hi! i hope you had a good easter! In Nicaragua, the entire week before easter is called "Semana Santa" (Holy Week) and most Nicaraguans head to the beach for vacation. All the schools had a break and a lot of the city shuts down so we didn't have a lot of our regular ministries. I got to go to an orphanage in Jinotepe and spend some time with the kids there who were mostly teenagers! This week our ministries were up and running like usual. Here are some pictures:
if you want to see some more pictures i just added more to my photobucket: http://s426.photobucket.com/albums/pp350/joann_weng/nicaragua2/
I can't believe April is already here which means a couple of things..
1) it's going to get really really HOT here. I've been sweating more than ever and the trusty weather people say it's going to be 97 degrees tomorrow. yikes! (yes mom & dad, in case you are reading this i am drinking plenty of water)
2) i only have a couple more weeks of ministry left before we start debriefing and getting ready to fly home. It's crazy how quickly time has gone by. It doesn't feel like that long ago that I was at training camp in Georgia meeting my team for the first team and preparing to come to Nicaragua..
Over the past two weeks at Corazon Contento we've gotten a lot of new students. In the beginner class we've been trying to teach the kids the names of fruits and vegetables and how to write the vowels. It's difficult sometimes because even though the children are split into beginner, intermediate, and advanced classes, within each class there are still varying levels of how much the kids can comprehend and communicate. The majority of the kids in the class I help out with have Down Syndrome, so we've been working a lot with helping them learn how to form words.
Helping out over the last few months, I have definitely seen so much improvement in these kids! The other day one of the girls in my class (Melisa) went up to the wall where we have the vowels and numbers posted, and she pretended she was the teacher and made me repeat each vowel (A E I O U) after her. She was pointing at the numbers while she taught me, but we redirected her to the vowels on the wall and it was so great to see! I've had a similar experience with another one of the kids (Gabriel). Before the vowels we learned the numbers one – ten and a lot of the times when you ask him to repeat the numbers after you he won't repeat after you, instead he'll say the next one! For example, when you say UNO (one) he'll say DOS (two) and he always randomly says his favorite number OCHO (eight) ☺ I really think God gives us moments like those to encourage us and make us laugh because he knows when we could really use it.
This week I didn't have feeding program because of issues with the money not coming through for it, but I stayed for a while to hang out with kids. The family that that lets us use their kitchen to cook has six super cute kids that I usually play with while we are waiting for the food to cook. I don't have any recent pictures but here are some from a while ago when Annie and I went:
hello! this was my first week back in nicaragua after being home for a week for "spring break." i got to spend some good time w/ family and friends while i was home but i am excited to be back for the final leg of my trip :) i have a little less than two months left now so please be praying that i would make the most out of the time i have left and be taking every opportunity to share Christ with the people here!
I started up again with ministry this week at Corazon Contento. This is a picture of two of the kiddos, Gabriel and Melisa :) They both have Down Syndrome and are students in the beginner class that I help out with!
Wednesdays we have a childrens' program at the soccer field by our house. This week we taught about sin and who Jesus is and played with bubbles after the bible lesson and memory verse :) On Thursday i went to help cook at a feeding program down by the lake and on Friday JD, Laura, Seth, Caleb, and I went to Central Park on an ATL and spent some time making balloon animals and face painting :) We met a lot of kids and adults too and invited them to Young Life and church at El Puente.
Some of the people on my team made a video for the prayer house that they started here in Granada. If you want to check it out the link is:
hello! sorry i haven't posted in such a long time! i've been feeling pretty sick this week and haven't been on the internet much. last week i continued helping at Corazon Contento! They just hired a new teacher who studied special education in college, so she's going to help train the other teachers and also be running tests on the children to help diagnose them so we have a better idea of the severity and type of disabilities they have. Since last Saturday was Valentine's day, we had a party at the school on Friday for the kids! They made Valentine's cards for each other and we played musical chairs and had a piñata! On Wednesday we had the weekly children's program at the soccer field by the park. The bible story last week was Jonah & the whale! We had to end the program early because there was a drunk man with a machete on the soccer field where we usually hold the program so we grabbed the kids and ran from the field. They were pretty scared but thankfully no one got hurt. This week i worked at corazon contento some more but missed my other ministries because i've been sick from a throat infection. please pray that i get better!! thank you :)
i started working at Corazon Contento (special education center) this week from monday to thursday. The kids were split up into three classes (beginner, intermediate, advanced) and i've been helping with the beginner class! There are about 5 kids in the beginner class - I call them kids but they range from 4 to maybe 30 years old - and we've been learning numbers and working on their speaking/writing skills. A couple of us go each day to help the teachers and do activities with the kids. On Wednesday we had the children's program again! We went out a little before the program started to invite kids from the neighborhood and did a bible story/lesson on daniel & the lion's den. To the left is a picture of some of the kids while we were singing songs :) Yesterday JD, Laura, Caleb, Seth, and I went on an ATL (Ask the Lord) and ended up meeting some guys by the lake. One of the guys we met used to be a thief but he became a Christian 3 months ago. He asked us to go to his house to pray for his wife Yanila because of a skin condition she had developed a few days ago that was causing bumps to appear all over her face. We walked with him to his house and prayed for her and their family.
