Late Night (Early Morning) Nicaragua Update

Hey y’all! I’m attempting, by making this post at 5 o’clock in the morning (with no sleep for the last 24 hours) to not fall behind and instead keep you updated as fast as possible. This is why I am writing this. Of course, here it’s only 3:30 AM, but my body says it’s 5:30, due to the time change. Let’s get started.

So, after touching down, we made our way out of the gate and into a small stop where a man quickly glanced over our customs declaration and waved us on past. We then walked down an escalator into customs. The man stamped our passports, took our three crisp 10’s, and waved us on. We then walked out into baggage claim and retrieved all of our checked bags, equaling 12 pieces of luggage with the carry-ons. A man quickly picked up our baggage and swept us through immigration for our luggage and soon, we were ready to walk out, but not until we had paid the man his dollar bill.

We were quickly caught up in many hugs as soon as we made our way out the doors. Pastor Jairo was there, along with his youngest son, who is 19, and a man who speaks fair English named Milton. We went to the rent-a-car stand and waited. And waited. And waited some more. This is Nica time. So, we finally made the arrangements with the car, and walked out into the drive, where we met a man named Junior and a bunch of men who had come to help us with the truck. We asked the men if they were saved. Some of them replied yes and we prayed a short prayer for everyone.

Then, Junior, who is a whole head taller than my dad, drove us to the rental car lot to have everyone inspect it. When it was completed, Junior wanted prayer for the Holy Spirit. He said that the earlier prayer which we had prayed with him with the rest of the men who had come to help was the first prayer somebody had prayed with him in that manner. So, we prayed with him right there in the parking lot and then drove our truck out, Pastor Jairo’s son in the back with the luggage, my mom and dad up front, and Pastor Jairo, Milton, and I in the backseat.

We now set out on the great McDonald’s adventure. We wanted to find one McDonald’s we had visited in February 2014, our first trip. So, we set off down the street. We heard often from Pastor Jairo and Milton that “McDonald’s is this way,””No, it’s this way.” So, in this manner, we wandered around the capital city of Nicaragua, Managua, in our new rental for over an hour before we found a Mickey D’s. Although it wasn’t quite the one we were thinking of, it had food and we were hungry, so we went in, although we had already passed about 18 Tip-Top fried chicken places.

We ended up praying for someone at McDonald’s as well before we hit the road back to the airport to pick up our friend Jim. This trip to the airport only took 30 minutes, and it was almost perfectly timed. We arrived at the airport around a half-hour before Jim did, and then picked him up. Now, Milton and Pastor Jairo’s son were together in the bed of the truck, my mom, Pastor Jairo and I were SQUISHED (and do I mean squished) together in the backseat, and my dad and Jim made themselves comfortable in the front. Of course, we had to find a way to turn off the Catholic radio, and it’s flashing colorful outlet in our car. Eventually, after tons of advice (and some praying) Jim managed to do both.

I can’t tell you much more about the trip home, (one) because I’m so crazy tired, and (two) because I passed out from crazy tiredness in the car. And that brings us to the hostel, where we offloaded our junk and reloaded ourselves and Pastor Jairo and his son and Milton into the truck. We drove them to Pastor Jairo’s house and dropped them off before coming back to the hostel, where we are now.

That pretty much wraps it up. See you tomorrow (or later today if you want to get technical)!

Adios!

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