Alli and Kyle in Nicaragua: VMM Retreat

In the middle of January we were able to enjoy a retreat together at Laguna de Apoyo with the rest of the VMM crew. We enjoyed seeing the Managua ladies again. We got to meet Pieter—a long term VMM volunteer who lives in Guatemala (we will definitely be visiting him eventually! Especially for his delicious french fry dips! : D ) Having Joe—our in country coordinator—there was great to talk more about our experiences thus far and our expectations into the future. And we were SO very excited to have Billy and Kristin with us. We met them en vivo (in person), but we felt like we were long last friends…probably from the multiple skype conversations we had. (Have we said how AMAZING skype is??) They are members of the VMM board, but even cooler for us, they were the first volunteers with VMM in San Nicolas. It was so great to swap stories and to talk with them about many of our joys, struggles, and hopes for the town and our position. We have never felt alone on this experience so far, because of all the wonderful support of our community back in the states—all of you! But how wonderful it was to talk to people who have BEEN HERE before. They just GET IT and it was so great to bounce ideas and feelings off of them.
We had lots of time to reflect and have lots of great discussion! I hope to write more posts about some of our reflections soon. We also enjoyed our time relaxing by the beautiful lake, eating (way too much!!) good food, and fellowshiping with our VMM community. A few pictures from our time together.