Today´s post by: Tammy Shafer hails from Green City, Missouri and is a Medical Technologist at NRMC in Kirksville. She is a member of Christian Home Fellowship. This is her third mission trip and second to Nicaragua. Her hobbies include trail riding and simply enjoying the great outdoors.

Today, we returned to the church in La Joya where we worshipped Sunday. This village seemed to be more developed than the other two villages we have seen. The reason for this is the government helped rebuild this village after hurricane Mitch in 1998. This community even had running water!

Last year, a church from the United States came to build a new school which included a playground and cafeteria. The cafeteria had a large fireplace to cook beans and rice for the students at both breakfast and lunch.  It was interesting to see a concrete basketball court in which the poles for the basketball backboards were also made into soccer goals...which may have helped some of the young boys climb up for slam dunks!






 The school housed grades pre-school through sixth and each class had their own classroom. This is such an amazing blessing and educational resource for the community. We also noticed the animals in the village were better kept than in other areas.

The backdrop of La Joya is very beautiful including a volcano (which was steaming up during our visit!) and small mountains. The baseball field had this backdrop opening into the center field. BEAUTIFUL!

I was involved with the girls helping them play soccer. It surprised me how competitive and aggressive they were. There is always a "ring-leader" in every group and that stands no different in Nicaragua. Nonetheless, the whole morning was fun and upbeat. We were building relationships with the girls, even though there was a language barrier. This rapport we built with the kids helps to better communicate God´s word.

Our audience of children was a much younger age group today than it was yesterday. Following lunch, we made some quick changes to our Christian bead bracelet presentation to fit the attention span and interests of 5-10 year-olds. Overall, the presentations seemed to be the best yet!

I am simply shocked that some 3 to 4 year olds roam around on these dirt streets and come to hold our hands, even though we are perfect strangers. I wonder, where are their mothers? This is obviously socially acceptable here, but we would be hard-pressed to see this in the United States.

Oh, and for those of you awaiting Weather-woman Tammy´s weather report, it was a chilly 103 degrees at 5 o´clock this evening.

After our time in the mission field, we had the opportunity to visit the market in downtown Chinandega. It was noted while walking through the meat market where we saw open carcasses in the hot weather, "Thank God, for the USDA!" We also saw a boy taking a nap on a huge pallet full of lettuce heads.


I am extremely proud of our team and our ability to adapt to new situations in the mission field. It is a blessing to be a part of this talented team. It is noticeable to see God at work through each of our team members, including our college students. It is amazing to see how the Holy Spirit can work through us in order to preach the Gospel. This further reinforces the verse Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."