FIRST DAY!!!

(Ashley plays Pato Pato Ganso during recess)

Hey Everyone! We arrived safe and sound in Nicaragua and have had a GREAT first day!!!

We are now at the New Hope Children's Foundation, which is a Christian school and orphanage high up on a mountain top in the middle of the Jungle! New Hope provides free education to over 400 students and also plays a large role in feeding the community (who are malnourished)...

(LtoR, Courtney, Ashley and Katie teach sixth graders the English word for ears)

We spent a large part of the day teaching english in the 1-6 grade classrooms and playing with the children... As you may see from the pictures... these are some of the poorest children in the world (I say you may be able to see their poverty because usually you can not tell it by their clothes because they take great pride in their appearance)...

Ashley and Katie had the opportunity to cook and serve food for the poor of the community, and we all partook in the Gallo Pinto (rice and beans) for lunch... we will have this for the next 14 days : )

(The line begins at the feeding center, Ashley and Katie prepare food within)

(Below: a child waits at the feeding center)

We were blessed to have also spent a considerable amount of time with the children... we played Pato Pato Ganso (Duck Duck Goose) with about forty kids and tomorrow we have promised to play red rover!

We are having a great time, but everywhere we look around we are confronted with extreme poverty and many unfortunate situations... 

I (Bryan) was also blessed today to be reunited with the orphans that I spent two months with last year... I missed them SO MUCH!

(Bryan reunited with Devoni)

We have plenty of assignments coming up which include a lot of good old fashioned manual labor... and we are excited to help! There is so much that needs to be done here, and the futures of these children are literally hanging in the balance!

We are going to try and update the blog very frequently, and we will feature different authors every time!