hello :) last week we spent some more time helping at the special needs center.
i want you to meet some of the kids!
GABRIEL ALBERTO
KEVIN MELISSA
the kids are so much fun to be around! it is really amazing seeing their faces light up when you say something as simple as "good job!" Paloma really wants for the school to be a place where these kids can come and be safe and loved, and i think it is a wonderful thing she is doing for the city of granada. Once school starts next week I'll be working there 3-4 days a week. Some things you could pray for:
- the legal status of the school
right now Paloma is working with a lawyer to make the special needs school legal. Until then, she cannot get funding through the government & it's very difficult to receive donations/raise money for the school.
- me & my teammates that will be working at the school
please pray that we would be patient with the kids and also be able to show them the love of Christ :)
- the kids
we don't really know what each child's home situation is, but Paloma said it isn't uncommon here for kids with special needs to be mistreated or hidden away by their families. pray that the kids would feel safe at the school and free to be kids!
On Wednesday we took a trip to La Chureca, the trash dump in Managua (the capital of Nicaragua).
i don't even know where to begin to describe it.. maybe this will help:
"It's almost impossible for us to conceive of making a living digging
through garbage. But for hundreds of children and adolescents who live
on the municipal dump outside Managua, Nicaragua – the poorest country
in South and Central America – it's impossible to imagine anything
else. Survival takes every minute of their day and every ounce of their
strength, leaving nothing but exhaustion where education and playtime
should be.
Even small children work up to 12 hours a day,
barely finding enough food for a meal, much less valuable trinkets to
sell in an effort to keep their families from starvation. They're
exposed to combustion fumes, skin disease and infections from glass
cuts, not to mention malnutrition and injury from older kids and adults
who compete for the same 'spoils.' These are children in desperate need
of rescue from abuse, neglect, addiction (many sniff glue due to its
availability), low self-esteem and prostitution." - www.lachureca.org
so that was my week.. hope ya'll are doing well back at home :)
This week we have been checking out some of the ministries and praying about where God would have us do our internship. Right now i plan on spending most of my time working with the special needs children, but I am also interested in doing the children's program and prison ministry.
On Thursday we had a meeting with Paloma, the director of the education center for special needs children. The center is called Corazon Contento (happy heart) and will be opening its doors on February 2. Right now there is a camp there from 1-5 pm for the children, but once the school starts it'll be open from 8-5 pm. Paloma told us that children with special needs in Granada are often times hidden by their families and viewed as a punishment from God because of their sin. Many times families cannot even find someone who will accept money to babysit their kids. Paloma's vision for the center is for it to be a professional school for kids with special needs that will equip them with basic skills that they can use to support themselves. The program is a blessing for the families in Granada with special needs children because it will offer them a safe place for their children to go while they work. On Thursday, we got to meet some of the kids when we went to visit the center.. It was so much fun playing with them and hearing them laugh! it was a really fun way to spend my birthday :)
hello :) i made it back to nicaragua on tuesday afternoon. im still trying to get used to the hot weather again after being back for christmas and new year in texas! so far we haven't been doing too much, just moving in and getting settled in our new home. the house just got built in the back of the church and is going to be used to house future teams that come through granada as well. so far, we've been doing some work cleaning up the property from the construction. hopefully i'll have more to tell you next week about upcoming ministry!
