Goodbye Nicaragua

Ok so I figured I should probably at least finish my stories of Nicaragua. So the Waslala trip... one word EPIC! I loved the trip. We took our two Toyota trucks, one covered to put our luggage under in case it rains and one uncovered so people could stand on the back because we couldn’t fit everyone in the front of the trucks. Our trip up was an absolute blast! Poor Jason though. Only guy in a truckload of girls but he did get an education though. For the first 3 hours it was smooth roads. Well as smooth as Nicaragua roads get and the last 3 hours was brain-jarring bumpiness! We were all very seat sore by the time we got there! The last little bit was a bit muddy. At one point we were spinning out going up a hill with a huge bus sliding down toward us and we couldn’t back up either cuz there was a bus directly behind us. Huge sigh of relief went up when the bus was able to direct itself to slide around us. We stayed at a house directly above the clinic which we did get a tour of later on. Great work going on there! If you get a chance pray for the work happening there. For supper we had to drive over to Timo’s house and trying to back out of the driveway we ended up sliding into the ditch. I know its rainy season there but in Malpiasillo the rain has kinda been lacking whereas Waslala has had plenty or so it looks! We finally got unstuck and made it there and enjoyed really good Nicaraguan cooking. After hanging out and lots of chatter we headed home or so we tried… Ditch number 2! Sigh lol it made for a good laugh anyway. What we all thought it was very ironic was that Jason Shantz had been driving the first time and the second time it was big Jason and we figured out must be just a Jason thing! :) Not that I could have done a better job! The next day bright n early after breakfast of course we shipped out to go on our little hike. It took around 2 hours I think to get there and Waslala roads are CRAZY bumpy! I was riding in the back and I had to hold onto the bar above me and I was so sore later than I couldn’t sleep on my side! Yes it was BUMPY but fun! Ok I love making this sound dramatic although it wasn’t really that dramatic. Ready? Ok so this hike was a hike through the mountainous muddy Jungles of Nicaragua during rainy season and none of us had brought boots and it was too muddy to keep our flip flops on our feet so most of us ended up going barefooted! See! Dramatic right. ;) Nah not to bad really but I really did enjoy this hike a lot, a lot of good talks and memories. Some of the people in the front of the group even got to see monkeys! I saw at least one. Hhmmm just saying, hiking in a long muddy dress is a kinda frustrating. Got to love new experiences though right! When we got within sight of the waterfall we were supposed to magically turn into monkeys or something. Jumping from slippy rock and climbing over huge boulders till we finally got to the waterfall. Oh and funny story, I lost my flip flop down the stream and our guide and Jason had quite a time trying to retrieve it, which I was very thankful to them for. The waterfall was magnificent, loud and powerful! Three of the guys went swimming and it was overall a fun time there. We got a bunch of videos and pictures. After a bit we headed back but unfortunately on the way up I had gotten cut right under my big toe where you grip when you walk so the way down was a little slower for me but Krista, being the awesome chica she is, offered me her boots that one of the guys had given her. Boots made that hike a thousand times easier. Apparently the hike up took a little over an hour and the hike down took 50 minutes. I can believe the second one but not so much the first one. We got back to our truck by 2 and we were all rather hungry since we hadn’t eaten since 7 that morning but we were rather late for a youth event in Waslala so we decided to drive straight there and maybe stop at a small store for like a few snacks. About 20 minutes into the drive our truck got stuck in neutral I believe is what they said, so while they were trying to fix it we got to walk into a lil town up the road a little and get some snacks and while we eating them a young girl came along selling chicken, rice and tortillas. Praise the lord cuz I was hungry for real food! :) After maybe a half hour the truck was finally fixed and we were back in business. We got back to the house packed up and all got refreshing COLD showers. It’s amazing how good it feels to be clean when you were caked with mud. We missed a lot of the youth event but got there right in time for supper. And wow I had never seen so many native Mennonite youth before. The church was packed! It was so good to see the Waslala Water students again and hear all their crazy stories! After supper we had a lot of singing and every church represented there sang a song in front of everyone. After a lot of talking and stuff we mozied over to the Yoder girls house. Some of you may have heard of Pablo Yoder? Anyway this was his daughter’s house. We had a blast there and wow do they have some exotic pets! A huge bird parrot like thing, an alligator, a monkey and they have a snake pit! How cool is that?? That night Rosibel and I just had a party. She knows a little English and I know a little Spanish and it just worked. We were sitting on the couch listening to music and talking with my Spanish English dictionary app open my phone. I’m gonna miss that girl! The next day after we went fabric shopping we headed home. We made a small pitstop in Matapalga for lunch and while we were there these 3 HUGE guys walked in!! like huge as in TALL!!!! The one guy had to be 7 feet and the others close to it to! The one guy lazily reached up and touched the ceiling, TOUCHED! And he could have reached farther. Wow now that’s when it was hard not to stare. I overheard one of the guys say “yoo so this is like downtown Matapalga”, that made me laugh. Anywho so we got home around 3 and well crashed! It was good to be home again.

