This weekend we are hosting two girls who are working in Costa Rica. They had to leave their host country for a few days to renew their visas, and they wanted to come here to Nicaragua and visit one of their friends who is here in our town. We were busy today helping watch our pastor's kids and some of their friends, so we decided to take all of them (including the Costa Rica girls) to Managua to go to the movies. I apologized this morning that we were "just going shopping" today instead of having some sort of cultural experience. Little did I know...
While we were eating lunch at Metrocentro, a rather large mall, someone decided to take one of the CR girls' purses. She had everything in her bag! Her passport, of course, being the most essential item. Thus began our day of "cultural experience". Now our visitors have seen more of Managua and experienced more of that then they ever wanted to. We went to two police stations to file the "denuncia" so that we would have paperwork to give to the embassy on Monday. We rode in three taxis to get from place to place. We took a taxi to a bus stop, where we waited for more than half an hour for a bus that was going our way out of town. The bus was so packed that we had to stand, amidst workers that had been out all day, smelling rather ripe. We had to switch buses, but our friend with a mototaxi came by and took us the rest of the way home. The girls were laughing at the Nicaraguan cultural experience.. the good, the bad, and the ugly. We had lots of chuckles amidst terribly stressful circumstances.
My favorite moment was when the policeman decided to lecture us about our bad habits of taking our purses and putting them on the backs of chairs... this was NOT what happened to her today, it was on the floor at her feet. We were distracted by the fact we had eleven children with us, ELEVEN, and were trying to rush to eat so we could get to the movies. The young lady just didn't want to hear a lecture from a policeman after the fact!
Those of you who are praying people, we would ask that you pray for our friend, Kessaya. She is in a bit of a bind without her credit cards, money, and passport. We will do our best to take care of her and get her back to Costa Rica, but she could use prayers for expedition of the process, and peace of mind as she is so far away from her mom. Please lift her mom up in prayer as well, as it difficult to be so far away from her daughter in need.
How blessed I am to know my daughter is traveling the world and has such great people in her life. I have thanked God a number of times in the past 24 hours that she had Anna Marie and Becca with her, two of her best friends (they have experienced LOTS together), but today as I read your post I am so thankful that she has such caring hosts while she is in Nicaragua. My Mothers heart is blessed, although sad. Thank you for requesting prayer for me in the process. Be blessed and know that I am so thankful for your care of my daughter as she goes through this, so far away from home.
Posted by: Cynthia | 2004.11.14 at 03:23 PM