Christy/ Christmas- (dts staff hospatility) from Alberta Canada. she is a great leader and is really kind and thoughtful  she is my small group leader and my one on one im so glad to have her as a friend so happy that god provided for her to get back here because it foer a while looked doubtful that she would get a visa but go is good and she is her with us.

Mikey- (DTS registrar)- guy from Wesconsin cool guy great surfer and skateborder

Jonny-  (YWAM Director), originally from New Zeland has lived in Northern ireland since he wsa a teenager his wife Jenn- she is taking  the year off from DTS staff on matarnity leave to be a full-time mother to her lovely son J.J.- he is about 4 months old and a big boy for his age.

This summer I traveled with a team that comprised of 14 young adults from all over Ireland to work in Jinotega a City in Northern Nicaragua were the economy is based on farming, coffee, rice, beans and vegetables. We spent 3 weeks working on a project of 10 houses in the poorer communities on outskirts of the city called Barrios.

Habitats Global village programme sends work teams all over the world to help build houses in partnership with people in need. The families Habitat works with are presently living in substandard and often unhealthy conditions and are desperate for a simple affordable place to live.

All Habitat families earn an income but not enough to qualify for a usual mortgage. As part of the partnership agreement each family along with volunteers spends hundreds of hours building their home through what is known as “sweat equity”

 From the moment we arrived in Jinotega at the Hotel we were to be staying we were show to our rooms which were lovely then we went into the front room for a welcome party which the families whose homes we were to be helping build and the habitat staff had arranged for us. The head of habitat for the northern region of Nicaragua welcomed us so nicely telling us how grateful they all were that we were here. You could see on the families’ faces how happy they were to see us. This really made me realize that what we were doing would really make a huge difference to many peoples lives. The generosity and kindness of these people made this a wonderful beginning to my time in Jinotega.

The houses that we were replacing were small wooden huts usually only one room that had mud floors and very poor sanitation. These houses were unable to withstand the elements because there is a lot of rain. The habitat houses that we were building were concrete block houses with metal reinforcements to withstand the strong winds. The families have to choose weather they want electricity or plumbing. They choose electricity over plumbing so most of them still have an outside toilet

While building the houses it gave us a chance to chat with and get to know many of the local community and to learn about there culture and life experience. These people are so community minded and they all look out for each other from the young to the old.

One day on the building site we were talking with a young boy who told us that it was his birthday the next day so we asked him what he was getting for his birthday and he said with a huge smile on his face that he was having chicken for dinner something he only does once or twice a year. This made me think about how much I take for granted at home that I could have whatever food I want whenever I want it. There is so much waste and little appreciation of how much we have. In Nicaragua many peoples staple diet is rice and beans and that’s all the ever have.

One evening our team decided to go to the pizza place as a treat and we brought the three friends we had made.  While we were sitting eating our pizza one of the lads told us that it was just his second time in his life to have pizza, once with the team the previous year and now with us. After we had all eaten all the pizza that we could we were getting ready to leave the three lads seeing that there was pizza left asked for napkins and rapped the pizza up to take home for there family. These people don’t waste food and the always look out for there family.  

The Sunday service that we attended was an amazing spiritual experience for our team and for the three teenagers from the area who came with us

This trip was one of the best experiences of my life to date and has inspired me to learn more Spanish and hopefully go back to Jinotega Nicaragua one day. And also to continue to volunteer my time and energy in similar ways.