Michaela

Today we visited the orphanage in Jinotepe, a small suburban town in the mountains about an hour drive from Managua. Pictures are worth a thousand words and I am in no condition to write that many words so we will do this the visual way.

 We started out for Jinotepe right after breakfast, piling the fourteen of us into the church van along with beans, rice, pancake mix, oil, cookies, mashed potato mix, apples, and oranges for the orphanage. 

Halfway up the mountain, the exhaust turned black, the engine started smoking, and we had to pull over and offer up our water bottles to the leaking radiator hose. 

After some waiting, the passengers started walking, leaving Pastor Cal, Jess, and longterm missionary John to try and get the engine cool enough for the rest of the trip. They would drive it up the steep part we had walked and meet us on the road ahead. We soon found that the van could no longer serve us for the journey to Jinotepe. They drove it back to CC Managua in neutral.

We finally got to the nearest bus stop, about a mile or so up the road, and found a bus with enough room for the twelves of us.

We road it down the mountain to a different bus stop on the edge of Managua and boarded a city bus to bring us closer homer.

After that ride, we walked the final eight or so blocks to CC Managua,

reloaded all of the food into a different and even smaller the van, and began our journey again.

After a beautiful ride through the rural Nicaraguan mountains, we reached the orphanage and found the older kids working in the one of the many fields of the property, harvesting beans.

 

Then commenced the soccer game, and a small basketball game for five of us on the side.

I'm pretty sure we got pwned in both.

We then got an awesome taste of not only the kid's musical talent, but also all the fruit that surrounded the orphanage in their fields. Some stayed back for the concert while others were taken through the acres of fruit plants -- up trees and through fields and woods and ant colonies and along cliffs. 

We had to leave way way too soon, squeezing into the van and back down the mountain, where we went to "The Diner," a very air-conditioned American 50's-styled restaurant in Managua. There was many a blessed reunion of gringo and hamburger.

Aveline y Alysha

We returned to the Church and began the evening "hanging out" with our friends in the street, something that I think is a really cool part of the Hispanic culture. We played more street fútbol, sucked on more mamones, and socialized with all the kids of the neighborhood. 

Shout out to Guillermo, our awesome Nica guide during our brief hitchhiking excursion and translator during the outreaches of the past few days. He is probably one of the most crazily-gifted incredible people I have met and I'm sure others of the team can agree. 

Altogether, it was quite an adventuresome day. I will never cease to be sad when I leave any of my new found spanish-speaking friends, but I would really like to thank those of you supporting us with prayers and finance who make this trip and these experiences possible. You are the hands and feet of God in my life at least, and I cannot aptly express my gratitude. 

Bendiciones y agradecimiento, 

                Michaela Meneghini