Update #7: Friday, July 25 and Saturday, July 26

Friday, July 25, 2025

We were up at 7am, with breakfast at 8am. Carla really spoils us while we are there. She made sure Mason had pancakes and fruit every morning. We left for the airport by 10am and Regan’s son picked us up at the airport in Managua at 2pm. From there, we returned to Verbo picking up more water and other rations for the rest of our stay at CasaB on the way home. The Community Bible Study trainer met us at CasaB and we went to lunch to prepare together for the training tonight and tomorrow. The training will include 8 partner churches in the Veracruz area. We picked up pizzas to take back for the participants. We were expecting as many as 30 people and we had 27 in attendance. The training ended at 9:30pm and we returned to Casa B to debrief and discuss our future youth conference in January and future trainings. We turned in about 11:30pm.

Saturday, July 26, 2025

Today’s CBS training ran from 8am-4pm. The National Director, Saul, brought in two Nicaraguan volunteers who administered the Children and Youth training. They are a husband and wife team; she is a doctor and he runs the pharmacy in their clinic. The churches worked together to prepare a breakfast, lunch, and an afternoon snack and all-day coffee (I think I may actually be Nicaraguan). After the training we met with all the pastors and discussed the youth conference in a little more detail. The plan is for each church to study Nehemia over the next two months, and then study Daniel with their youth before the end of December to prepare for the conference in January that will focus on the book of Daniel. Our team took Saul to dinner and spent a lot more time talking about our current and future plans. Saul left for home around 9pm. He had what used to be a four-hour drive back to his home in the north near the Honduran border. Due to a new national speed limit, this is now a seven-hour drive for him. All the CBS folks are volunteers and travel as far as it takes to do the training. When we assist the churches in hosting the trainings, we provide housing, food, and a small gift for the trainers.