Hello family and friends!  I am posting early tonight because we are exhausted and I'd better get this done while I'm awake!

We had a wonderful and productive day where we got not only a lot of work done, but continued to build relationships with the people of Nicaragua.... and 7 of the girls from the Villa came along with us and worked along side us!

We spent from 9:30am until 3:30pm working at the local school where there are over 1000 children with class sizes from 40-60 children and one teacher.  Today was the Day of the Student which started with the teachers performing for the children.  Our own Johnny Brazel got up on stage and played a song in spanish for the kids and english for our team, he did a great job!

Six of our team painted 2 classrooms and the rest cleaned up their entire school yard.  Four of the Villa men came along to help paint and weed wack the grass.  We kept hoping the they would run out of gas and stop because we were SO tired working in the sun for hours!  They didn't run out, and we got the job finished.  We did stop to have lunch with the teachers where we played a game with them, sang a song, read an encouraging scripture and prayed for them.  

Even though the day was productive and we got a lot of work done the best part of the day and the priority of our mission is connecting with, playing with and loving the children.  It was fun to see Patrick, Lynsey and Anna join in a game of football (soccer) with the children, to see John teaching a local boy how to play a song on the guitar, and the rest giving plenty of Hola's, high fives and fist pumps.

John playing for the school

Megan and Claire painting a classroom

Serving lunch to our team and teachers in the typical size classroom 

The painting team that painted 2 classrooms

Our team and 7 of the girls from the villa resting on all our bags yard debris

We returned to the villa with enough time to cool off, shower and chill a bit before dinner and playing with the girls again tonight!  We are all having a wonderful time, no one is sick (or home sick;) ) and we are all so grateful to all of you for allowing us to leave our families and lives back home in the US and experience a piece of paradise.  God Bless!