After the long morning and lunch we headed to Nueva Vida. I was so excited when we got on the bus. Just a right turn, left turn, u-turn, right turn and then we would be there. As we were getting closer I was telling the new people how much longer it would be until we got there. Throughout the entire trip I enjoyed know exactly where I was. After the many hours I had spent at home on Google Earth looking for all the places I had been this summer trying to recreate my drives I would hope that I would know where I was.
When we got to Nueva Vida it was a little bittersweet. I knew that Moise didn't live in Nueva Vida but I would get to see Pastor Berman and everyone else on staff there that I made friends with on my last trip. When we got off the bus I found Pastor Berman and gave him the watch that he asked me to get him while I was there this summer. He was so excited to get it. He took it out of the box right away and put it on.
After giving Pastor Berman the watch I went over to the bakery to get more pictures for my video. I asked them about Daniello who had played jokes on me in the bakery over the summer. They told me that he didn't work there anymore. I left the bakery and went to the store across the street and bought a 3 liter bottle of Coke for the people working in the bakery. When I brought it to them they were really appreciative of my generosity.
Since Moise wasn't there I didn't really have one kid that I invested in that was there. I walked around and visited a bunch of the kids, Walter, Hellen, Oscar, Samuel, Erik, and Jamie. It was neat walking around seeing some of the new people starting to connect with some of the kids. Every time I walked past the gate behind the church Patsy was there playing with the same little kid.
While I was wondering around I saw Pastor Berman coming out of the new building they are working on. I went over to him and asked him about the building. We had a conversation in Spanglish for about the building. He told me that it was a multipurpose building. They were going to put in about 4 offices for different ministries. They are planning on using the big room for English classes and evangelism. They are going to put the projector in that room. I asked him about the other building that is under construction and he told me that it is going to be a cafeteria. They are going to put a playground the area right outside these buildings. The way he described it the playground sounds really nice with swings, slides, see-saws, and a bunch of other really cool stuff. They are going to have certain hours for when kids have to have their parents there with them. This will encourage the parents to come. At the cafeteria they are going to play Christian music to be used as an evangelism tool towards the parents that don't normally come there. They are also going to sell hot-dogs and hamburger there. The cafeteria will give more jobs to people in the community.
After speaking Spanglish for a while we got to a point that I couldn't understand what he was saying so JC, my room mate/translator, came over and help us. He was telling me that around the playground they are putting in a path for people to skate on. I found it interesting that they are going to skate there. Once JC was there I told Pastor Berman about the laptop that we brought down for him. He told me that they have had a bunch of teams come down but they don't get donations anymore. Later I found out this is because ORPHANetwork takes the donations and gives them to their partners who need them the most. Recently the greatest need for those donations hasn't come from Nueva Vida. Pastor Berman explained to me that they take the used clothes that they get and split them up between the different churches and then they sell them at a low cost. This ensures that the people that get them aren't become entitled to things. It also gives the churches money that they use for works projects that are helping the community. He told me that Jose-Luis was going to be coming to Virginia to buy a bunch of used clothes to bring back and sell.
I also asked Pastor Berman if I would be able to see Pastor Guillermo, the pastor who had a vision about me this summer. He said that he could call him up and he would be there in 5 minutes. Unfortunately we were about to leave so I couldn't meet with him that day. I asked him about what he knew about Moise. We had thought that he moved to a small town about an hour south of Nueva Vida. He told me that he now thought that he lived in Cuidad Sandino, which is right outside Nueva Vida. I was really excited because that meant that there was possibility of me seeing Moise sometime during the week. He said that he was going to talk to another pastor and try to find out more details.
After talking with Pastor Berman for a while he had to leave. We went back to the hotel and had dinner. For porch time it was just us because JMU hadn't gotten there yet. Christina just explained to us the rules for the week and told us a little about ORPHANetwork. After that we split into our equipos. I really enjoyed leading the equipo. The girls had some really good questions and I loved being able to tell people all about Nicaragua. I was encouraged when I found out that all three of the girls in my group are Christians and even more encouraged when Lauren said that she wanted to build a closer relationship with God during the trip.
When we finish I hung out and wrote in my journal with Rhya and Suera. JMU came down after they ate dinner and had there porch time. When they came down they were loud so we all went back to our rooms. When I got back to my room JC was awake so we stayed up and talked. He told me his story of growing up in Hogar de Fe orphanage. He told me how he is now a caregiver there and he teaches English there. When we tried to go to bed it was hard because JMU was outside making a lot of noise.
The first day was a really long day but it felt so good to be back in Nicaragua!
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