Hello all! Its been a while and im sorry for that!

Quick overview:

After my last post, eric and I left for Granada which is a pretty cool colonial city bordering lake Nicaragua (the biggest lake in central America). We stayed in a dorm room in an awesome hostel with a beautiful bright courtyard with hammocks and rocking chairs. The next day we took a day trip to the laguna de apoyo which is a huge volcanic crater lake and met an awesome group of travelers also staying in Granada. We hung out with them the whole day there and went out in Granada that night with them. We took a ferry and spent the next 4 days with them on isla de ometepe—two volcanic islands in the middle of lake Nicaragua. We hiked Volcan Concepcion all the way up to the crater where we scrambled up hot volcanic rock to get a view over the top. haha, we did have a guide--although he was useless. we found out after getting back, that there had been a slight eruption that day and that it is illegal to climb to the top during the rainy season. haha, however, we made it, were not sick by the gases, and will never hike again because my legs are still sore haha. After a day of rest Holland, Denmark, Eric and I rented bikes and went all the way around the island. It was the hardest biking I have ever done, encircling the whole island on crappy dirt roads with tons of hills and rocks to go around and over. We ended up doing the whole last 2 hours in pitch black with only the guidance of dim flashlights up and down dirt roads with no street lights haha. Without our flashlights it was so dark you could not see your hand in front of your face. Monday night we took a ten hour all night ferry ride across lake Nicaragua to san carlos, where we then caught a river boat to take us up the rio san juan to the town we are in now called El Castillo. The town is awesome. It is on a hill in a clearing in the jungle coast of the river. There are no real roads, just sidewalks and I am yet to see a motorized vehicle other than small boats (its amazing that even here they have an internet café). The Rio San Juan is considered Central Americas Amazon river. The next boat leaves tomorrow and we will be going into an area where we will be seeing bull sharks, caimans, crocodiles and monkeys among other things. Our group has dwindled down to just five of us: Me (who they call union), Eric (the confederacy), Lars (who we call Holland), Danny (Denmark), and Henry (who they call England).

Alongside these other more touristy activities, Eric and I have been trying our best to get to know locals everywhere we go. We have played a few more great games of street soccer and are getting more used to just going up to peoples windows and starting conversations. Yesterday we watched the world cup at three different peoples houses haha. In ometepe we got to go to a really great church service and tonight we are going to the church right across the street from our hotel.

It has been interesting to see the different route that God has taken this trip from what we originally thought by placing us with this group of friends. Im sure it sounds as though we are settling for a more comfortable route by doing all these touristy things, but in reality, it has been a big challenge and a test of my faith. It is a lot harder for me to talk about my faith and live as a Christian as a part of this group than it is for me when I am just with Nicaraguans. I am realizing I have fallen into this trap of speaking vaguely about my mission here as a Christian as though I am ashamed of the gospel. It is really easy, especially in this backpacker culture, to talk about how we are here to just love people, which everyone loves, and kind of take God out of the equation. I am hoping to be more bold, not only with my actions, but with my words as well. I am realizing that my whole life as a Christian I have loved God and other through structure of ministries, and now that I am here with no structure it is hard to figure out what walking with Jesus looks like. That being said, I am confident God is using us and teaching us a lot here and I am excited for what lies ahead. I just finished reading 1^st and 2^nd Samuel, which I really enjoyed and learned a lot from.

Pray that God continue to bless our friendship. Pray that Eric and I challenge each other rather than fall into complacency together. Pray that God assure us of his love and his truth and that we have true wisdom and knowledge in his Gospel (it is hard talking about faith with people that are way smarter and more educated than us haha). Pray for continued safety.

