March 26



Today we woke up at 5:30 for worship. I couldn’t understand any of it, but it was nice.

Breakfast was fruit and bread. Neither tasted good, but I didn’t want to be rude or malnourished so I ate it. Dean V made fun of my faces.

When we were done we walked to our work site and listened to the Adventist School band. They were not all on key, but the effort was good.

At the work site we carried 100 lb bricks, mixed and made cement, and started building a wall. My hands are all scraped, and my back is super sore.

We came back for lunch, which was delicious and then took naps. When the kids got out of school we played with them. I got a soccer ball in the eye.

The kids had to stop playing so they could clean up for dinner. I took my first cold bucket shower.

Dinner was more rice and beans and some odd veggie dish. It was edible.

Obed did worship.

- M.

Day 1 / 2 Nicaragua


We boarded the plane at LAX to El Salvador, everything's going perfectly fine, then we land. During the layover, Dean O and Dean V break out some bad news. Other schools were apparently going to Nicaragua for mission trips like us, they were trying to get us all together, but there was no vicinity that would be able to accommodate all of us. So a group from PUC left to Nicaragua the day before us and when they arrived at the airport, they hadn't made any prior arrangements, so they rented a van on their own and decided to drive themselves to their location. Little did they know that they were being watched. On the way to their orphanage, another vehicle passed by them and threw something onto the road to pop their tires. Moments later, another car comes and they're held at gun point and robbed of all their possessions. Everyone was safe, and the group ended up continuing on with their mission trip, but after the sponsors told us this story, all of us were terrified. It was pretty much too late to turn back now, because we were already in El Salvador. Then Dean V tells us that she told her sister about what happened, and Dean V's husband is in the military in Nicaragua (Dean V's from Nicaragua.) So there will be military personnel at the orphanage just in case we get into trouble. That was extremely reassuring.

We arrive in Nicaragua and Ana Maria is there to pick us up. We wait for Jaylene and Sterling and then go out to load the bus. When we walk out, there's a guard, or cop, or someone, there to escort us to the orphanage, with a gun. It was pretty crazy. After our luggage is tied to the roof of the bus, we start our two hour journey to Hogar Reach.
At the home, beds were moved around and we went straight to sleep.. sorta. If it weren't for the dogs, roosters, and cows -_______-.
The next morning, we "wake up" around 5 to worship with the kids before they start their chores and go off to school. Some of us went back to sleep until 7, when we go to work on the Wall.
We walk a couple blocks down to the academy where the kids from the hogar go to for free. And we're welcomed into this auditorium, which is a really big classroom, I think. Well we got to the school and they had this little ceremony for us, some of the kids and prof. played music and all the teachers introduced themselves, it was pretty neat.
We started building the wall, basically the whole day we moved hundred pound bricks.
Yeah.
and made some cement.

After working, which felt like forever, we went back to the home and had lunch. We took showers, and long, long naps. After waking, I walk outside our little house and there are some kids playing with some soccer balls. I walk over to Sheldon and Jasiel, the youngest girl, Sheldon pumps a soccer ball and the little girl throws it at me; naturally I treat it like a volleyball. She cracks up laughing. I keep hitting the ball with my arms, and she's probably thinking, "this girl's crazy! she doesn't know how to play futbol!" She then throws it to Season, and she plays volleyball with it too. So basically for an hour or so this little girl and Danya, her sister, throws balls around and then proceed to roll on the floor laughing.
Eventually, they get tired of it and we kick it around for a while.
The little girls again, grew tired of playing with me :( so I go into the main building of the home, and start playing uno with Saul, Christofer, Alexander, Paula, and Angela.

Around five o'clock the kids had to clean up and eat, so we go back to our "casita" and wait for worship.
The day isn't even over yet, but I think we're off to a good start.

-Varonica Napitupulu

03/25/12

I awoke early to shower and eat some oatmeal, not knowing when I would eat again. I walked from my apartment to school with my gear - one hiking backpack and one day-backpack. I forgot my new student I.D. card, so with the gate closed, I had to climb over the fence to open the gate to bring my stuff in. We all met in the parking lot (all save Sterling and Jaylene who had already left for Nicaragua). Sheldon's parents had bought donuts, and with a few other parents present, we had a word of prayer and then left.

