Teen missions trip 2010

Hey everybody. If you are looking for the blog for our Teen missions trip to Nicaragua you want to to go here: www.teamnicaragua2010.blogspot.com. Enjoy!

Hands and Feet

Well after a few days it is always fun, and somewhat heart breaking, to sit back and just think about a missions trip....literally, blood sweat, and tears.

The entire trip there were two things that continually went through my mind.

1. The lyrics to an Audio Adrenaline song "Hands and Feet" from their 1999 album Underdog.

"I want to be your hands
I want to be your feet
I'll go where you send me
I'II go where you send me

And I try, yeah I try
To touch the world like
You touched my life
And I find my way
To be your hands."

Check it out if you've never heard it.


2. The words of Jesus in Matthew 25
"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

It so easy to talk of how we must love God and love others, so easy to say that we must share Jesus to the nations, so easy to live out our Christianity at church every weekend, but it is something else entirely to get up and walk and talk and do what Christ has called us to do. What has Christ called us to do? To "love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength...and...to love others as yourself."

Sometimes we think that being the hands and feet of Jesus, to show love to the "least of these", is something that is monumental....something too big for just one person to accomplish. Thing is.....it's not...and it is. It is something that can be done alone or something too grand to happen without the company of a team.

Being Christ's hands and feet is as insignificant as giving someone a ride, raking their leaves, or helping them move. Being Christ's hands and feet is as simple as digging in the dirt, pouring concrete, tying wires, and giving out candy to dirty children.

Don't think that to love God, to be his hands and feet, is something only "they" can do. It is something all of us can do right here, right now. Look around. How can you be God's hands and feet today? Perhaps it's helping that senior citizen....perhaps its getting on a plane to go build something...whatever it is...go and do it!

It's awesome!

"There's something on the wing. Some....thing!"

(1 million points if you know what that is a reference to)

We all woke up at 4am or so. Man seriously....is God even awake at 4am?! We checked out and walked across the road to the airport and checked in. Apparently they don't use the air-con in the air port in the night 'cause it was sooooo hot in that place.

Anyways we got through no problem since we had significantly less tools. After we all got some breakfast and last Nicaraguan coffee we boarded our first leg of the flight.

We landed in Houston, grabbed lunch, and then jumped on the last plane home. Two of our teammates had other flights out of Houston than us (they used there frequent flyer miles). Those of us who flew together landed safely and got all our stuff. We actually ended up getting back to church earlier than we had thought. It was great to see all our of families agian.

It was awesome to be God's hands and feet.

It's so good to be back home!

R&R Friday 25th Sept

Today we were all really excited to get on the road. Mostly because it meant we had only one more day before we leave for home. We were joined at breakfast by some of the Nicaraguan's who helped us on the site. I say helped us but really we helped them. They were Ishmael, the foreman of the project, Frank, an electrician, and Ishmael's brother who is his right hand man. We presented them all with the official team shirt and said a big thank you to them all.

After packing the bus and getting some video of Brian we turned in our keys and hit the road. It's always amazing how the drive back is way faster than the drive there. So after what felt like half the time of driveing there we found ourselves back in Managua.

We had lunch and then shopped for soveniers at the airport. There was one lady who spoke very good English...I have a hunch she gets more sales than all the other shops because of that.

After that Brian showed us around Managua. First we went to Masaya Volcano, an active volcano were the natives used to appease the gods by throwing virgins of a high point of the crater into the volcano. Now there is a cross at that point. Christian missionaries used to throw natives into the volcano fromt that spot if they didn't convert; talk about agressive evangelism!

From there we went to the mother-church of Brian's ministry. We met the pastor there and they showed us around. We all noticed that the main auditorium was very open....it had 2 feet open at the top where the walls normally meet the cealing and there were bars in place of the windows. Brian told us that they do this often here because the temperature is so temperate year round, and that there is so much humidity. The other option is to have central air which is just way too expensive.

On the way back to the hotel we came across a Harley dealer. That was fun. Some of the bickers bought some Harley Nicaragua stuff. Then we went back to the hotel and had dinner. At dinner we got our coffee orders from Donugo's farm. Some of the coffee drinkers in the group claim this is the best coffee they have ever had. I agree.

After dinner we all told of how we saw God working in our lives through and during this trip. It was really neat to see a group of guys put aside a social stereotype, open up and talk about themselves, God, emotions, and spirituality.

Now we must go to bed. We all need to wake up at 4am to check in by 5am and to the gate by 7am.

And we're done!