I love you all and will write back soon---(although we may not have internet for a while as we head out into the jungle haha)

--david

the pics are:

1. the town of El castillo from the river

2. some of our friends overlooking the crater at volcan concepcion

3. eric and i with the infinite crater behind

Im trying to write a little more regularly so they dont get as long as the last one:

We met Manuel Satuday afternoon in the market. He was walking around sellng small ¨flowers¨ he made out of pine leaves for one cordoba (about a nickle). We were just about to order something to drink at a café and invited him to sit with us and eat. His face lit up when we invited him to sit down and started asking him questions about his life. We talked about his family, sports, food, and played jokes on him while he ate. He, as you´ll se in our pictures, is missing most of his teeth and the sándwich was huge so it took him forever to eat. When he was done we asked him if we could meet his mom and he lead us running through the crowded market to meet her.
Alejandra, his mom, is an incredible woman. She greeted us with warm smiles and thank you´s and was ¨honored¨ to meet us. She has two other children. Alejandro, ten, has a severe mental and physical disability and is confined to a Wheelchair. HIs sister, Mercedes, has been deaf at birth and therefore is uneable to speak. I told her that we would love to get to know her and her family and that we would be honored to take them out to dinner the next day. Manuel started jumping around for joy and his sister, after her mom told her what happened in signs, gave us huge hugs and signed to her mom that eric and i were very ¨guapo.¨
When eric and i showed up at the market last night for dinner, the whole family was outside waiting, and they alongside some other street boys, came running towards us. We asked them where they wanted to go and manuel started jumping up and down yelling ¨pollo tip-top!¨ During the long walk to the restaurant, Eric and Manuel ran across the street jumping over the curb on and off the sidewalk and down any steps they could find. I walked behind with mercedes (who is adorable) and Alejandra as she pushed her son in the Wheel chair.
Alejandra told me that the father of all three of her children packed up after manuel was born and moved to costa rica with another woman. By ¨the grace of God¨alejandra is now supporting her three children by the CD´s she sells for about a dollar in the market and any extra change Manuel makes from his flowers. I kept offering to let her rest and push around the Wheel chair but she did not want us to work.
After about 20 muinutes walk, ¨Pollo tip-top¨came into view and the kids started laughing and jumping with excitement. When i joked with Alejandra about how good the food must be she said they had never been before but had always wanted to. It is basically the NIcaraguan equivalent of a KFC with a playground. The kids were so excited they ran into the playground immediately and would come out every couple minutes sweating just to tell us how much fun they were having. After eating a family combo fried chicken meal which most of them saved for later, we walked home with them to meet the rest of their extended family. We were quickly warmly received with chairs and drinks and coversation. Alejandra refused to let us walk home alone at night so she and the kids walked us the 15 minutes all the way back to our hotel door to make sure we were safe.
Today, we waited for Alejandra at the market to take us to her kids school and she arrived late because she had been at the hospital. Both mercedes and Alejandro had gotten sick, which she said happens a lot, and were in the hospital. We got to minister to her and pray with her and offered to go to the hospital to visit them. Other people in the market saw this and it opened a chance to talk with a woman about why we were here.
The past couple days have been incredible. To wake up in the morning in a country we dont know and say God we have no plans but your plans has been awesome. We have ventured to the barrios outside Masaya and gotten to get to know more of the local culture here. We played pick-up basketball yesterday in a poor barrio (dominated of course) and walked through the streets saying hi to everyone we saw and stopping at small, local restaurants to eat and drink. We went out with our nicaraguan friends the other night for beers again before they left and last night had a great time hanging out with a couple swedish medical students staying at our hostel. Today we walked down to the ¨laguna de Masaya¨which you will see in our pictures and we are planning on renting kayaks and hanging out at ¨laguna de apoyo¨ tomorrow. Pray that God continue to keep us safe, bless the weather, give us time in his Word and in prayer, and have us see Nicaragua the way that he does.