We survived solid traffic (and Dean Obed's need to stop for a restroom) and made it to LAX on time. I had trouble at the check-in counter. TACA told me I had a seat from LAX to San Salvador but that was it. After a long wait, they fixed the problem and I was given a seat. In the TSA line, we had the pleasure of going through line with Colin from "Whose Line Is It Anyways?'

We finally got through security, although one of the Brenda's had to go back out to check some items she could not take as carry-ons. Our flight to San Salvador was nice for Sheldon, Mindy, and me (we sat together). We watched "The Help," which was an eye-opening and great movie, and then we basically chilled and slept. 

Upon arriving in San Salvador, Dean Obed and Dean Vilchez had some serious news to tell us. The previous day, a group from PUC had arrived in Managua as well. They arrived at night and rented vans to get to their work site. They believed they were being followed, and once in a remote location, a van dropped a device that slashed the tires on the vans. The PUC group called for help, and when teh help arrived, the group was held at gunpoint. All items not on their person were taken.

No one was injured, but they were stranded. They eventually did get proper help and made it to the work site, but since some students had their passports stolen, they were now working with the U.S.A. embassy to get new passports. After hearing this, we were concerned. However, once our school was notified, the night before, Dean Vilchez, who is from Nicaragua, made some phone calls and had gained Nicaraguan security.

Upon arriving in Managua, we were met with a police escort with automatic guns. Our luggage was loaded onto our chartered bus, and right before we left, one policeman (with a big gun) entered and sat in the last row of our bus. Another entered and sat in the front row. We shut off all lights in the bus so that (since it was night time) no one could see into our bus and see us. 

We took the 2 hour ride to chat with each other and try to sleep. We eventually arrived at the orphanage where after shuffling around beds, and after the guards gave us their cell phone numbers, we tried to go to sleep. This was a task in and of itself as it was 1 am, yet the mosquitoes were out, the roosters were crowing, a cow was mooing, insects were chirping, and Dean Obed and JR were battling to figure out how to turn off the lights and shade the lights outside from shining through their window onto their beds. I rolled over and was out within minutes...

- Richard P. 

March 25



Spent the whole day on a plane or at the airport. When we landed from our first flight in San Salvador we were informed that PUC had come down to Nicaragua also a couple days before us. They were followed from the airport and robbed on their way to their destination. We were told how to prevent our passports from being stolen and encouraged to not be afraid. When we landed in Nicaragua there were police to escort us on our bus to our destination. They had huge guns.

The bus ride was the best part of the day. I got to sit next to Jaylene and we talked
about the different smells and sights.

We were exhausted when we finally arrived at the orphanage. The guys are in the
same building as the kids, the girls are in our own building.

- M.

Getting Down to Business

After all of our weekend fun, we started with some serious mission projects Monday morning, bright and early at 5:30 a.m. at "Midnight Mission". It's a community center on Skid Row that provides breakfast for anyone in need. We put on gloves and aprons, got behind the counter, and served up food for more than 700 men and women, mostly adults, of all ethnicities. It was the fastest, most efficient breakfast I've ever experienced, with all of them coming through line, eating, and leaving the dining room within about an hour.

After cleaning up there, we headed to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank and sat through an orientation session with the 40+ other teenagers that were there to volunteer from other schools. Then they sent us to a large room where we were to sort huge boxes of food that had been donated by local grocery stores and people with kind hearts and huge wallets. We were given directions and, suddenly, the whole room swarmed with people running from the fridge, to the pantry, to sorting out meat, to weighing trash cans of the expired food that we had to throw out. All of a sudden, all of these strangers became one big team.

We got back to the CSM building for lunch and, apparently, some found more important things to do...

In the afternoon, we headed out to Wyvernwood Apartments again to hang out with the kids. We played soccer, (while reminding them NOT to say certain words), more freeze tag, ("without pushing guys!!"), and some follow-the-leader...("where did you learn to do THAT??") We wonder what kinds of lifestyles they go home to, among older siblings and parents gone to work. The guys are a tougher group than expected for 9-12 year olds, but the girls are sweet, and all of them are starting to warm up to us...