hi! we just got back yesterday from ometepe. we stayed at cicrin orphanage this past week and spent time playing with the kids there. there are about 30 of them ranging from 3 to older than me! the orphanage is right on the lake and it was absolutely beautiful there, especially watching the sun go down over the lake every day! some of the things i did while i was there was helping out at a medical clinic and feeding program. i also spent a lot of time singing songs from High School Musical with the little girls which was a lot of fun :)
¨The history of the orphanage is interesting. John Olson, president of Trans World Mission, started Cicrin in 1970 on 3.5 manzanas of land on the shores of Lake Nicaragua. In 1979, during the Sandanista revolution, the children were dispersed to local families in order to protect them from being forced into the army. The orphanage director was jailed and the Sandanistas turned the site into a training base for young soldiers, many enlisted against their will. It was closed after the war and remained abandoned for 11 years, until post-Sandanista president Violeta Chamorro invited John Olson to re-open the orphanage. A U.S. couple was put in charge of the program and a young Costa Rican, Helen Vindis, was hired to help out as interpreter for 3 months. It was a very hard time, and the couple eventually returned to the States, but Helen stayed on at John's request and the Lord's prompting. The new director of the orphanage and one of the doctors who came through on a medical mission met and eventually married, and ran the site for 11 years with Helen staying on as administrator. They left for the Christian Center in Managua three years ago, leaving Helen as director. Facing a steep decline in support and various other dislocations, the orphanage came close to shutting its doors for good. The remaining staff committed to fasting and prayer for 41 days, and as provisions started to come in, they decided to keep the doors open.¨
that´s it for now! i am really excited to be going home tomorow and hope to see ya´ll soon :)
AHHH! it's december :) it's crazy how fast the past three months have gone by! Wednesday was our last real day of ministry here in Granada. We picked up trash for an hour with the kids and then had our children's program. This week the bible story was the parable of the lost sheep which Joe, Laura, Annie, Amy, and Caleb Austin acted out. There's Joe in the picture on the right counting his sheep! It was a lot of fun playing with the kids this week and it was sad saying goodbye to them! When we come back in January we will be living right next to them though so i'm sure we will still be seeing them a lot! Right now they are working on building housing for us in the back of El Puente that should be ready by the time we come back. On Thursday we went to the mall in Managua to renew our visas and on Friday we started packing up and cleaning the girl's house to get ready to move out on Tuesday. On Tuesday we are going to Ometepe island to work at an orphanage there until December 17. Then we will come back to Granada for 2 nights and i'll fly home on the 19th! James will be home too in just 2 days so please pray for a safe trip home :)
Helping out over the last few months, I have definitely seen so much improvement in these kids! The other day one of the girls in my class (Melisa) went up to the wall where we have the vowels and numbers posted, and she pretended she was the teacher and made me repeat each vowel (A E I O U) after her. She was pointing at the numbers while she taught me, but we redirected her to the vowels on the wall and it was so great to see! I've had a similar experience with another one of the kids (Gabriel). Before the vowels we learned the numbers one – ten and a lot of the times when you ask him to repeat the numbers after you he won't repeat after you, instead he'll say the next one! For example, when you say UNO (one) he'll say DOS (two) and he always randomly says his favorite number OCHO (eight) ☺ I really think God gives us moments like those to encourage us and make us laugh because he knows when we could really use it. 
hello :) i made it back to nicaragua on tuesday afternoon. im still trying to get used to the hot weather again after being back for christmas and new year in texas! so far we haven't been doing too much, just moving in and getting settled in our new home. the house just got built in the back of the church and is going to be used to house future teams that come through granada as well. so far, we've been doing some work cleaning up the property from the construction. hopefully i'll have more to tell you next week about upcoming ministry! 
AHHH! it's december :) it's crazy how fast the past three months have gone by! Wednesday was our last real day of ministry here in Granada. We picked up trash for an hour with the kids and then had our children's program. This week the bible story was the parable of the lost sheep which Joe, Laura, Annie, Amy, and Caleb Austin acted out. There's Joe in the picture on the right counting his sheep! It was a lot of fun playing with the kids this week and it was sad saying goodbye to them! When we come back in January we will be living right next to them though so i'm sure we will still be seeing them a lot! Right now they are working on building housing for us in the back of El Puente that should be ready by the time we come back. On Thursday we went to the mall in Managua to renew our visas and on Friday we started packing up and cleaning the girl's house to get ready to move out on Tuesday. On Tuesday we are going to Ometepe island to work at an orphanage there until December 17. Then we will come back to Granada for 2 nights and i'll fly home on the 19th! James will be home too in just 2 days so please pray for a safe trip home :) 