Saturday, February 25th, 2nd Post w/pics

Okay gang, as promised, here are some pictures . . . I'll try to name them for you as I go :).

Our arrival day, during our tour :).

Core women from the church in Los Cedros.

Cards we gave to the core women of the church, prepared by Chris Lund & Seacoast Sisterhood :).

Crosses created by Angela (Reeder - on our team) that are painted w/chalkboard paint.

Sorry for so few pictures . . . . this has taken me a couple of hours due to the fact that each pic I upload I have to reposition and it takes forever. We're going to bed since it's 10:30 our time and we have to be ready to leave tomorrow as of 6am. Good night all!

-Maria

Saturday, February 25th, back in Managua!

Hello friends and family! We've returned to Managua this afternoon after a blessed week with the women (and several families) of Los Cedros. I will do my best to post some pictures this evening after our dinner :). We are all doing GREAT! There've been no sicknesses or any 'reactions' to food or the heat/direct sunlight; in fact, we all LOVED the FOOD!!! And, we've eaten LOTS OF IT. We are looking forward to the first portion of our debriefing in about an hour and then another amazing dinner prepared by Jolydia (she cooks for the teams regularly here at the CFCI Hospitality House).

We were very sad to leave our new families today. . . . there were many tears and emotions (including the Pastor and our dads!). These people are so incredible, hospitable, and open their homes to us as though they've known us their whole lives. They treat us like royalty and they minister to us like we could never imagine.

Thank you for your prayers & support, we send our love, hugs & kisses to all our familes and loved ones back home! Keep us in prayer as we head out tomorrow for a picnic day with the ladies of New Image. . . . we will be sharing with them and having some wonderful ministry time. For the sake of privacy, I am not able to elaborate online about this particular ministry group of women, but . . . . we are so incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to be with them for the day tomorrow and we can't WAIT to deliver some very special cards to them!! We even delivered some of these special cards already, to the core church women of Los Cedros (that we had 4 sessions of ministry time with). Thank you Chris & all the ladies of Seacoast Sisterhood and/or Chris's group that took the precious time to make those cards with so much love! We have some awesome pictures to share with you that show the hearts your time/effort has already affected (I'll post some tonight, internet cooperation willing).

Thank you all again, and we'll update you soon!

Blessings to you all,

Maria, Heather, Angela, Brandy, Judy (and our Nica team members Hellen, Carolina, Araceylis & Blanca)

We're here! Monday 2/20 7:45pm (MGA time)

Hey friends and family! We arrived earlier today and have had an amazing afternoon & evening of orientation, touring the city and meeting the CFCI team we'll be working with this week. We have finished dinner and are about to complete our orientation . . then we're off to bed! We have a very full day tomorrow and for the next several days. I'm not sure we'll be able to update while we're in Los Cedros so you may not hear from us until Saturday afternoon :). We'll be ministering to two groups of women in Los Cedros, one group is a core group connected with the church and the other group is within the local community that the church is reaching out to.

We are so grateful for your prayers and support . . . please keep us lifted as well as the women and families in Los Cedros. We are so humbled to see what God has in store these next several days. We will update you all as soon as we're able, hopefully one day while in Los Cedros but we're not sure.

Thanks so much, and love to all!!

2012 Nica Chica's
-Maria

Halfway there! Monday 2/20, 8:52am

Hey followers! We're hanging out in the Miami airport & will be boarding within the next half hour. Our flight this morning from Charleston was gorgeous since the sun came up while we were in the air =).

We'll blog again tonight so you'll know we made it. We hope you all are having a great day so far!!

-Maria

2012 Nica Ladies Team - Departing February 20

Good morning friends and family! Allow me to introduce our 2012 Seacoast Nicaragua Women's Team: (back row, L to R, Angela Reeder, Maria Sinkler [me]; front row L to R, Judy Seegers, Heather Mote, Brandy Rein). We are so grateful to have each of you following our team in prayer, love and any/all kinds of support; it means the world to us AND to the people of Nicaragua!

We meet at the airport here in Charleston at 4am tomorrow (Monday) and our flight is at 6am on American Airlines. We'll connect through Miami and arrive in Managua around 11am (they are 2 hours behind us, so that's really 1pm here). We will keep you updated as much as we are able with internet access :). At a minimum, we will post tomorrow evening that we made it. Once we travel to the city of Los Cedros (on Tuesday morning), we may not have any internet access until we come back to the city on Saturday. I'll give you more details on that later.

Thank you all again, so very much! We can't wait to get on that plane and get going . . . we are honored and privileged to represent Seacoast Church and humbly serve the women and people of Nicaragua! God bless :).

Fun day & Final post

Hi all!

We are back in the states!

We had our fun day at The Apoyo Lagoon. It's a crater-lagoon, considered to be a sleeping volcano with a few hot springs in it's interior. It's a perfect example of God's creation. It was beautiful beyond words!

There was a platform that was about 10 feet above the water where you could jump into the water. The lake is very high right now due to all the rain in Nica this year. From what I understand the lake us up probably 5 - 10 feet from last year at this time.

The platform entertained us for a good while....

After jumping, swimming, relaxing and eating at the lagoon, we headed to the Masaya market where we bought the place out. Well, one vendor anyway!!

Then to the grocery store...

...and back to the CFCI hospitality house for dessert with some of the CFCI staff and ministry folks that they work with.

It was a great ending to a wonderful trip.

I want to say thank you again to EVERYBODY who made all parts of this trip possible. So many of you worked and prayed with us before, during and after our trip. You are not only helping the women of Nueva Imagen, and not only the pastor's wives, but the work you put in is being felt as a ripple effect out into their communities. I pray that God blesses each of you far more than you could ask or imagine!!!

Blessings,

Kim

Yesterday & today

Hi all -

Here are some pics from yesterday and today. Top pic is from the pastor's wives retreat. They (we) took the spiritual gifts assessment and personality test. They were amazed that this type of thing even existed. It was pretty cool.

We also presented them with The Fathers Love letter. fathersloveletter.com I think. Yes, we presented it in spanish. Lots of tears there. Felicita sang us a song before we left. It was pretty emotional.

Side note: remember the other day's post? The pool pic? Yea, that was right before we taught them Marco Polo. That was hysterical. We learned a new word: tramposa. It means 'cheater'...

Ok, so when the bus was leaving the retreat center, the ladies were yelling out the windows: "Marco!"....and of course we were yelling "Polo".

They definitely left happy and relaxed.

These two pics were from todays picnic with the ladies from Nueva Imagen. There was more ministry and fun. We handed out some cards that Chris made and some cards that Emily's friends made. The women LOVED the cards and were so thankful that so many people think about and pray for them.

Many blessings to all back home. Thank you for your prayers of support - they are felt!