JMU Student Salsa Dancing with Rosita in Nicaragua

JMU Student's Salsa dancing with Rosita in Nicaragua, Chacraseca

Salsa Dancing with Rosita in Nicaragua, Chacraseca

Salsa Dancing part 1

Dental hygiene lessons at the schools in Nicaragua

The dental hygiene Lessons at the schools

First post for the house in Nicaragua

Our first post for the house

Back to work again!

Mixing the cement

Learning a song Había un sapo

Había un sapo, sapo, sapo
Había un sapo, sapo, sapo
que nadaba en el río, río, río
con su traje verde, verde, verde
se moria de frío, frío, frío.
La señora sapa, sapa, sapa
le decia que tenía un amigo, amigo, amigo
¡Que se llama Jesús!
¡Que se llama Jesús!

Water from the well in Nicaragua

Getting water from the well

Cooking and mixing the rice with the Nicaraguenses

Cooking & Mixing the rice with the family in Nicaragua

Mel teaching everyone a dance!

Mel teaching everyone how to do the line dancing

Working on one of the houses in Nicaragua

Collecting small rocks for the foundation of the house

Salsa Dancing Lessons

Learning salsa dancing with the kids in Nicaragua while building the house

The beginning of building the house

Beginning of the Construction site

Nicaragua, Nuevo Amanecer

Nicaragua, Nuevo Amanecer

Church in Nicaragua, Chacraseca

Sunday, Church in Chacraseca, Nicaragua

Alternative Spring Break Program 2008

Our mission was to help the people of Chacraseca - NICARAGUA during spring break by taking supplies to them, presenting lessons, and building two houses for needing families. Nicaragua is considered the second poorest nation in the Western hemisphere.

On Friday afternoon, the 29th of February, we met at The Outpost near exit 245 and headed out to our friends, the Maistros, home for a few hours before they took us to nearby Dulles airport for our flight to Managua Saturday morning at 5:43 a.m. with Copa Airlines. There's nothing like a full 10+ hours of traveling together to kick off some quality group bonding time. By the time we got to Managua, we were tired but excited to be working together for the rest of the week. Our intention was to make a difference during our stay.

JMU students AnneMarie, Carissa, Danny, David, Jackie, Jordan, Kristen, Sarita, and Steve, joined Shari Kornblatt and Melissa Noble, the student co-leaders for Nicaragua 2008, in this adventure. The student leaders were responsible for the trip logistics, communicating with the partner service agency "comité pastoral", team development, and facilitating group reflection sessions. I, Rosie McArthur accompanied as the Learning Partner. The Learning Partner lends support to the trip as one who can communicate easily with the native population, and as a "mature influence" to encourage students to make wise decisions. I participated in all team activities, took lots of pictures, and recorded each day of our eventful adventures, helping and documenting our service in Nicaragua.

Through the process of working with local communities, our students woke up early every morning to work for two local families. They helped build their homes.

The trip was really incredible. Privileged college students had their lives turned around by seeing the needs of underprivileged kids and wanting to serve them. This particular trip was started by Shari and Mel, two students who had been to Nicaragua to serve on other trips, and felt for these people hurting in Nicaragua.

Students prepared lessons on dental hygiene and taught in a schools called Hermanas Maryknoll, El Recreo, Mojón 1, Mojón 2, & La Concepción. They helped the local community building houses. They brought with them lots of clothing, school supplies, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and much more to leave with the people. They also brought medical supplies to leave with schools and pharmacists in the area.

The group split into two parts for working on the two houses: one group worked with one family, while the other worked with another family. We carried blocks, mixed cement, and other tasks as assigned by the "Maestro", the building specialist. Now and then we took little breaks while the Maestro prepared for the next step of the project. The students got some Spanish lessons, Salsa dancing lessons, and tortilla making lessons. Water had to be drawn manually from a well with a bucket and rope. Bathrooms are outhouses. Cooking is done by burning wood. Trash dumps are carefully scoured for anything of possible value. We all learned a lot while in Nicaragua!

Reflecting at the end of our trip, all of us came together and pondered our experiences and impressions of this trip to the impoverished Central American nation. The incredibly eye opening experience helped to put our lives in perspective. It's not every day we go into a poverty-ridden nation and see a community like that. It makes us realize we are so lucky to live the way we do, not to mention to simply have what we consider essentials such as electricity, running water, a shower, a toilet, a kitchen stove that turns on, etc. Everyday things that we all take for granted yet would be considered special there.

For some of us it was really a culture shock. There, whole families live in one-room houses made out of basically anything they can find. We learned to make do with whatever we have, to help others to make the best of what they have, and to count our blessings. We began to appreciate the simplicity of life and focus much less on the material aspects. We are so blessed and we should be grateful every day for what God has given to us. The people there were surprisingly happy despite their poverty and were exceedingly grateful for the little help we provided.

We hope to be an inspiration to anyone who is thinking about traveling to a third-world country. We are truly believers in experiential education, and this experience is a good way of learning outside the classroom. Our students got to spend time with community members and gain personal experience with the Nicaraguan culture. We all want to help people; we all enjoy seeing people smile and laugh. We want to be part of something significant. Our model is how Jesus cares for people. Doing this is helping us figure out what faith is all about. Service trips are a great opportunity to put our faith into action by serving underprivileged people around the world. It is also a chance to learn about another culture, to grow in our personal faith journey, to understand and integrate the principles of Christian teaching, and to share what we have learned with the JMU community.