Jasmine with puppy on left, our host Sarah in the middle,
and some of the younger set of kids

We ended the day on Chinese food at Jade Wok, a cute, little restaurant nearby, and came home to debrief about the day's events and engage in our new group hobby, listening to and critiquing songs from The Sing-Off.  =)


- Rebecca

Chilling in L.A.

Hey there, Jasmine Pagaduan here to bring everyone a new perspective to our adventures in Los Angeles! Quiet but witty, I'm the kind of person to silently tail the others and simply observe. I'm going to cut my intro short, since Rebecca seemed to have summed me up quite well in our first day blog. So let's get this started shall we?

Our day started just like yesterday: a six a.m. wake up call to attend the first service with the West Angeles Church of God in Christ lead by Bishop Blake. Following our frenzy to get ready, we arrived at the main campus of their church and were blown away by its beauty. As Amy put it, "It's like straight out of a movie!" And indeed it was: as we walked into the lobby of the grand church, it's massive size alone blew me away. Growing up in small towns like Victorville and Lompoc (if you have never heard of these towns, that is how small they are), I've always been accustomed to small churches, so a grandeur sight like this was most definitely a step out of my comfort zone.

Shortly after recuperating from the size of the lobby, I followed the others into the main sanctuary where I was taken aback yet again! The sanctuary housed a floor with a guesstimate of thirty-or-so rows of movie theatre seats while there was a balcony above them with ten-plus rows. The front of the stage was a huge stage that was fully capable of holding a drummer, two keyboardists, a guitarist, bassist and a massive choir that I was so sure could rival the size of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City. My mind was having an over overload, trying to process the astounding size and beauty of this place.

As the service began, I started to pay attention to how the congregation behaved during song service: dancing with a vigorous enthusiasm, the members joyously sang along with the mass choir, some of them even brought tambourines to jingle along to the beat. There were so many traits within these people that really threw me through a loop: energetic, very welcoming, enthusiastic. I suppose I can say that it was all just too much for little me to take in. Nevertheless, the experience was certainly one that I will not forget any time soon and I don't think the others will forget it either.

After church, we came back to our warehouse for a change of clothes in preparation for our City Search: a scavenger hunt game that included interviews with an L.A. native, a tourist and a homeless person, job searches, the prices for apartments, and the list can go on and on. Being in the middle of downtown L.A., we knew we had to make this a real adventure for all of us and what better way to do that than act out the scenarios our checklist gave us?

However before we could even start on that, we bumped into two homeless men and entered a rather fascinating conversation with them. Both of them stated that the system was making sure they could not acquire an apartment of any kind through methods such as paperwork, TB testing, and waiting lists. In personal opinion, I did not find this such a heavy burden though considering the fact that they were in a sort of "the sooner we have a home, the better" situation, I really could not blame them. They also voiced their loathing of the corrupt officers in the LAPD, stating that they caught them for some of the most trivial violations. This was such a strange statement to hear, especially after listening to Sarah's comments about the LAPD playing a game of basketball with the homeless which was apparently a "front" to the two men we talked to. The conversation with these two really left me thinking: who is right? Who is wrong? Is it the homeless fault for not being able to meet society's standards to survive properly? Or was it society's for not providing sympathy and helping those in need like the churches, missions, and other charities? Evidently as Rebecca put it, there are a lot of "gray areas," which means there are not a lot of clear answers and that fact alone is perhaps the most painful one to embrace because we cannot figure out how to solve this issue without a definite solution.

Well, on a lighter note, our quests in the City Search had suddenly transformed into a mission of espionage as we eagerly assigned each other the various tasks in our list, one scenario in particular became a favorite among us all: a very eager Amy dragging an equally reluctant Gatra into a relationship to discover the cost of an engagement ring.

Following our "lovebirds" into the jewelry shop, I watched the two discuss about the ring with dear Gatra being straight-forward and simply asking, "What's your cheapest ring?" Meanwhile our lucky lady, was detailing about the type of ring she wanted. It did not take long for the reluctant bachelor to be pulled aside and after some calculations with the jeweler, was given a business card with his cell phone number to talk about a cheaper ring at another time when Amy was not around.

