Thanks for Internet!!!

Well, it turns out the Cable service was significantly more timely than Isaac predicted. We have internet again!!!! Only one day (how wonderful is that?)

So, continuing off from yesterday...

Cheryl Avery (Project Chacocente´s director - fondly referred to as Charito) was telling about some of Project Chacocente´s history. If you are interested in specifics the website should be up and running in about a week´s time... www.outofthedump.org

Anyway, she was talking of the school and the children who attend. As you may know the residents of Project Chacocente originally lived in La Churreca - Managua´s City Dump. Now living in a small agricultural community with an excellent school, their lives are significantly altered for the better. Cheryl was speaking of improvements in the last 5 years. For instance 5 of the families have been awarded their land. They are now independent, and able to support themselves. The school is thriving, and the children are working hard. Within the next two years Project Chacocente II will begin... with 20 families being brought out of La Churreca!!!

Cheryl told a story of one child not too long after they had begun the Project. This little boy did not come to school regularly, although he was very intelligent. One day he threw his notebooks all over the room and said, "Mi papa dice que, ¡Educacion es mierda!"(My dad says that education is s$!%). This was a common thought for people who didn´t need education because their livelihood was supported by garbage. For their children though, now living in Chacocente that´s not so. Well fortunately in the last 5 years this attitude has been transformed.

Another thing the Project is doing is working on their large community building. The upstairs is going to be turned into 3 small dormitories for volunteers or small delegations to say, because it is right in the Project and they wouldnt have to worry about transportation. (like how I take 3 buses one way). In the downstairs they will have a small Pulperia (like a convenient store) and a beauty shop, the other room they aren´t sure what it will be, but it will be a business of some sort.

They will also be building a library onto the school, and soon enough another school because whenever the Children of Project Chacocente II come to the school it would be far too difficult to integrate them with children who have been out of a dump for 6 or 7 years. The behavior would be too different. They also have dreams of building a High School, so that after the children graduate 6th grade they don´t have to travel to a High School (which has poorer standards than the Project´s school).

It is so awesome to hear and see all the possibilities and potential that this Project has. Please keep it, and my little work there in your thoughts and prayers.

Now for the rest of Friday... On the ride home I enjoyed talking with Gabrielle (he´s like the Project Manager, I guess). He and I were talking about the poor and rich in Nicaragua and how they live side by side, yet it is two totally different worlds. We talked about the life of the Church in Nicaragua versus the U.S. The effects of poverty in Nicaragua. Our duty to help each other... etc etc... It was so awesome to have conversation outside of small talk IN SPANISH! Yay!!! I´m improving!!!

Today was Sunday. As it is the first Sunday of the month El Buen Pastor has culto at 5 in the morning!!! (No one woke me up... so I slept through most of it... but don´t worry they have an evening service too!!!) I got up about 730 and got ready to go swimming. Isaac, Joel, Rafael, and I went to a pool close by and had a great time swimming, relaxing, playing on the swingset etc. It was a really enjoyable day because the weather was SO hot and the pool was the perfect way to cool down!

This evening in church we had communion, and it was beautiful. I love it here!!!
Tomorrow I have to get up at 530 and be off to Chacocente to begin another week!!!
I will write more as more occurs!!!

Mucho amor!!!