At the school, the team of 5 went to two grade 11 classes. It was cultural exchange day. They asked about what schools and universities are like, what life is like in Canada. In general all were guessed to be younger than they actually are. The funniest was that they guessed that Emran was 21 years old and Jeremy was 19 years old (guess they didn't see his grey hair!) They all laughed when they found out Emran was a grade 11 student, 17 years old (probably because of the facial hair).
From there the group of 5 went to the church. One of the highlights of every day is playing with the kids. Sheer simple joy of a child playing, feeling loved. These kids would often just come up to any of us looking for a hug, take us by the hand, laugh, get photos and laugh some more. Then it was time for the feeding program. Many of the kids brought their plates and cups from the day before. They seemed to have been washed at home. That's a good thing. Hopefully they can keep that up and it will reduce the amount of garbage generated each day. It's not something they really think about yet. We can continue to work with them one step at a time - one step is to teach them how to take care of the planet. Pickup litter, throw garbage in the right place and not just on the floor. We have a job to take care of God's creation that is entrusted to us. As one saying says, it's not our world, but our children's world.
Time for VBS. Today's lesson was a story entitled "Jesus is Our Good Shepherd" based John 10:11-15 The craft the kids made was a Marshmallow Sheep. This involved a marshmallow and pretzel sticks. You can imagine what they thought of marshmallow sheep! What kid doesn't love marshmallows? These kids may never have had a marshmallow before! (We saw some sheep yesterday... they didn't look like what you would expect... someone said they looked more like goats. But perhaps that is just sheep here in Nicaragua). There have been two themes running through this week - sheep (lost sheep?) and feet (started from the painting of nails, and the story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet).
After the feeding program was done, the team visited the local University - The Bluefields Indian and Caribbean University (BICU). It is totally different; looks like a normal school but in a bigger area. Large campus and residency is free for students out of town. It has a big library. The tuition is significantly less than in North America (less than $20 US per semester). As they continued on their way, at some point I am told the team ate guava fruit. I think I saw the remnant of a guava fruit in the bed of Pastor Ed's truck.
Meanwhile Kevin & Vern were busy getting ready for another day of teacher training. The first task: go buy fans. You can imagine how hot it is in Central America. Now imagine sitting in a room where the windows have been closed off on one side of the building. the other windows now have glass shutters on them. There is no air circulation. We went to downtown Bluefields in search of fans with metal blades. They move air with more volume than plastic blades. It took us a bit of a search, but managed to source four good fans. A good price when you compare to Canada! One of the stores was a hardware store where we picked up 4 more electrical extension bars. To our surprise, Pastor Ed knew two people who worked there. Both were students who had graduated from Verbo! They were doing well and both going to college/university. We loaded up the truck with the fans and we had a boy along helping us. He came along with Pastor Ed from the start. He just wanted to ride the truck and was willing to help. We had some candy, and so thanked him for his help with a candy. Simple things like that are so appreciated when you don't normally get them.
At the school, workers were installing the windows so we could not use the room to setup. All the computers were put away the night before and they had put away all the power cables, adapters and extension bars. So what did we do? We played with the kids out on recess. We ended up playing with kids for over an hour and a half. Simple toys - a tennis ball, a hacky sack, just running and giving airplane spins. All good fun. I tried to teach them handball. We threw the ball around. Kids are kids, no matter where you are. It is good to see their happiness in the midst of the simple way of life they have.
One thing when we arrived, the local telecom company was there to help with the Internet. Apparently the connection was down and the computers could not connect. We had the issue yesterday if you remember, and Cledwyn, Vern and I were troubleshooting via email about what may have been wrong. So the first thing I needed to do was fix the Internet connection. The problem? The router and modem were both assigning IP addresses so there were conflicts. Guess it didn't know what to do so it gave up. Fixed that problem and then all was well. However I didn't get a chance to test the laptops. So after playing with the kids, I came up at about 12:30 to check on the laptops. Skipped lunch (sounds like my regular days at work!) and started diagnosing again. Good thing I did because there was still a problem. Went back and adjusted the router settings again, rebooted and voila! All was well. We brought all the laptops down and set everything up again.
Sometime earlier in the day, like good teachers, Vern and I planned our day of what we were going to do. Ok, so it wasn't the 3 days in advance planning we were used to - but hey, it's a mission's trip and flexibility is key. Our goal: get the Internet up and running and then teach about how to search (syntax such as +, -, and "quotation marks"), how to avoid fake websites (do a google search on the Tree Octopus), some examples of what real websites are, email, babelfish translation (on yahoo) which allows any webpage to be translated, or inputted text. Also showed them www.starfall.com for teaching the English alphabet and essentially our day was done. That's a lot of information to take in for a short period of time. Packed everything up and went back to Pastor Ed's home.
We took some time to relax for the afternoon. I worked on the school office computer. Unfortunately, I could do nothing with the hard drive. I think the drive is "dead" but I am leaving them with an external case so hopefully they can extract the data. I installed another drive so they could get back up and running. Sometime in the afternoon, the artisans came by with their wares. Handcarved jewellery made of wood or precious stones and other decorations.
Dinner tonight was an Italian meal (manga, manga!), all home made of course! No Ragu here! The jokes about bread pudding continued (did you know, the girls made really thin chocolate chip cookies and Emran learned the fine art of making bread pudding).
We met a young lady tonight who was the recipient of a scholarship from Verbo so that she could attend University. She attends BICU. She has just started there this year. Her name is Noreta Susana Quintero Mullins. She is studying English and is very happy with her studies and grateful for the scholarship. This scholarship was started by a Cornerstone member who felt compelled to begin a scholarship fund for graduates to go to University. A heart felt thank you - you know who you are!
After dinner we went to see Rose. We walked over to her house - just a few doors down - and the 7 of us sat on her porch while she told us of her story. This is truly a God story - in her words, one that God has entrusted her with to share. It is amazing to hear such stories, and to add them to my "collection" of stories of what God has done in people's lives. He is real and doing miracles even today. I won't share her story, but everyone who has heard it truly says that it is a miracle. Medically there is no explanation - the short of it is that she had a major injury from a car accident many years ago - before she was married. She was told she'd never walk again, told she'd never have children, never ... Rose never lost faith. The entire time she said to them that she was in faith waiting for Jesus to heal her and that she would walk. She's the backbone of Verbo church - her volunteerism is so strong. She has such a passion and love for Jesus and to serve others in His name that is inspiring. Her story shows faith and perseverance. It shows that God is real. She is walking and has two children as well. What can you say to that? Nothing except that God has done a miracle in her life - and she is sharing that with anyone who will listen.
That's our day. Time is so short. We will see you all soon but we still have so much more to do. Until then, adios, au revoir, a bientot!
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