We made it to Chinandega and I am so excited!!!  I am excited to see and experience a different culture, to be living with my whole squad in the same place, to begin picking up on some Spanish, to see the Pacific Ocean for the first time, and to live next to volcanoes.

But what I am most excited for is to go out and meet the people, to bring them joy, spend quality time with them, and to see how the Lord opens their hearts while simultaneously he uses them to change ours. It is crazy to think that there are a lot of other mission trips I could be on right now and ones that I could have had a better grasp on what exactly I would be doing. But for some reason the Lord wanted me here, right here in Chinandega along with 24 incredible people. I can’t wait to see what the Lord has in store for the local people around us and my amazing team. YAY!

small side note... right now the ground is shaking.. small earthquake wooo!

Okay so here is a little bit about our journey....

We spent most of the day in the Atlanta airport on Tuesday.. by the way the new international terminal is very nice.

My friend Cassie and I eating ice cream while we can! 

Yay for packs!!!

So we had our nice 3 hour flight to Managua, Nicaragua. All that was left was a three hour drive to Chinandega. I was wondering when it would hit me that I was actually in Nicaragua.. well this pretty much solidified it. 

Our Nicaraguan ride awaiting our long anticipated arrival was a large truck covered with a green tarp. 25 people, 25 packs, 25 day packs and a guitar filled that thing right up and off we went on our 3 hour adventure to Chinandega. I spent most of the ride sitting on top of all the packs... super windy but a great view! We had sooo much fun riding in this thing!

We made it! 

This will be our home for the next 75 days! We are living at Vision Nicaragua's (our ministry contatct) compound and are so blessed to have beds, sheets, pillows, towels, showers, toilets, and wonderful women that cook delicious meals for us! We can not believe how awesome our living situation is. I feel spoiled! 

Tomorrow we start our ministry!!!!

Love you all :D