611 spam emails later....

ok, so here i am in nicaragua! i doubt many of you will even read this, but i thought i´d share, anyway.

the trip with the team was awesome. God really did a lot in and thru us. it is amazing to me the team unity that formed, especially with the costa ricans.

i´m slightly out of sorts right now... the american team left last nite, the ticos left this morning, and shortly after that, i said goodbye to alan and susan and hopped a microbus to granada, where i am now. i got here, found a hostel, locked up my bag, read a bit of the postings around here (and made a reservation for teh shuttle ride to their sister hostel on the edge of a lagoon for tuesday), and started to check email. lots of emails, including 611 spam messages, and I´ve just traveled the world.

this hostel reminds me of cairns, australia and verona, italy. it´s gorgeous. a pool in teh courtyard, hammocks lining another courtyard with a huge (50ft x 15 ft) mural on the wall. amazing. not to mention the town. it reminds me both of antigua guatemala and el cercado, mexico, where i lived for 5 weeks with my mexican host family. i received emails from friends heading for china, describing small-town kansas with clarity, traveling in india, traveling in western china, the housing coordinator in california, and more. i´m sitting next to a german, i hear english at the other end of the computers, and, of course, i´m actually in nicaragua. really? am i?

my spanish, thankfully, has come back to me, at least when people speak slowly. i have learned a bit more and grown more confident in what i am remembering.

on the drive from managua to granada, we passed a gate to a home with a banner over it, flapping in the (delicious) breeze: "here lives doña maria, the best mother in the world."
a woman took the seat next to me who had a huge platter of nicragua peanut brittle and 3 other treats that she sells and carries on her head.

2 men got on the bus carrying roses - one a bouqet of 6 colors, the other an arrangement to lay flat somewhere. considering all the smells i´ve encountered in many places, i could not ask for anything better!

children, maybe 8 and 10, shovel dirt into the many potholes, then beg for change from passing cars. alan keeps a jar of coins (tican, nican and gringan) for such ingenuity and hard work.

susan told me this morning of a 12 year old girl she prayed for a few weeks ago. she was in an abusive situation, and social services came that day to place her with her aunt and uncle. she also received Christ in her heart and left with a huge grin on her face. it was the first time susan had seen such a visible transformation from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, both spiritually and physically. she cried as she told me.

i had planned to go to selvanegra, a coffee plantation and organic farm in the highlands, where it´s cooler, but then decided to come down here to granada. tamara must have been praying for me.

i went shopping for most of my souvenirs yesterday and was able to send them home with tamara, so my bag is teh smallest it has ever been. i had to devise a new way to tie it all down so that there wasn´t a lot of extra room in it as i traveled. it actually fit between my legs in the microbus, with my day pack on my lap. and i still had room to wiggle my toes.

cattle and horses graze anywhere and everywhere. if they find a green patch, they´re there. on the island, pigs did the same. in the country side, add goats to the mix.

the plants here are amazingly beautiful. tall palm trees, fruits i´ve never seen or heard of. simply amazing.

dave gave me one of the biggest compliments: "you enjoy this sort of thing, don´t you? traveling, the lifestyle here? it doesn´t seem to bother you mush. it seems like you were cut out for a life like this."

by the end, i grew tired of the arrogance of our american selves. but all in all, i was very impressed by the team and how well they all seemed to go with it. our 2 first-timers were some of the best on the trip! they did great!

i got to stay with tamara in both hotel istiam and the orphanage. she makes a great roommate. i think we kept each other both sane and silly.

susan let me read one of her books, the end of poverty. interesting stuff. i only got maybe 1/5 the way thru it. i find myself thinking more and more in terms of economic development. i bought a whole bunch of jewelry from the orphanage, made by the kids, to give as gifts. why not support places that i know that the money will go to a good cause and won´t be squandered?

there are 7 active volcanoes here in nicaragua. one of them, volcan concepcion, is the northern half of the island where we were for a week. the first half of the week we stayed on the isthmus between the inactive and active volcanoes, with a great view of both. the second half of the week, we were on the edge of the active one, but with so much foliage, i didn´t ever get a good look at it except for the ferry ride to and from the island. one of the other active volcanoes, masaya, we went to yesterday. both masaya and concepcion constantly spew gases that cause some awesome cumulus clouds.

a few times (very rarely) i have smelled people burning their trash (the best way to get rid of it on the island). when i did smell it, it reminded me of the fires back home and how thankful i am not to have dealt with them these last 10 days. when i was in VA, smelling the smoke, it reminded me of people burning trash in mexico. full circle, in a way.

i´m kind of surprised at how rich this country seems. not really rich, but better off, at least. there are a fair share of luxury vehicles and haciendas tucked into hillsides, but i´m just surprised that i don´t see many slums or any extreme poverty, really. i´ve seen worse in other countries, places that officially aren´t as poor as nicaragua (the 2nd poorest in the western hemisphere).

i expected mostly beans and rice for every meal. we usually got beans and rice, but we also got so much more, i was so thankful for it! some of the best chicken and beef i´ve tasted. and fried platanos that ended up like french fries. just add salsa de tomate!

THANK YOU for your prayers. they were so needed and i know accomplished so much. keep me in your prayers as i travel these last 5 days, and the teams as they debrief. and me, as i debreif alone.

even so, come Lord Jesus!