Playing Catch-Up

Well, hello there! I feel I have neglected all of you!

I got back late Thursday night from one of the most wonderful experiences of my life: a mission trip to Nicaragua. My plan is to blog about my experience *here* if you'd like to hear more about it.

Being that I am a photographer, I, of course, brought my camera. :) Here is a look at what I did while I was there.

We had a really early morning flight out of Minneapolis on the way there... We got to see the sunrise above the clouds tho!

This is Yolanda. She is one of the girls who lives at Casa Bernabe (the orphanage I went to in Nicaragua). She has been there about a year. She is so sweet!

Sunrise in the jungle! The birds were loud all of the time, but especially in the morning. There was a rooster who liked to make his presence known around 1 am. :)

You can click on the image to make it bigger, but just in case you can't tell.... they're cows!

We stopped at a mountain-top look out thing on our way to the feeding center. We had a great view of Managua!

One of the many trees at Casa Bernabe.

This is inside the feeding center at Nueva Vida. Nueva Vida was built as a refuge camp after Hurricane Mitch in the 90s. It very large. There is more than one feeding center in Nueva Vida, but we only visited this one. They offer one meal a day to the children who come, and they serve about 150 children per meal.

They wait so patiently!

Two of the Nueva Vida girls... I didn't catch their names. I believe they are sisters.

They love taking pictures with you!

<3 This is Ashley, one of our team leaders.

One of the streets in Nueva Vida.

This is at the Team Center at Casa Bernabe.

My team and I had the idea of doing a "photo booth" while we were down there with the kids. It was a HUGE hit! These are the younger girls who live at Casa.

And here are the older girls.

And these are the boys! :)

I brought a photo printer with me and I printed a bunch of the photo booth photos for the kids. They then made frames!

The final night we were there, we showed a slideshow of all of the photo booth photos. They loved it!

This is my sponsor child Linda and I the last night we were there.

Part of what I did while I was down there was photograph some of the newer kids. These kids still in need of a sponsor. There are a few price breakdowns, but you could sponsor one of these wonderful kids for only $40 a month! Please go to ORPHANetworks website and see if this is right for you. I have met all of the kids that are available at Casa Bernabe and would be more than glad to tell you what they are like! Click *here*.

Thanks!

<3 Laura