mucho lodo

Last night (Saturday) was a combined church service with our church 'Eben ezer' and iglesia Los Romeros, which is a pueblo nearby.  What an adventure...we were to meet at church to 'carpool' to Los Romeros at 6 pm (it is already dark by then)...so I asked how everyone was getting there (I assumed we were all walking together) - well they pointed to 2 small pick-up trucks...we all hopped in - 25 people all standing in the back of each truck - men, women, children & 2 gringos (this is completely illegal in the U.S.) but totally fun in Nicaragua (I think it is called a 'truckpool' - just kidding).  They reserved the best view (over the cab) for us since it was our first time.  It was crazy fun, avoiding potholes on rutted out muddy dirt roads going somewhere we had no clue about and then it started to rain and we were swerving around people and pigs & dogs, etc until the truck got stuck in the mud (lodo)... it was so hilarious, everyone was laughing and just having fun.  We finally made it out of the mud and made our way in the pitch black to iglesia Los Romeros, which was in the middle of a field (a small covered shelter) with music welcoming us.  The people were very friendly and worship was very lively.  The preacher was a woman who was very vocal...but Liz understood much of what she said and took notes of lots of words for us to become familiar with.  It rained very hard during the service so about 100 people crowded into the small area - it was fun.

After church was over, about 25 of us climbed again in the back of the truck and headed back towards Los Cedros.  It was not raining at the time but there was still lightening all around and the sky directly above was clear with stars - and when the lightening flashed, which was often, it lighted up the landscape - how completely amazing - it was so beautiful!  When we got to the place where we got stuck in the mud before there was another truck stuck and some men all standing around trying to figure out how to get it unstuck.  Our driver made all the men get out of our truck and then he went around it with the women & children still in the back of the truck...then suddenly the truck stopped everyone got out of the back of the truck and said they would just walk back!!!  "What?? Where are we? Which way do we go?"  I said to them.  (remember it was completely dark and we are on some muddy road in the middle of Nicaragua).  A very nice young man said he knew where we lived and he offered to walk us home and he did - - - We had a delightfully wonderful Nicaraguan experience that we hope to repeat in the coming months...