Nicaragua LWI-Day 5-Thursday. Today was a special day and our last in the Tolesmaida community where the well was drilled. We all worked as a team to put the finishing touches on the well pump and then all our team members signed our names inside the pump cover. As we were working, a group of the community women and one of our team members came around the side of a house with a special surprise; beautiful multi-colored flowers in huge bouquets taken from their gardens to decorate the well! We all gathered around the pump by late morning-the LWI staff, our team and the whole community including all the children. We did a brief final hygiene lesson about caring for the pump and keeping it clean. Then the community had time to give thanks for the well. They thanked God for remembering their prayer and they thanked God for putting it on our hearts to come to Nicaragua to help install the pump so that for generations to come they would have clean water and healthy children. Then it was our teams’ turn to thank the community for their generosity, their participation in digging the well and hygiene lessons. Throughout the week, the community welcomed us, offered food, smiles, support and words of encouragement. We were all blessed to spend the week with them and find out more about their lives and culture. At the end of the service, we all said our goodbyes and were invited to share a meal and conversation with the leader of the community and his family. We drove a short distance to his house and were greeted by a refreshing breeze coming in off the lake that spreads out for miles just behind his house. Two volcanoes rose up from an island across the lake. We all sat in rocking chairs on the leaders’ spacious back porch enjoying the sound of waves and good company. Later in the afternoon we were treated to…pizza! Back home, the whole team enjoyed some swimming and then we were invited to enjoy a Spanish worship service in the evening with some of the LWI staff. We pray that even as we leave our friends at Tolesmaida, that they will feel the presence of God dwelling in and around the well each and every time they go for clean, safe water. We pray that our group who will soon be far away in physical presence will keep this community close in our hearts and prayers for a long time to come. Janine

Nicaragua LWI-Day 4-Wednesday. We had an exciting day in Nicaragua with the team, the staff and the people near where we have drilled the well, taught hygiene and Bible lessons! Our hygiene team had a really fun day teaching the women and the kids about the 3 major food groups: fruits/vegetables, carbs, protein (colors depicted each: white, red and green). They had a craft teaching everyone about each color and food group for nutrition. After this lesson, they moved to the next lesson teaching everyone how to brush their teeth correctly to prevent cavities and good oral hygiene. They used a little puppet and two big sets of false teeth to make it a fun and interactive lesson and the kids loved it. Afterwards, everyone got toothbrushes and toothpaste, as well. Lastly, we had a great Bible lesson about Joshua and Jericho...everyone marched around a building seven times, blowing their paper horns and shouting at the top of their lungs, like the Israelites. In the lesson, everyone learned that trusting and obeying God is vitally important. From the well team, a huge praise: we hit one of the largest water sources that the team has ever seen...120 gallons per minute with the air compressor! Upon arrival at the well, we noticed how clean the water had turned that was being flushed out by the air compressor. We had a relatively easier day, with most of the major work of finishing the drilling and putting the casing together yesterday. Before lunch, we had a HUGE water fight with buckets and clean water!! Needless to say, we involved every man, woman and child in throwing as much cool, clean water being pumped through the well! Everyone was drenched, laughing, running around and having a great time for almost 45 minutes before lunch. Post-lunch, some of the guys made wooden-forms for the concrete pad that would surround the pump. After constructing the forms, we put it level and then the Nicaraguan people took over for the rest of the day! They mixed concrete and gravel together in a big mound called "the volcano", where they added water in the center of the mound and it looked like a big concrete "volcano!" Then, they added it and rebar to the forms and smoothed the concrete around the forms and up to the level of the forms. For dinner, our team joined the LWI staff for an unforgettable steak dinner out on the town in Granada. Everyone was stuffed and had a great night of fellowship! Dedication Day is tomorrow!

Nicaragua LWI-Day 3-Tuesday. Today was a very productive day. We had a great morning of devotion preparing for the day. After our last worship song, several members of the team continued singing the songs while walking through the house. The hygiene classes were a great success. We taught the women and children about Germ Transmition and how to prevent the spreading of germs. We also taught them about the signs of dehydration and a simple solution called the Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS). The solution is primarily used to rehydrate those who are sick with diahrea. Our morning session was a little discouraging because the class was half the size of our class yesterday, but the women who were there were very attentive and involved in the lesson. Our afternoon session was very encouraging. We started with the same amount of kids as yesterday, and as we started the lesson more kids continued to pour in. We ended up with twice the amount of children in our afternoon session than yesterday. At the end of the lesson, we all had great moments of laughter and play time as the day ended. The drilling team, had to enlarge the hole from a 4inch bore to an 8inch bore, and although they ran into many complications, they were able to put in a 7inch casing and develop the well by flushing it with air and water. It was a very muddy process, but turned out to be very successful. After a long working day, our Living Water team treated us to a nice walk around the community and a yummy "gelato", which means ice cream in Nicaragua. What a blessed day we all had!

