I just had the privilege of spending a night in the land of my dreams.
No, not my house – which is where I’m blogging from now and where I spent last night, and where roosters and dogs put me to sleep, which really don’t bother me.
So where’s the land of my dreams?
A beautiful, beautiful, BEAUTIFUL (sorry to yell) place thirty minutes north of Yali.
If you don’t happen to know what place I’m referring to, check out this post for basic info, and then this one after for a continuation. You’re now reading Part 3 of our Jinotega Adventure series!
So, after we arrived at the two vehicles in Yali, we loaded up and settled in to look at the view.
After about five minutes of driving, Elisha abandoned all former American life plans and decided he would move there. I practically said the same thing in unison! And Jehoiada followed suit – but we’re still not quite sure if he was just saying that 😉
We watched the oh-so-gorgeous hills around us steeply slope downward as we wound through the various valleys on the very bumpy road.
As we wound through the valleys, the crops and landscape constantly changed – from rainforest to corn fields; from coffee plantations to think deciduous forest. Not only did the landscape change from valley to valley, it changed from foot to foot. One second there would a corn field, but three minutes later, on the same winding road through the same winding valley, there would be dense rainforest.
We all stayed in grand awe of the Lord’s work in the land of my dreams – which Elisha also declared to be his. We came up with all of our life dreams for the area, but I won’t post them.
So the 30 minutes flew while Elisha and I were interrupting (in a very brotherly-in-a-good-way way) each other about our dreams for life in the area.
We quickly arrived at a white house, which us kids didn’t pay much attention to. We quickly jumped out of the truck and went on a walk in the land of our dreams. We took a road/trail down and around the valley in an attempt to get to the bright orange church on the other side of the valley.
We went down a hill, through rainforest/deciduous mixed forest, and crossed a small creek. We then went up a steep hill. I thought the trail went through to the church, but Elisha insisted not. Turns out, it’s a very back-woods trail to the church, not including the non-trail way, which includes a steep downhill trek through trees, going under some barb wire, and some other adventures.
Now, there’s another, more civilized way (I never said it was paved, now did I?), but we’re 12, 12, 9, and 7. It’s not like we would choose the more civilized way unless the other put us in danger.
We turned around because of Elisha’s insistence that it was wrong, despite me being the one that always has the compass and a fairly good navigational system in her head. 😉
Anyways, long story short, we made it back to the house, and hopped in a truck to use the civilized way. Once we made it to the church, we explored nearby pulperias and viewpoints before eating at the parsonage. We then headed in for church, where they sang normal Nicaraguan church songs (think clapping – a lot of it) for longer than normal before I got up with some worship songs to change the atmosphere and invite the Holy Spirit in before Isaac began to preach.
By the way, I don’t say that to get any glory for myself. Just let it be a lesson to us that when singing comes out of a contrite heart of worship and not entertainment or pride, the atmosphere will shift, and people will be touched by it, if not only us.
Once again, it’s time for me to go to bed before I get a chance to finish my story. So please stay tuned for Part 4 of the Jinotega Adventure series for more stories – and especially about our fun living conditions! <slight sarcasm alert>
See y’all next post!
Elle's Everyday 