then we showed them how to use them and it was all good.  Right after we were done with the younger kids we ate a quick lunch on the bus on the way to a great sports camp in the mountains that had a basketball court, soccer field, baseball field and volleyball court.  There were about 50 high school students from Belcer’s church that joined us.  The students that got to participate in this were there as a reward for good attendance or good grades at school.  We divided them up into three groups for kickball, soccer, and basketball.  It went very well until the heat was too much for everyone and we gathered under the shelter of the basketball court for some shade.  We had a great game of German Dodgeball then gathered for a snack and Sean Dietrich shared about being an example at school.

By the end of the day we were worn out!  We ended our night with a fun celebration of  the two birthdays in our group.  Tyler Wysner turned 16 and Heather Pielemeier turned 17 this week so we had a fiesta with an Elmo pinata and some delicious cake.  One of our Nicaraguan friends Yesinia also had a birthday so she joined us for the festivities.

We can’t believe that our week is almost over and we treasure the friendships that have been made both in our group and with the Nicaraguan people.  Thank you to all who have been praying for us- the Lord has worked in and through all of us and we have been forever changed!