Nicaragua LWI-Day 2-Monday. What a great day we had to start our work! The sun came up early as Nicaragua is not on day light savings time. Everyone started getting up at 5:30 AM. We had our daily devotion at 6:30 and breakfast at 7:00. We loaded supplies for drilling in a pick-up truck and loaded ourselves into the van and we were off for the drill site which was about 75 minutes away at a village that was off the main roads quite some distance in the midst of plantain and sugar plantations. The villagers were waiting for us to arrive and greeted us warmly. We spent some time introducing ourselves and shortly got to work. 7 of us started mixing the mud and readying the mud pits for drilling. The rest of the time went with Scarlet the LWI hygiene coordinator and gave the first hygiene lesson to about 20 women regarding the importance of washing hands and keeping cooking utensils germ free. At 11:30 we stopped and broke for lunch. After 30 minutes for lunch we resumed our work. We found water at 20 feet and again at 50 feet. We continued to drill down to 95 feet hoping we would find another aquifer but did not and stopped. We pulled the pipe up breaking each 5 foot section and getting muddy water all over ourselves. The hygiene team taught a Bible lesson after the kids returned from school regarding the Samaritan Women at the Well. Bernie played Jesus. It was 3 PM by the time we finished all this and it was time to clean up the site and start our return trip to the LWI compound by 3:30. The day was filled with many God-moments and some of those follow along with some pictures from the village. It stayed dry all day and we were blessed to be here. Dave Yes, we all got up with the sunrise around 5:30 with light streaming in! After a rousing sing along led by Peter and Naicy, a so tasty breakfast by our hospitable hosts, and an interesting ride to our site, we were ready to get muddy! Most of us have never worked on a well, for charity or at a job, so there was a learning curve. In short order the men of the village were involved, and many hands make for short order. The soil is a gardener's dream, so rich with nutrients, as the village is under sea level. We passed cemetaries that reminded us of New Orleans, above ground. WE could see Lake Nicaragua only one street away, and we walked to it after our muddy day. We estimate that it is at least 5 miles wide and 15 miles long, but it is bigger, The volcanoes around the lake probably made such rich soil when they erupted in pasat centuries. The flora and fauna is so dense where we are drilling, and tropical fruit trees are so abundant. Mary

Nicaragua LWI-Day 1-Sunday We made it here, everyone! Everyone is healthy, safe and accounted for today! We got through the airport in Houston pretty effortlessly and had a smooth flight all the way to Managua, Nicaragua. All of our baggage made it and Mary Nurre got all of our supplies onto the plane with her Global Services status with United airlines. We call that a God moment! On our approach to the Managua airport, we banked by three huge volcanoes. Bernie Palmer took a fantastic picture that we will post! We could see that Nicaragua is a beautiful, lush, green country and we are very fortunate to get to partner with Living Water. We were met at the airport by three LWI hosts: Chico, Scarlet and Eric. They drove us to the Living Water complex where we are staying and it is a gorgeous place! We are well-cared-for and have been blessed by the warm welcome of our hosts! At the complex, Jorge, the man who lives at and oversees all of the LWI operations in the Granada area. He has been overseeing all the operations in this area for 9 years and he and his family (a wife and 4 kids) all live on the complex, as well. After debriefing about the flow of the week, giving us some instructions and guidance, the ladies of our team met together to plan the hygiene and Bible lessons. Afterwards, we all took a drive into Managua and were dazzled by the aesthetics of the city: the colors, the people, the playgrounds, Lake Nicaragua, the food, the churches and the culture. We are posting pictures from the city, as well. Afterwards, we returned for an amazing team dinner at our complex, read our prayer support letters, and called it a great day #1!

LWI-Nicaragua Mission Pilgrimage Oct 26-Nov 1, 2014

Living Water International and Chapelwood UMC will be partnering together to send a team to Nicaragua! Please pray for our team that will be teaching Bible to kids, digging and dedicating a well and teaching hygiene and clean water instructions this week. We have eleven team members going from Houston and will update while we are on the pilgrimage all week. Thanks for your prayer support for our team!

Team Members Prepare

Our team is busy getting ready to depart for Haiti. We are asking God to weave our spiritual gifts and natural abilities into a beautiful offering. We can't wait to see how dentists, accountants, teachers, counselors, students, moms and dads (and grandparents!), seamstresses and athletes reach out in many ways with one purpose -- sharing the love of Jesus Christ. Please pray for us and comment with your encouragement during the next week or so.

Haiti team prepares for departure

A team from Chapelwood will travel to Mizak, Haiti, July 9 - 17, 2014.

We will work with the Haitian Methodist Church and Haitian Artisans for Peace International called HAPI (a Methodist-supported mission project). The focus of HAPI is to create a community of shalom. They have micro-business projects, artisan projects, children's ministry and a local medical clinic.

The team was commissioned on Sunday, June 29, by Rev. Bob Johnson.