The morning for me started out the same as every other
morning this week – birds singing, getting up early and spending some time in
prayer. But somewhere toward the end of
my prayer time I heard a not so good sound outside of our cabin and a little
smell of smoke. The power went out – but
hey, no big deal, I kind of got use to that in Africa – so I just simply
thanked the Lord (a habit I got into in Africa when the power went out so that
I didn’t complain or groan) and continued praying. But then the sounds of people running and
hollering in Spanish made me decide maybe I should look out the window and see
what was happening. Evidently a fuse box, or something similar, caught on fire
and they were busy putting it out. PTL
the itinerary was to leave this morning, although the power did come back within
an hour or so.
Bradley always tries to give the team one day of sightseeing
and souvenir shopping, so today was that day.
After breakfast, we all piled into the bus and headed to Managua – about
2.5 hours. Along the way we heard some
more not so good sounds but kept driving.
When we arrived at the hotel, we unloaded our luggage and prepared to go
to Granada, where we would go boating.
When we came back out to the bus I was surprised to see people under it
– evidently that noise we heard had something to do with the tire or suspension
or something important under there. So
instead, there was a mall next door and we walked over there. I was quite surprised how nice it was –
pretty much like a mall in the States, with a huge food court. There were probably 25 different restaurants
– American places like Burger King as well as local places that sold Hispanic
food like tacos and burritos. Myself and
3 others passed out tracts while we were waiting for our food, and I don’t
think one person turned us down. I
brought 100 with me and gave them all away.
Rats – I should have brought 200!
After lunch, the bus was ready for travel again so we all
loaded up for another hour drive.
Bradley arranged for our group to go out on 3 tour boats to ride through
some waterways where there are a bunch of privately owned islands – around 360. The boats are open with about a dozen seats each
and a guy in the back that controlled the rudder. He told us about the different islands, but
in particular we went to Monkey Island – a very small island with about 4 mango
trees and a half-dozen or so white-faced monkeys. While in their natural environment they would
eat mangos, it’s obvious they are quite accustomed to eating tourist food
because I thought they were fixing to jump in the boats with us. That was a lot of fun, and I found myself
telling the Lord thanks. In all my life
I would have never guessed that I’d ever be riding around in a boat in Central
America looking at monkeys. Especially
with 3 boat loads of new friends! There
certainly are a lot of blessings in serving the Lord.
From there we did some souvenir shopping, and near the shops
was a caldera. I didn’t know it, but
many of the islands of Nicaragua were formed by erupting volcanoes and here was
another volcano that had erupted, leaving only this caldera. If you’ve ever seen Crater Lake this looked a
lot like that, only it didn’t have the beautiful blue water that Crater Lake
has. I’m not much of a shopper, but I
wanted to get coffee for some good friends of mine, so after I got the coffee I
went back to the bus. I enjoyed a few
minutes with the Lord, just thankful for all that He’s allowed me to do.
At the hotel I shared the room with Lydia, a young lady from
one of my supporting churches, and Sandra, a nursing student at Bob Jones
University and MK (missionary kid) from Costa Rica. Both are delightful young ladies with good
spirits and servants hearts. They spent
most of the evening with other team members while I enjoyed a hot shower and
some time alone. This hotel had air conditioning, which was much appreciated, in that we were no longer in the mountains. Praise the Lord for
safe travels and good people with whom I may share these activities!
No comments:
Post a Comment