We met brian, in the red shirt in the above pictures, in the market yesterday when we arrived to pick up manuel and his family. Brian walked with us to the grocery store where we could buy something pay with american cash and get córdobas in Exchange. Eric and i did not need anything so we offered to buy up whatever he wanted. We looked at fruit drinks, soda, cookies, candy and he said he didnt want it. Finally he asked us if we wouldnt mind buying some rice for him to take home to his grandma brothers. He ended up going with us to get food and had a great time. We are hoping to meet up with him and his friends this evening to play soccer. God is good and he is working.

june 5th

hello!
i know it has only been five days but so much has happened we had to blog now so i dont leave tons out. We got into managua tuesday night around 8, where we were picked up by Anne and Danny Sharpe, a couple from north carolina who work with vida joven (young life) here in Nicaragua. We called them about midnight on monday and they did not want us to take a taxi into managua to find a hostel late at night so they picked us up. They are amazing people and gave us a great welcome into the country.
Wednesday morning we woke up at about 5:45 (everyone here does) and had great nicaraguan coffee and breakfast at the Sharpes. We got a ride into the city with anne who had a meeting and started walking around. We ended up walking about ten kilometers that morning into the city and around a really cool market place called Plaza Israel--it was like nothing i had ever seen. From the outside it looked like a row of store fronts on the street but soon we realized there were little pathways that lead you back through the stores leading to more shops, restaurants and stands. It was so packed of little shops that about 4 shops would squeeze into an average american living room. After exploring for a while and doing our best to smile, say hola and seem as little like tourists as possible, we sat down at a tiny restaurant for our first meal of beans and rice. for a plate of beans, rice, salad, chicken and a coke, eric and i spent a little less than 5 dollars together including a huge tip.
that first afternoon we met up with a woman named Amira who was a friend of Anne´s who works with the manna organization. Manna is an organization that has a clinic, multiple english classes and sports programs centered around the city dump and the surrounding barrios (neighborhoods). She gave us a general overview of their work, took us to an english class for little kids and offered to take us to a dump the next morning.
That night we had a great dinner with the Sharpes and went to a vida joven club in a poor neighborhood in managua. Since my name is easier to remember and pronounce than ¨eric¨ in spanish, they called on me for every embarrassing game and skit haha. we had a great time. It was really cool to see the young life model put to work in nicaragua.
Thursday morning we went to the city dump with Amira and Harrison, a young life summer intern. It was the most extreme poverty i have seen. People live as squatters in a shanty town right next to the city dump which stands out like a mountain and takes up the whole panoramic view of a camera. The streets are covered with trash and the people live in tiny homes made with scrap metal and wood. Not a single family home was as big as a dorm room. Only, recently have the people had access to water or electricity. Manna project has a feeding center, clinic, and english class in the neighborhood.
Thursday night, anne had organized for us to a homestay at a village near managua called ¨bello Amanecer¨-which means beautiful sunrise. Narcisso, the area director for vida joven nicaragua lives there with his family. He lives in a small home, about the size of my living room which has a curtain separating the living room and bedroom. He shared his testimony with us when we got there. He has an amazing story. He grew up in a broken home wiht an abusive father who came home every couple months only to beat his wife and children. when Narcisso was 14 he started doing drugs, joined a violent gang and eventually became the leader of his gang. He was stabbed in the chest in a violent gang battle when he was 17 and this eventually him to young life camp that summer. Beacuse he was such a hated member of the community and had so many enemies, he forced some lower members of his gang to go with him. At this camp, he felt love for the first time and he and the guys from his gang accepted christ. Now, almost everyone in his former gang has become a christian, his parents have gotten together and our living a healthy marriage, he is the area director for vida joven and his brother is a pastor.
Eric and I stayed in separate homes on the street with nicaraguan young life leaders our age and their families. We payed them each 15 dollars for the night to buy food and help out the families.The guys were awesome. we walked around the neighborhood in the evening to meet all the leaders in the area. As we walked the guys would point out who in the community were christians, who they were discipling through young life and where they did contact work. Lots of people invited us into their homes to talk and get to know us better. Julio, who is 19, married and has a daughter was erics host for the night. At one of the homes we went to he explained the gospel and the mission and purpose of young life in the most beautiful way i had ever heard.
I had a great conversation before bed with Gloria, the mom in the family i stayed with and did bible study the next morning with Adan, the father. They were incredibly humble, hospitable people. The four of them slept in one bed so that i could have the other to myself. Yesterday morning we played soccer in the street with a bunch of guys our age. It was hilarious. I though we were gonna go to a field, but instead we moved two small, makeshift goals to the middle of the street and played there. It was so funny to be running around this tiny dirt street, falling in puddles, avoiding curbs, trees and knocking each other over while trying to score. Eric and i, who are less accustomed to the conditions had huge wipe outs and got disgustingly dirty haha. it is the rainy season here, so the dirt streets are basically mud. The picture at the top is of eric and i and the leaders from bellow amanacer

