NCC in Nicaragua 2018

After the morning activities, we took a hike to the other side of the village to the homes that would host us for lunch today.   The hike in these pictures looks flat, but it involved some considerably steep hills that were straight down and straight up which took us 10-20 minutes to hike. This is one of the homes that we ate lunch in.  The family described how their kids walk to school each day on the same route that we had hiked to get there.  However it takes their kids only 5 minutes to get to the school (all the way across the village), a fraction of the time it took us!   AND their kids walk those paths no matter the weather.  During their rainy season (June through January), it rains there (often pouring) at least 3 times a week, and it can often rain 8 days in a row making their dirt pathways complete mud. The kids still walk to school! The land here is beautiful here.  No matter how many pictures we take to try and show the bea...

This morning we arrived to a smaller group of people for our opening ceremony.  The president of the board of the village welcomed us again and explained that many of the people in the village needed to be out in the fields today to harvest the coffee beans because a substantial rain was coming on March 18th that could wash out their harvest if they don't get that done. So this morning's ceremony was a bit smaller than yesterday's. Aron Martino gave a message asking the question of "what does it take for us to be happy?"  He cited a study that was done in the United States on this exact subject across many years which came to the conclusion that it was the quality of a person's relationships that determine their level of happiness. He then described how that same idea is actually introduced in the Bible when people ask Jesus what the  greatest commandment is, as told in several of the Gospels.  Aron went on to describe what "loving your neig...

It is a great honor for families to host teams like us for lunch in their home, so on Monday they split us into two groups of six to be able to eat in two homes.  One group had the translator, and the other group had Aron Martino and Gail Dean (who has been studying Spanish using Duolingo) to piece together the conversation like a funny puzzle.  When they return to Pittsburgh - ask them about that lunch!   After lunch, we went to the school house for the afternoon activities.  Kyra Carlson kicked off a game of "Duck, Duck, Goose" using Spanish words, and it was a huge hit!  The kids played for almost 30 minutes with lots of laughter and screams of joy coming from that room, while all the parents watched and laughed as well. We then switched activities to the crafts.  Some of us painted nails for the kids and the women. While a large group of us engaged in showing everyone how to make a necklace name tag with beads.  This activity was ...

We began this morning with a formal welcome ceremony.   As we entered the building where it was held, the room had a beautiful sign with lots of balloons.  The village had prepared welcome ribbons for us to wear which sat on our seats. When Agros establishes a village, they help the people to elect a leadership board to run the village.   They are re-elected every two years. The current board came up and introduced themselves, told us about their family, and what their role is on the board. Edwin, the President of the board of the village gave a special welcome. After the ceremonies, our team took a hike to see some of the villagers' fields, where they grow vegetables like corn, squash, and beans, and of course the cash crop of coffee. We got a chance to see the coffee plants that last year's NCC mission team helped to plant out in the fields (pictured above) - which are still alive and growing well after 1 year. These coffee plants are mu...

After a two hour drive on mountain roads, we arrived at La Bendicion! This village has been established for 50 families (quite a bit smaller than Tierra Nueva, the first village that New Community Church helped to establish in Nicaragua at 175 families). The land is beautiful with lots of trees. Its very tropical with the temperature well in the 90s. We held our morning welcome ceremony in the building at the bottom of the hill. These are some of the homes in the village.  The vegetation here is huge. Everything grows so big with all the rain and the sun this climate gets. The village has a two room school for grades pre-school through 6th grade.  Our afternoon  activities took place in the school house.  It was nice to be in the shade! Roosters, chickens, and other animals run wild in the village.  This rooster kept crowing as we ate lunch. Animals are not pets here, we were encouraged not to pet them as we would back home...