I came to love the wonderful group of students that I got to spent a whole week in Nicaragua with, sharing precious moments that I wouldn't trade for anything in this world. I hope and pray that wasting food would stop. I pray that God will appease the suffering people around the globe: guide and deliver them away from their misery. I pray that we will be more sensitive to the world around us and not be blinded by our own selfish nature and interests. I hope the pictures will always serve as a reminder to us how fortunate we are and that we must never take things for granted.

With thankfulness and appreciation for the this opportunity to witness the love of God and His mercy through His people,

~Rosie McArthur, ASB Learning Partner

Muchas Gracías!

The students and staff of James Madison University would like to personally thank each and every one of these generous donors who have contributed for ASB to Nicaragua.

Thanks to your generosity, our goals were met and we were able to build two houses instead of one and help the students of Nicaragua with school supplies, clothing and much more. Your support meant we could impact even more in Nicaragua in 2008 — and beyond.

FRIENDS

Herb Amato
Haley Arnold
Haley Arnold
Melvin & Virginia Arnold
Melvin & Virginia Arnold
Jack & Dotty Atcheson
Thomas Baker
Deborah Barbour
Christina Bennett
Barbara Bergman
Dawn Boyle
Holmes Browne
Linda Castellan
Katie Corbin
Francis DePasquale
John DePasquale
Jill Devereux
Falcon, D.M.D. Dubbleman
Charles Fehrenbach
Michelle Franks
The Futterweit Family
Kevin Giovanetti
Wendy Golden
Ted Goshorn
Michael & Joan Gottlieb
Steve & Renee Staton Grande
Ashley Hill
Kathryn Hockman
Kimberly & Kirk Holzner
Joan Houff
Phillip & Sue Hutchinson
Sylvia Komblatt
Frances M. Kray, D.D.S.
Karen & David Lobron
Susan Loy
Clifton & Marcella Marr
Dr. Jim McConnel
Thadtisha McCoy
Wanda McFadden
Shawn Mooney
Rebecca Morrison
Adrienne Orourke
Thomas Pattie
Judith Phillippi
Bill & Anna Phillips
Tim & Mina Phillips
Judy Powell
Emma Puffinburger
Stephanie Rathbum
Phyllis Riggleman
Veda Riggleman
Austin Robey
Martha Ross
Jim & Nancy Ryan
Dan & Sandy Schroppe
Pam Schwartz
Bob Shank
Laura Smith
Douglas L. Stams, D.D.S.
Margo Steadman
Merv Webb
Ann Yager
Adelhardt Construction Corporation
Cici's Fundraiser
Recycling Fundraiser
Shoebox from Shari
Stephens City Family Dentistry, P.C.

Supplies/Clothings
Kathleen Campbell
Linita Crespo


Thanks to the Maistros family for putting us up and feeding us before and after our trip and taking us to / picking us up from the airport. <3!

Please click here to see what your donation contribute to build and helped these families in Nicaragua.

Thanks to each supporter who helped perform this small miracle.

Empacamos

We’ve packed the things for our trip to Nicaragua which started Sunday the 24th of February!
The photos below will give you a taste of our time there. ...

Nicaragua Team Meeting Minutes 11/18/2007

The word compassion is derived from the Latin words "pati" and "cum," which together means, "to suffer with." Compassion ask us to go where it hurts, to enter places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being a human being. When we look at compassion this way, it becomes clear that something more is involved than a general kindness or tenderheartedness. It is not surprising that compassion, understood as suffering with, often evokes in us a deep resistance and even protest. -Henry Nouwen

Expectations:

This is your trip and you put into what you get out of it We definitely want to build our team before we go to Nicaragua Talked about our roles as leaders in planning, preparing and leading the trip. We also introduced Rosie, our fantastic learning partner.

Future meetings will be fun but also purposeful so that we can best prepare for the trip If you have any ideas for meetings, fundraising, would like to step up and take something on, we want you all to feel you can do that
Plan for meetings every other week next semester. We'll be in touch about that.

The trip/Fundraising:
You'll need to get a passport if you don't have one. If you don't have one, here's the website: http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_1738.html Talked about a few of the projects we may be doing in Nicaragua...working in the fields and then taking the food and serving it to Nicaraguan school children; playing with children; visiting an Orphanage; other projects are in the process of being confirmed (trip price will be changing as projects and resources are confirmed...we set the max amount of money so it can only decrease from there)
We have a place to stay in Northern VA with Rosie's friends the night before we leave and the night we get back We'll be doing fundraising next semester for the trip and for the cause Individual and group fundraising We'll give you lists of things you can collect over winter break for Nicaragua. We're planning on taking a lot of donations down there so look for the things you can donate over Thanksgiving, in addition to old suitcases. We'll be talking more in depth about donations next meeting. Do you have any fundraising ideas? Feel free to share!

Our next meeting will be on Sunday, December 2nd at 2:00pm in the Airport Lounge (APL). Please go ahead and put this in your calendar and let me or Shari know if you can't make it.

Here's the website about recommended immunizations for Nicaragua from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/destinationNicaragua.aspx There was a question about immunizations so you can check out the website and/or talk to your doctor about what they recommend.

JMU Nicaragua Team

You are invited to view 1/27/08 Nica Team's photo album: Nica Team Meeting

You are invited to view 1/20/08 Nica Team's photo album: Nica Team Meeting