After leaving Bello Amanecer we tood a taxi then cuaght a bus to the village of Masaya, about 40 minutes outside the city. Yesterday we walked around till we found a hostel (4 bucks a night for a room with two beds)and dropped off our packs. We walked all over the town to try to meet people but received mostly blank stares or scared looks haha. We went into a market last night where there were about ten open air restaurants with local foods and tables set up that we could eat at. (for anyone that saw ¨bizarre foods nicaragua¨we were at the same place shown in the show haha)We had wanted to eat with other people, but a really nice man grabbed chairs and a separate table for us and we couldnt refuse without being rude. All in all it was a frustrating and discouraging afternoon without really meeting people. We retreated to a bar near our hostel to have a beer and met an awesome guy who offered to take us around but works every day but wednesday.
However, just when we thought the day was a waste, we went back to the hostel to find the courtyard full of a loud, friendly group of nicaraguans from out of town who invited us out for drinks. We went to a small bar across the street and hung out with them for like 2 hours. It felt like hanging out with our friends back at school. They asked us tons of questions and were really open about themselves and also just loved joking around. Tonight we are gonna go out with them again when they are done with their meetings today. They are part of a group of indigenous poeple from different tribes from all over the country that come together in masaya a couple times a year to share culture, get to know each other and discuss issues having to do with indigenous cultures in nicaragua. I prayed last night that God would open doors for us here in masaya to share his love, get to know people, and that we would be welcome. We are getting all of their contact infromation which now opens doors to us in at least 4 cities. One woman who we met lives in San Juan del Sur, a surfish and fishing village near the Pacific and said we can stay with her brother for free, surf with him, and even go out on his boat to help him fish if we pay for his gas.
i´m excited to see what happens with these new friendships. None of the poeple we were with last night were christians, but by having a beer with them (which apparently christians dont do) yet talking about jesus it opens a cool ministry opportunity.
Today, we slept in (finally) and walked towards the central plaza for breakfast to have coffee, read our bibles and journal. However, we had not been there for five minutes before two middle aged men came in and asked to join us at our table. ONe was a lawyer and the other and economist. We talked with them for about 30 minutes and they told us about a couple good churches and a youth pastor that we could meet. There is an evangelical church with a service at 4pm today and we are hoping to meet some poeple there that we could get to know better.

We are learning that nicaraguans, for the most part are very shy and almost afraid of us and it is a little harder to get to know poeple than we thought. However, it is already a great exercise in faith as last night right when we started to doubt, God gave us an awesome night out with friends and then a great breakfast conversation this morning. It is so hard being in such a needy area, even i sit here writing my blog a woman and her 2 year old daughter who could barely talk came and asked us for money so they couild eat. Dont know what our response should be to that. We cant just give money to anyone who asks, but i feel guilty and selfish when we dont. Yesterday we had a cool chance to sit down in the park and get to know a man who had asked for money, and after talking with him for a while and showing him love, we gave him enough for a snack or small meal.
I know this is alot, but we have done a lot haha. I will try to keep them shorter in the future!