Day 8 and 9

Day 8
Wednesday was our last day in Jinotepe. It began with a tour of the neighbor, Alfredo’s farm. There we saw beautiful flowers, learned how coffee is made and tasted many delicious fruits picked from the source. Andrew finished off 3 full coconuts on his own!
When we returned to Arms of Love, we finished the outdoor kitchen, and then went zip-lining in the canopy with the older kids. As we wound down our last afternoon, several of the kids were preparing a good-bye show for us. The show featured traditional Nicaraguan dancing followed by emotional good-byes.
We spent the rest of the night watching movies and laughing with the older kids. Some of the girls on our team stayed over at the older girls house for a slumber party . Exhausted and not looking forward to leaving, we all fell asleep.
Our Last Day… Day 9
Pick an emotion…with our final day upon us; it is hard to know what to feel or think. We awoke this morning to the same wonderful smells of coffee and breakfast waiting; however, the morning also brought with it hugs and tears of goodbye and leaving behind the amazing children and staff of Arms of Love. After thirty minutes of “we will wait for you”, “love you”, “I will miss you”, and final pictures, the van pulled away and we made the trip to Managua and Las Palmas.
This afternoon we partnered with La Vina (Vineyard in Managua) to do an outreach in a town called Tipitappa. La Vina is launching a church plant there beginning this Sunday, and our goal was to connect with the children and families in the neighborhood and invite them to attend the church. After leaving to meet up with folks from La Vina, we realized that we were lacking the computer that would play the music…Three taxi rides and four parks later, Jessica and Juan finally were reunited with the group, computer in hand. With over 200 children in attendance, the word chaos comes short in describing all the things happening around us…If you blink, you watch a soccer game turn to basketball. Bracelet tables and facepainting booths evolve into hotdog stands and lines of hundreds… Craziness of drinks turn to pop in a bag (Hannah’s favorite moment of the day).Take a breath and you find singing, dancing, and creative “Oh my heck what are we doing? No one can remember the movements to the songs”….Oh yes, and the best….bubbles, also known as burbujas ….Ending the afternoon with photo shoots, the group left and headed back to Las Palmas where we all got the opportunity to “Chillax” (as Juan would say) for the first time in ten days. Taking a few deep breaths (some more than others ), we reflected on the most amazing experiences of the past week and one-half, the memories surrounding Nicaragua, the sweet smiles and laughter of the children, funny moments between the team, and closed our eyes for an whole 2.5 hours…