Dog Days of February

Greetings to you, my faithful readers,

I saw a meme on Facebook that said, "Well, January was a long year, but we made it." I felt that was a very apt description. But then February came, I blinked, and it was over. It was a good month overall, but jam-packed with all the things. So here are a few highlights.

February 1-3

My housemates and I had a little "roommate retreat" to Laguna de Apoyo. (I call it the Chicken Lake because when I heard somebody say it the first time, I thought they were saying Laguna de Pollo) Lydia was leaving in a week and a half, and we wanted to have some quiet time to be together. The weekend started of great when we stopped at La Union for some groceries and the guard there, after I parked, came up and said there was parking for pregnant women closer to the door. So I moved the car, and we parked in the pregnant woman parking. We decided he was just being chivalrous and not making a statement about our physical appearances.

We rented a house on the lake, and it is a marvelous place. I stayed there last year on the senior retreat. There is a pool, kayaks, a covered ranchon, hammocks, TV, games, and a view that makes me consider driving an hour and a half each way to work. It was a fairly quiet weekend, consisting of some games, a couple of movies, delicious food.

So, one of the things that Lydia wanted to do was go kayaking to see the sunrise. At first I was like, "You have fun with that." But then I decided to go along. The other three were all going and it was a good memory to make. The house had two kayaks - a single person kayak and a two-person kayak that we put three people in. Guys. I am not a morning person, and getting in a laguna at 5:30 in the morning and the dark is not my idea of a good time. But this will go down in history as one of my most memorable experiences. Erika, Alex, and I were all in the same kayak. Me in front, Alex in the middle, and Erika at the back. Erika and I were paddling, but we weren't doing well with steering or kayak control in general. Erika commented that we were taking on water, and she told Alex to bail. Alex took that to mean jump out of the kayak, which she did quite gracefully, instead of bailing water out of the boat. Erika and I continued to struggle until we capsized. Erika managed to get back in the kayak, but it capsized again. We kinda knew something was wrong at that point. So Erika and I get the thing back to shore (I swore off kayaking ever again). We all sat on the possessed kayak on the shore and watched the sun come up.

Upon further inspection, we realized that the kayak had multiply cracks or holes in it, which explains about 94% of our problems. I'll still take responsibility for the other 6%. It was one of those things where, in the moment, I was thinking,  "This is the worst thing that I've ever done at 6 am", but in hindsight, I am so incredibly thankful I went. It was one of my more memorable experiences and one I'm sure won't fade away any time soon.

The view from our house. It's great when you have the choice of pool or lake.

The aftermath of the kayak capsizing. 

Don't worry. We still watched the sun come up. :)

                                          

My girls. From left to right: Alex, Me (duh), Lydia, and Erika

February 8

 

Lydia and I had a lovely roommate date night. We got pizza and milkshakes, played an escape room game, and made a butterbeer cake. 

February 9

Our house had been watching all of the Harry Potter movies in order together. We finally made it to the last movie. We ate butterbeer cake together and all sat on the couch together. That's one of my favorite things. 

February 12

Today was Dia's last full day. We ordered Tip Top (and got an AMAZING little combo deal that had us laughing very hard), played some Nerts (a fast-paced card game), and generally just enjoyed one another's company. 

Apparently, our meals came with these awesome cup/straw/bowl combos. Don't worry. We put our drinks in the cup and ate out of the bowl.

February 13

It was departure day for Miss Lydia. My principal was kind enough to let me dash home on my prep to get a last good-bye hug in. Since then, I've rearranged our room a bit, but it still feels empty. I have really missed having her say, "Good night, Andrea. Sweet dreams." And I miss the nights were we would say, "Wow I need some sleep" and then stay up another hour talking. But I know how happy she is to be with her family. This is all part of life. And I'm incredibly thankful for technology that lets us keep in touch.

February 16

It was the annual Color Run to support the seniors! I just walked it, but I got to walk with 6 of my 9 homeroom girls, and that was really special. We talked about how this will be them next year. Crazy! After the run, they always do a color war. You get two bags of the paint dust (I don't actually know what it is) and you just get whoever you can. You can see the aftermath below here. 

My main walking buddy, Julie. I love this girl!

The girls wanted to soak up all of the colors. Plus, they did this last year. So it's pretty much a tradition now.

I know I look great. 

After the color run, I got cleaned up, hung out with my girls for a bit, then I made cupcakes. Erika and Alex and I had our friends Kelly and Mackenze over for a girls' game night. 

