Nicaragua June 2010~ Day 9

We got to sleep in this morning to 8! After that we got dressed and ready to go to the dump otherwise known as La Chureca. We got into the van and headed to a preschool where we would meet up with Eugenio, the pastor of La Vina, who had a friend who ran ministries in the dump. There we would also partner with another North American church and Orphan Network.

Once we arrived at the preschool, we got a tour and a background of the mission of the place and what exactly they wanted to accomplish. After that Eddie, from Orphan Network, talked to us and told us what we were going to do in the dump that day. Because of the heavy rain, we were going to place tarp on many of the houses that are in the dump. Now it is very hard to describe what goes on in the dump but here is the run down. About 40 to 50 years ago, due to many different kinds of natural disasters, people were forced out of their neighborhood in Managua by the government. This caused mass amounts of displacement among the people and limited areas to live. People started to move to the dump, owned by some man, who had electricity installed and water brought through. Many people found they were making a decent living recycling trash and building their homes out of it. After so many people moved in women started selling themselves to truck drivers to get first dibs on trash and if that didn’t work they sold their daughters. This started an endless cycle. However there are many churches within the area and programs outside of Nicaragua who are helping and bringing in some hope.

Anyway, we started out with playing with the kids at the preschool. It was fun and interesting to see various team members jump right in and play with these kids. In the mean time, a team from Minnesota had arrived and was getting the rundown of the program. Then we loaded into their bus and headed over to the dump. Four members of our team had gone on a previous trip and therefore many of us had been prepared a little bit mentally, but it still wasn’t enough in some cases. We drove through and parked by the only school in the dump. From there we started dividing up, small teams of folks staying behind at houses that needed tarp. Many of us jumped in and started playing with the kids, holding them and looking for ways to start laughter amongst the little ones. Around noon, we all got to participate in a feeding program that a lot of kids from the dump attend. For some this is the best meal they may get all day. We handed out food, drinks and cookies that we had bought earlier. At one point we found Kevin holding a little baby that had been handed to him at random. A couple others got to hold this little boy, whose mother was very proud and her smile never seemed to fade. After all the kids got to eat, Orphan Network took both the Minnesota team and our team up to the highest point of the dump. It was heart breaking to see the mass amounts of trash and people going through it. While we all wanted to stay as long as possible, we also needed to get back to the preschool. So we loaded on the bus once more, were dropped off at the preschool and awaited our ride in silence.

Although it was lunch time many of us were confused and somewhat downhearted as to whether or not it was fair to go eat. We ended up at Mc Donald’s and tried to get our minds off of what we had just seen. Some things we realized we can not single-handedly change. We have to take the blessing that we were given and partner with others to serve areas like La Chureca.

After we ate we reluctantly headed out to the market to get our tourist shopping done. We were done in less than an hour and ready to go back to Las Palmas and shower. However, we had one more stop to make. Leah, a friend of Andrew’s, was finally gotten a hold of and met us at a mall so that the two could catch up briefly. After that we drove to Las Palmas and cleaned up. We decided to spend out last night in Nicaragua happy and went out to play pool. We spent a couple of hours hanging out, talking, and laughing with one another and then we headed back to pack and have our final devo.

With that we processed through the day’s events, our concerns and our feelings. We ended in prayer and were off to bed in no time, ready or not, to head back to the states the next morning.