I once was lost but now I'm found

Greetings!

The team is having a blast with the devos that Tracy Mingo made for us. The creative artwork is amazing. The whole idea is to wreck the book and I've seen some pretty wild things happening to these books. One student even tried burning the cover (closely supervised, of course). :) 

We piled our team of 30 into the bus and then picked up Rachel and her kids and then we added Kelly, a staff member and daughter of the pastor in Managua, to the bus. Oh...I forgot to mention that we had all our bags and the bags of supplies for La Esmeralda on board as well! Good thing the bus ride was only THREE hours long. And did I mention that we were all very sweaty. Phew!

We stopped to eat at the students favorite place...TIP TOP Chicken! This is the same place that many blamed for they're being dubbed "The Vomiteers" from last year. But happily, nobody got sick this year. We were joined by Pastor Guy, Denise, Jessie Velasco and Mark and Brenda Lambrecht. I'm not sure the restaurant workers knew what hit them when nearly 40 people piled into their lobby!

Luis, our bus driver, safely delivered us to Selva Negra (Black Forest) resort in the mountains of Nicaragua around 2:30 this afternoon. Everyone was eager to hit the trails in the rainforest but they were told they couldn't go without at least a group of three. We hit the trails at 3:00 and most of us returned before dark...most of us. Caleb, Dave, Luke and Amanda decided to take the scenic route through the neighboring countryside and see if they could navigate the muddy mountain trails in the dark. Luckily they had a camera with them so they would take a picture of the path in front of them and move forward to where the picture ended. :) Good thinking. As it turned out, they made it back just minutes after dinner started but only after we had decided to send out a local to look for them. All's well that ends well. We video taped the intrepid explorers after their adventure so their exploits can be shared with future missions teams. The bottom line...if the trail ends...turn around...don't cross the barbed wire fence thinking it's a shortcut! :)

Dinner, was of course, wonderful. You're not supposed to gain weight on a missions trip but we seem to be doing just that. Oh well. We're not going to turn down a blessing from God!

Off to work in La Esmeralda tomorrow. Pray for dry roads. We have a big bus and lots of people who would love to get there. Good thing we have Luis, the Bus Ninja!

Blessings!

Clif