February 21

We had field trip day today. I went with the junior and senior girls to House of Hope, a place that helps women get out of prostitution and learn new skills and hear the word of God. We did some work cleaning and organizing supplies, then we heard some testimonies from women who left prostitution. We were thankful these women were willing to share a glimpse into their lives and share the transformational power of Christ. We ate lunch, then played with some of the kids who live there for a while. Overall, I'd say it was a good day and an important experience for the girls.

The girls worked super hard to clean and organize things at House of Hope.

Back in January, I was officially voted into the role of worship coordinator at church. My responsibilities include coordinating when people are leading worship, encouraging them in their leading, and going to monthly council meetings. February 21 was my first council meeting. It was all pretty relaxed, at least until a large something started flying around the lights. It was in this moment that I was reminded that some cockroaches can fly and I questioned why they really even exist. But in true Nica fashion, we pretty much just ignored it. 

February 22

I was asked to speak at the high school youth group (Launch), and they asked me to speak on... wait for it... taming the tongue from James 3. If you know me at all, you will know just how amusing that really is. But God is good, and I think it went well. 

February 26

You may remember that I am a mentor in our HACIA democracy program. It's similar to Model UN, and we are going to the Dominican Republic on Wednesday for our big international debates. Every year, we host an expo for the students to show parents what they will be doing at HACIA. Our students did a fantastic job, and I'm excited to see how they represent themselves at HACIA.

February 28

Tonight was opening night of the school musical, Godspell. The kids put in hours and hours of work, and it paid off. I got to go all three nights, and I enjoyed it every time. I am so proud of our students (and staff) for all of their hard work. This is a challenging musical to do, and they did it well. 

The cast of "Godspell"

Well, that's it for February! Stay tuned to see what adventures March turns up. :) If you've made it this far, thank you for sticking with me. I hope it was worth it to you.

New Year, New Me?

I've gotta be honest. I kinda hate the whole idea of New Years' Resolutions. It's like we say, "My resolution is to be healthier. I better eat all this junk food while I can!" And then, when we inevitably break our resolution, we just go back to eating our junk food, like "Oh well. I gave it the ole college try." Now, I may sound bitter, but I'm sick of this idea that if we don't meet a goal, we have failed. I decided in 2017 that I was going to read through the Bible in a year. Guess what? Still working on it. Haven't even made it out of the Old Testament. It's a work in progress, but it's progress.

At the beginning of the school year, I set 3 goals for myself:

1. Spend time in the Word at least 4 days a week.
2. Update my blog every other week.
3. Exercise/stretch at least 3 times a week.

I haven't met a single one. Does that mean I've failed? I wouldn't say so. I didn't exercise or stretch 3 days a week last year, but I still went out at times and walked. Progress. Last semester, I was terrible about updating my blog. There were times where I genuinely felt like, "What's the point? I'll just wait until a break or until next year. It'll be easier then." But that's the thing. We fall short of a goal or we mess up in some way, and instead of dusting ourselves off and saying, "I'm gonna keep on keeping on," we sit around shrouded in darkness (at least, that's what my roommate says I do) and throw a pity party. What I've found is that, as a result, we miss out on the here. The now. The ever elusive moment.

I came back to Nicaragua on January 5. I already knew that my roommate was leaving in February, a mere 6 weeks from our return. But then, on the plane, I learned that another dear friend, colleague, and housemate is returning to the States after this semester. This is a transient community, which is hard. People come and go. But I also think it forces you to make a decision: are you going to pick yourself up and keep going when you fall short so you can continue to do life with these people? Or are you going to shut down when you make a mistake and miss out on opportunities to invest in people?

So, all this to say, while I'm not a fan of resolutions simply because the year changed, I am setting a goal to invest. I want to invest in people, but also allow them to invest in me.

I started my school year off with a whole lotta investing. The staff of NCA always does a staff retreat in January to have some intentional worship, small group time, and team building games. Oh, and good food and relaxation. :) This year, we went to Laguna de Apoyo, one of my favorite places in Nicaragua. It's a lake that formed in the crater of a dormant volcano. And it is stunning. One of the families at NCA owns a house on the lake, and they opened it to us to use for the day. I stayed there last year for the senior retreat, and I'll visit there again in early February. (More on that another time).

Here are a few pictures from our time there.

This is the view from where we had our retreat. 

The first team building activity. We were the fastest to create a square with our rope while blindfolded, and it looked pretty darn great, if I do say so myself. :)

The second team building activity was to construct a tower from spaghetti and marshmallows. Ours was the tallest that stayed standing for at least 5 seconds.

A group picture of our staff. I love this family so much!