We had one last day trip with the Leon crew on Monday and that was a blast! More hiking, riding in the back of trucks, awesome souvenir shopping, talking, and memories I pray I will never forget. Oh and hear this, it was COLD! At least in the back of the truck it was! Brrr! Sigh Have I ever mentioned I love this crew! Miss you guys!

Goodbyes… Sigh I HATE goodbyes! I just kept singing to myself “no tears in heaven be no tears no tears up there, no tears in heaven will be known!” but the time finally showed its ugly face. Goodbye to my native friends, my mission friends… sigh so hard. We left for the airport bright and early Thursday morning. 3am early to be exact. It was about a 2 to 3 hour ride and it was in dead silence. Yes, yes I am the annoying person that loves talking at early times in the mornings! Poor fellow travelers. We got there is plenty of time though and made it through security and everything and before we knew it we were leaving the beautiful country of Nicaragua that we loved so much. Our flights were for the most part unsuccessful except one part. Wow way to close of a call. We were all boarded our 2^nd flight from Houston to Newark and Bradlyn kept not boarding and not boarding and we all figured well he will show up because by now we were used to him disappearing but he was always there by the time the plane took off. But he kept not showing up and I was beginning to get a little worried and a little panicky. I was all like praying he would show up and almost the whole plane was boarded and he wasn’t showing up finally I was like got to call him! I fished my SMBI WATER contact paper out of my bag and typed in the number beside his name praying that it wasn’t his home phone or something. After a couple rings he calmly answers and I was like yo where are you!? The plane is supposed to be leaving the runway in about 15 minutes!!! I think I shocked him a little bit cuz he was like should I hurry? and I was like YES!!  And I could hear him running. I prayed and prayed he would make it before they shut the door. Finally he was like the 2^nd or so to the last person who entered the plane. A collective sigh went up from all of us. He was like panting and we were all like where were you? And it turns out he was basically as far away as you could be in that terminal. And the reason he didn’t know it was leaving was cuz his phone was on Nicaraguan time which is about an hour behind Houston. Well that made for some excitement and a fun story to tell! We got to Newark around 7ish and got on the bus and I had a blast seeing everyone again, hearing all the stories and just driving around picking up everyone from different airports! Our last stop was back to Newark again at 12:30ish and then back to SMBI we headed. We got there around 5 and I didn’t get to bed till probably 6ish. And woke at around 9:30 ready for a day of sitting in chapel listening to everyone tell their stories about their trips. It was good to hear them but when you’re tired they did all sort of run together and you are sort of just longing for home. I finally got home at 12:30 ish and boy was it good to see everyone again!! I was welcomed with dogs barking, huge hugs, welcome home signs and balloons and eager ears! :)

Thanks for following me on this little journey of mine. I loved every last minute of it and am so thankful for the journey that God brought me on and I will actually be on my way to Belize in exactly a week from today so if y’all wanna hear about that trip too then stay tuned! ;)