We are thrilled to say that we are writing to you from Nicaragua!  We are in the city of Veracruz, which is in the state of Masaya (pronounced the way we say Messiah).  We are residing in Casa Ester, where the older girls are living.  This will last a month to six weeks-ish, or until our house is ready for us.  There are currently teams staying there, and there are frequent break-ins at the house because there are no bars on the windows.  The goal is to have those things fixed before we move in.   Until then, we get the pleasure of living with the medianas, the group of 12-16  year old girls.  In addition to living among the girls we will be giving the house mom some much needed encouragement.  At this point she is the only house mom who is doing the job alone, which means days off aren’t as restful as one would hope, because the caretaker coming in isn’t familiar with the routine.  Hopefully after a month or so we’ll know the routine well enough to be an asset.

We are jumping right in with assisting in the team center.  As of now, one of the house dads is working in the center because he is bilingual.  The team center is nearly a full time job in the summer, so that has become too much for him to handle.  Because we are still finding our footing and there is a fair amount of curiosity about what we’re doing here, we feel that this is a good fit for us at this time.  The older boys are also helping in the team center so it gives us the opportunity to be working with them.

Because so many of the older boys have left, a large part of our “job” right now is locating them and checking in with them.  As of now we’ve gotten in touch with about eight former residents and we plan to see many of them in person this week.  It’s been really rewarding to hear the excitement in their voices as we ask how they are and if we can get together.

I have several great stories to tell but right now I need to get to bed.  I finally have some reliable internet so we’ll hope and pray it sticks around!

Oh, and please pray for our shipment stuff to get taken care of quickly and efficiently, and cheaply.  We’re waiting for stuff to be authenticated and it’s taking longer than expected (surprise, surprise).

Love,

Jenni