Nicaragua

Kevin left this morning for Nicaragua! Are you surprised? We are too. It was a last minute trip that all came about less than two weeks ago.

He was supposed to go in February for a week on a medical mission trip, but it started getting complicated and expensive. We remembered some friends of ours were going down this month (a couple from our college days who are doing a lot of mission work in their retirement). So we called them up the day before they left to see what they thought of Kevin joining them for a few days at the end of their trip. They gave him the green light and we bought the ticket. The following Monday (Jan 9) I called Compassion to see if there was anyway Kevin could meet Josseling - the girl we have sponsored for 8 years. They like to have 8 weeks notice but said they would do their best. We still hadn't heard before leaving for vacation on the 11th, and we were without internet for 5 days. We came home to a message saying that nope...Friday the 20th didn't work for a visit, but if Kevin was available the 21st they could try that. That was on Sunday and Monday was a holiday so it wasn't until Tuesday that we got confirmation that a visit was possible and confirmed.

Soooo....on Saturday Compassion will pick Kevin up and take him to Josseling's Compassion center and then on to her home where he will likely get to meet her family!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (yes, every single one of those exclamation points is necessary and valid).

In terms of length of sponsorship, Josseling is one of the longest ones we've had - second only to Dominic who we've had for 11 years. 

I'm so excited for him. I was slightly jealous that he is the one who will meet her since I'm the one who has been writing letters for 8 years, but all jealousy disappeared when I realized that he needs this. Compassion started out as my thing, and Kevin has always been supportive. Throughout the years he has let me sponsor more and more kids, and he's even adopted the ministry as his own and as our family's. When I saw the ministry firsthand, it was life changing. I'm excited for him to see the work God is doing through Compassion with his own eyes.