By this time, Rebecca and Justin had entered the shop and were being pulled into a misadventure of their own: in a desperate effort to look normal, Rebecca started to conjure up a tale that she and Justin were searching for a gift for Justin's mother. Before either of them knew, they were being presented with two watches that were at least $1200. Desperate to escape her web of high tales, our leader was able to jump ship by suggesting that Justin call his father for a confirmation and that they would be back some other time and in haste left the premises of the shop with me in tow while Gatra and Amy followed us shortly after. Engagement ring query: success! Effort to look normal: fail. 

After an afternoon of laughs and giggles, as well as a lunch with a man in need, we ended our day at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, where shops were closing, and street performers and artists (including an anime portrait artist!) were out ready to earn profits of their own. During our time there, we witnessed an amazing trio of performers: a 70-year-old dancer, an amazing soprano saxaphone player, and a tap-dancing trumpet player. It was quite a day! I'll look forward to whatever is in store for tomorrow...  


- Rebecca

Turkey breakfast, Bingo, and Freeze Tag

Ugh...just a couple more minutes...I grabbed my cell phone to hit snooze, only to realize that it was 6:40 a.m. Oh no! We have to leave at 7! I jumped out of my sleeping bag, stumbling over a couple of duffle bags in the dark on my way to wake up the other girls.
     "Hey! Psstt...ladies! Wake up! You guys wanted to shower, remember??"
      Seventeen minutes later, we were showered, dressed, and ready to go. Phew! We joined the guys and piled into the car to drive to Faith in Christ Ministries, where we would help prepare breakfast for 40-50 people and sack lunches for another 150. Pastor Joe and his wife, Gwen, were our hosts and they immediately put us to work making coffee, frying potatoes, making turkey gravy and slicing onions for...breakfast...

     It actually turned out to be really good. We set up tables all along the side of the church's community center and brought a plate out to each one, sitting down to eat with them and getting to know some of the people who visit Faith in Christ ministries every Saturday morning. 

     After cleaning up and helping out with a few more things at the church, we said goodbye to the Pastor and his wife and headed over to Grandview Retirement Hotel, a local nursing home, for the second part of our morning. 

     The folks at Grandview enjoy younger people coming to visit them once in awhile, and one of their favorite games is usually Bingo. We brought some little prizes for them, (candy, soap, picture frames, perfume/cologne, chapstick, etc.), and got started calling the numbers! Or, I should say, Gatra got started calling the numbers. Amy sorted the numbers, and Jasmine, Justin, and I spread out to play with them at different tables. 

     Gatra began to lose his voice, and I was too impatient to wait long enough to win, so we switched places and I tried my hand at number-calling. It was fun to see how excited they got when calling out Bingo! I got a Bingo!!

Left to Right: Jasmine Pagaduan, our host Sarah, Amy Rudra, Gatra Suhari, and Justin Tuot. 

     By the time we were done, we were super hungry and just HAD to stop by McDonald's for hot fudge sundaes...of course. We did get healthy food when we got back to CSM, though, along with about an hour of chill time before our next assignment. We spent it singing silly songs and reflecting on what we'd done throughout the morning. 

     Wyvernwood Garden Apartments is on the nicer side of the complexes we've seen around here, and it's mostly full of hispanic families with kids running around everywhere. For the next two hours, we played soccer and freeze tag with them, trying to hide the huffing and puffing of college students who've forgotten how intense a playground obstacle course can be...

     When we all stopped for a water break, one of the four-year-olds, Diego, decided to teach us how to "shuffle". It was the cutest thing ever! We told them we had to go, but that we'd be back several more times throughout the week to continue our games together.

     On our way to dinner, we made a quick detour to Griffith Park Observatory, which some of us had never seen before. It was gorgeous! We got there just as the sun was setting over the L.A. skyline and all of the city lights started flickering on. The group may or may not have had to tear me away from the view in the interest of food... 

     Dinner was at "Zankou Chicken", an Armenian spot on the way home. The meat on a spit and salty yogurt drinks reminded Justin and I of our food experiences while visiting Turkey with the Honors Program. We all had a satisfying meal full of pita, falafels, hummus and garlic paste, (and the rest of our conversations tonight were held at a healthy distance away). 

     The rest of the evening has been spent in the general living room area, relaxing, writing, and singing with Gatra's guitar and Justin's ukelele. Hopefully, we'll get to sleep a little earlier tonight, so that we won't have to begin tomorrow the way we began today...

- Rebecca