Day One (Saturday)

First off, the news many of you have been waiting for:  all 12 of us are safely here at the mission center in Chinandega, Nicaragua.  We had some fun travel moments, but had no problems getting our luggage through customs and loaded into the truck:

Since our Team Leader, Lisa Marshall, was on a later flight, the rest of the team elected to find lunch with our host, the mission team coordinator, Francisco Peralta.

It was after our lunch at Tip Top (a fast food fried chicken chain) that team member Andrea realized her small bag with her passport, cash, credit card, and cell phone was missing.  After much searching and an employee review of the security footage, it was determined that the course of our afternoon would change as Andrea was a victim of theft.  Plan B involved a late pick up of Lisa at the airport and a stop at the police station to have a local officer view the security footage and file a report.

Police report in hand, next stop was the embassy to try to replace Andrea's passport.  Unfortunately, Francisco will have to take Andrea back on Monday afternoon, but we are hopeful that Andrea will at least have her passport replaced by the time we return home next Saturday.

Needless to say, our prayers are many as we end Day One.  We are so thankful to all be here safely and that we were not in any physical danger.  We do pray that God would work on the hearts of the team of thieves -- they've already tried to use Andrea's credit card.  Finally, we pray that this would be an experience guided by God and that everything would turn out for the good.  Thank you, friends, for your prayers and support.