Nicaragua

After Guatemala, I headed down to Managua, Nicaragua where I stayed in the ministry house of Campus Crusade for Christ. Here I also did campus ministry going to a couple of the university campuses to share the gospel. I went with Junior, CCC staff and Antonieta, a student leader. We got to share with many, and even saw one student pray to receive Christ! I wish that I had more time to spend in Nicaragua to get to know other ministries in other cities, but I had to move on to make it to Costa Rica for Thanksgiving. But I did go to Pochomil on the coast with Angel and Rafa, to find a location for a christian leadership training camp coming up in December. I also went up to Matagalpa for the weekend with Oscar, another volunteer leader and worked with a church ministry up there for a couple days.

Here is one interesting story is about my roommate in Managua. I slept on a mattress on the floor of the ministry house, and when I woke up one morning, there on the floor beside me, was a giant Tarantula!!! And those of you that know me, know that I hate spiders!!! I took a couple pictures before smashing it with a shoe!







Political ciaos broke out in Managua while I was there. There was an election and the political party in power called the Sandonistas blatantly cheated the election process saying they won. They threw out votes, closed poles early, and kicked out the governing officials to count the votes in private. The Liberales, an opposing political group, planned a peace march on Tuesday afternoon to protest the election. The Sandonistas went out first into all the city plazas with masks and wielding bazooka-like weapons that are normally used for fireworks, but they would fill them with pieces of metal and shoot them at people. They also closed down all the main roads, blocking them off with busses. Their whole goal was to scare and threaten the Liberales from assembling and protesting. The police, who are under orders by the Sandonista government, didn't care about the fighting going on in the plazas, their only job was to keep the journalists out. The president didn't want the world to know what was going on in Nicaragua. I didn't dare venture into the plazas that day, but could hear the thunder of the bazooka weapons firing throughout the day and night. I did see some videos on local news channels that were sent from cell phones of reporters that had gotten in, but that's about all I saw of the fighting. I left the next day. Please pray for this situation in Nicaragua and that they can peacefully work out the election in a just manner without blood-shed.

Guatemala

In El Salvador, I met a guy named Ryan from California who has been traveling over a year now, but he started in the south and is heading north back to the US. He invited me to travel with him up to Guatemala, but I told him that I was heading the other direction down south. He then told me that we could go "jump off of things" including cliff jumping inside a cave! That was all the convincing that I needed. I was actually waiting to continue south because one of my missionary friends just had a baby and I was waiting for a better time to go visit them. So I had a week to kill and decided to spend it with Ryan in Guatemala. It was awesome!!! We backpacked, staying in hostels and living/traveling as cheap as possible. Most of the time, we traveled in chicken buses (school buses packed full of people) or in the back of trucks, which are not known for their safety, but we did fine.

We did have one bad incident though. We got on one bus that was waiting to leave, but realized that this was not the bus that we wanted. I opened the back door to get out and when one of the bus guys saw that I wanted to get off, he ran up, slammed the door shut hitting me in the face, and then smacked the side of the bus signaling the driver to take off. The driver took off despite our yelling to stop and that we wanted off. We went about 2 blocks to the next stop and the bus guys wouldn't let us off unless we paid 10Q = $1.50 (about half the fair to the next city). We were furious, but didn't have time to argue because we didn't want to miss the correct bus. We ended up paying him half that and got off the bus, but it left me really upset to be taken advantage of like that. Ryan was upset too and we talked about it on the next bus. We also talked about what the Bible says and that we are not only to forgive, but also pray for our enemies. And after some prayer, I got my perspective right and my heart changed from wanting bad things to happen to that man to having compassion on him and desiring that he would know my Lord and Savior to be freed from his own anger and suffering.

We live in a fallen world full of bad people, but there are also some good ones out there. Not more than a couple hours after the bus incident, we met one of them. Her name is Magdelena and she owns a "hotel", which is actually a room in her house in the town of San Juan. It was further away than most hotels, and probably not as nice, but for some reason I felt like God was leading us to stay with her. On the trek to her house, I found out that she is a single mother with an 8 year old son named Ezekiel and that they are just trying to make ends meet, so Ryan and I decided to share our spegetti dinner with them. We sat down together and I began to pray and bless the food and she started singing praises out loud! She was a christian and was so excited that she had 2 christians staying in her house because she had never had christians stay with her before! She told me that she was a believer, but had strayed in her walk with the Lord because of an ugly divorce with her alcoholic husband and because of financial problems. We talked until late in the night about the Bible and God's faithfulness. We also cooked them dinner the following night, baught them a few groceries, and sung some spanish praise and worship songs to the mandolin. I think the fellowship was very encouraging for Magdelena and she was very sad to see us go. I remember that I left the room the first night to go to the bathroom and I heard someone crying. I listened a little closer and realized that it was Magdelena praying to God through tears! Please pray for Magdelena and Ezekiel and that God would comfort them and provide for all of their needs.