Today was the last work day for us. We got the rest of the foundation poured right around lunch time. Most of us were keeping the concrete flowing, the others were completing prep work for pouring the church floor. After lunch we all helped unload 200 some bags of concrete. Because of all the rain we have gotten in the last few days the truck couldn't make it up the steep driveway so everyone one moved the 42.5 kg (I think about 90lbs) bags of concrete up the hill and into the storage shed. We have indeed gotten a lot of rain these last two days. The road up to the church is very very step and muddy....too muddy. It was decided that we couldn't get any of the vehicles up that road today. We really needed that to happen since we need cement and the cement mixer to be brought up from the clinic site. So long story short....while we couldn't pour the church floor we did prep it and they will pour it on Monday. Praise God! We completed what we came here to do with a day and a half to spare!

While we were packing the bus to leave everyone was giving a lot of the stuff they brought away. Spare tools, work gloves, tons of candy, work glasses. We offered some rolls of toilet paper to a group of kids and they all looked at each other puzzled. That made the whole bus of guys roll with laughter. Apparently they use something else for tp in the cloud forests of Nicaragua.

So, after all the concrete was moved up to the shed, and since there was nothing left we could do, Brain led us on a hike through the jungle to an awesome waterfall. It was so beautiful. We took a bunch of photo's and then we headed back to the resort.

Oh yeah...by the way the resort is called Selva Negra. Check it out

Tomorrow we are trying to hit the road by 8:30 am. We are going to visit some of the ministry Brain is doing in Managua as well as get a tour of the city from him. We are all looking forward to some R and R after a week of hard work. More than that, we are all looking forward to getting home to our families.

(Tomorrow night we'll be at the Best Western again so I'll be able to use my personal computer to blog which means I can upload photos. Assuming their internet works =)

Concrete and the impending deluge. Sept 23rd

(Sounds like a good band name hey?)

Everyone seemed to have woken up with mended backs this morning. Once again we had a blast at breakfast. Instead of shooting straight to the site from the resort we stopped at the entrance of the resort's driveway....really it's more like an entrance road. Anyways at the beginning of this road there is an old blown out Russian tank leftover from the Revolution in the late 70's and 80's which, along with the massive earth quake this country had many years ago, moved Nicaragua from the wealthiest country of Central America to the poorest. At the tank we took a group picture which was a lot of fun. On the way to the site we video taped the ride there just to give everyone a sense of how bumpy they rural roads are here.

Once we got to the site we got everything ready to go so that we could just pump out as much concrete as possible for pouring the foundation. Problem is that that only takes about half of our group to do so the other half walked up to the church to prep the floor so that we can pour as soon as the foundation is done. (Brain told as that pouring the church floor is a surprise for the church. So now we really want to make sure we get that done). We had some amazing momentum. Even the foreman, Ishmael, got in the ling for pouring concrete.

Then the "...rains came down and the floods went up." Finally it rained on us like it normally rains here. The people here really know their clouds 'cause Ishmael looked at the clouds as they were coming in and said "wet". Then in about five minutes he stripped down to just a tank top and jeans, he pointed down at the ground, shook his head and said "wetter". Sure enough it started to rain and it didn't really stop. It rained soooo hard. At about 4pm the wheel barrows were getting bogged down in the mud and Brain started to worry about the conditions of the roads for the travel home. We've learned already that the non paved roads deteriorated rapidly in the rain...wash outs...sink holes...sheer amounts of mud....So we called it an early day. We still have 1/4 of the foundation to pour and the church floor to pour as well. Sometimes the weather here decides your day for you.

At dinner we were treated to some traditional dance by a group of dancers performing for a large group that is doing some type of conference at the resort. Since it was at the restaurant we were just sort "spectating". We planned out tomorrow....we're hitting the road at 7:30am so we can get everything done. Friday we won't have as much time for working so we want to get as close to everything done as possible.

Sahweet!

Wire we doing this? Sept 22nd

Today started like any of our other days...food!

We all thought that we were going to be doing less labour some work than we had been doing since today we are tying all the re bar for the foundation. Boy were we sooo wrong. It took most of us about 5 to 10 minutes to learn the method of tying up the re bar with the wire. After that that is all we did all day long. It was very time consuming and kinda back breaking as we spent the day bent over doing all the tying. I mentioned that we were hoping to pore the foundation today too but the amount of time tying the re bar took wsa very underestimated. Of course it wasn't a big deal since we are sooo far ahead. After a lot of cut hands and bloodied finger tips e did finish all the wiring. Yes! Tomorrow we hpe to pour all the foundation and get started on pouring the church floor.

At dinner Guy haphazardly asked Kyle if we had to use wire to tie the re bar... as in are there other options.It was an innocent question.. Kyle replied with a "NO, for the gage re bar we were wiring we coulda used zip ties." Then he mentioned that back in the States they make wiring guns for tying re bar. Let me eel you the pitch forks and torches came out of no were....jks. The rest of the night we all gave Kyle a hard time. It was all in good sport. Lot's of laughing about it.

Well of to bed and getting rest for pouring tomorrow.