August 2004 – First Day of School
Not only was it my first day teaching at NCA, but it was the first time that NCA shortened classes to allow the second part of the day to be filled with a special chapel, free lunch and team building activities. This was the first day that we played the now famous Tape Game.
March 2005 – Egon’s Coke
The funniest memory of teaching came from Franz’s older brother, Egon. He walked into my Bible class and I noticed that the front center of his shirt was all wet, so I asked him what happened. He replied, “Mister. I was drinking my coke (with his right hand) and then Kevin asked me what time it was.” As he was saying this he demonstrated with his right hand holding a open coke bottle and turning his wrist towards himself to check his watch, which caused him to dump his coke on himself.
2005 – 2006 – No Power, no Generators
Before NCA invested into buying generators, when the power went out, it was out. This school year had the worst power outages that I have experienced. For several months, everyday we were without electricity for at least a five hour block of time. This was the electric company’s way of saving power and they would just turn off a whole grid of the city’s power for 5 hours. They used what seemed like a random rotation, so we never knew when it was our turn to lose power, but when it went off, we all knew that our five hours were starting. The worst for me was during school hours because it’s hard to teach computer classes without the use of computers. Also, due to the computer lab having air conditioning, the windows did not open and the lab became hot very fast.
August 2006 – The Start of Youth Group
Before this school year there had been a small Middle School Youth Group which met monthly at someone’s house. There had also been a similar, but less frequent one for the High School. So beginning August 29, 2006, we started meeting as a combined Middle School and High School Youth Group once a month and separate groups once a month. The combined Youth Group nights is what has continued throughout nine years, consisting of a time of games, worship lead by a student band, student testimonies, teaching from God’s Word, etc. Our first youth group theme was, “I am a Loser” from the Matthew 16:25 which says, “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”
November 2006 – Ceiling Tile Falling on Jesse VanderWees
Another funny story happened while teaching in the computer lab when for no apparent reason a ceiling tile fell. The computer lab was mostly full of students working and the tile hit Jesse VanderWees in the head and broke in two. Jesse was okay, but looked confused and chuckled a little bit before returning back to the document he was working on.
January 2007 – A New Small Computer Lab and an Office
Until this point NCA had a small computer lab located in the casita. It was very small and was in the room that ICF now uses for a nursery. Late 2006, NCA began constructing a new computer lab that would open up from the big computer lab. With that addition I was very thankful to receive an office so that I could focus on youth ministry along with my teaching responsibilities.
November of 2010, 2011 and 2012 – The 30 Hour Famine
One of my favorite things that we participated in as a youth group was World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine. Each year between 60 to 75 students completed 30 hours without eating any food. The event was held on NCA’s campus from after lunch on a Friday until Saturday night, when a big celebration dinner was provided by the parents. During the event, students completed activities and competitions called “Tribe,” which helped them understand poverty in third world countries. Over the three years, our students raised more than $12,500 to help starving children in Nicaragua, Haiti and Afghanistan.
April 2011 – Beer Tour Field Trip
For the last field trip of the year the 9th and 10th graders planned on touring the Fuente Pura water facility. When we arrived at Cervezas de Nicaragua, the chaperones of the field trip explained to the students that Fuente Pura is part of their company. We were split into two groups, one to tour the facility and the other to watch a presentation about the company. I was surprised that all of the presentation was about their beer products. During the Q and A period I asked about Fuente Pura and they replied, “Yes, that is our company, but that facility is in a different location.” This was an important detail that was missed in the arrangement of the field trip. This accident was talked and joked about by the students for a while.
May 2011 – First Undefeated Season
I was an assistant coach for the NCA guys basketball team during this incredible season. They completed their 17-0 record by winning the Copa Movistar in the championship game. They were also Copa Notre Dame Champs. Other than winning the championship game, the highlight of the season came when Daniel Loftsgard singlehandedly scored six points in the final minute to lead NCA to come back and win against ANS. The Eagles had total of 38 wins and only 3 losses over a three year period from the 2010, 2011 and 2012 seasons.
May 2013 – Girls Championship Basketball Game
In 2012-13 the NCA girls basketball team made it to the Movistar Copa Championship game. Because of years of having problems with the referees keeping track of the score and no score being displayed, our basketball teams decided to have an assistant coach keep track of the score and the other stats from the games. During the games we would routinely check with the scores table to confirm that they had the right score. In the championship game, during a timeout, we found out that the official keeping score had given NCA’s last-made basket to the opponents. So instead of the score being NCA up 13 to 6, they had NCA only up 11 to 8. We contested this, but to no avail. As stunning as that was, it actually happened a second time when Naomi Loftsgard scored another basket. This time we were furious—but again the referees didn’t care what we thought, and did not reverse the scoring. Because of that basket credited to the wrong team, NCA was now down by 1 instead of ahead by 7 late in the game. Thankfully, Lisa VanderWees made two clutch free throws to officially retake the lead—and our girls held on to win the championship game.
August 2013 – The Eagle Center Opened
In August of 2013, after many years of raising money and hearing about the new multi-purpose building, the Eagle Center was ready to be used. This was a big change for our school chapels, sports programs, youth group and ICF (International Christian Fellowship). After using the Eagle Center for a few years now, it seems unthinkable that we used to do most of those same activities in the much smaller old chapel, now the library.
April 2014 – Online Schooling
On the Thursday before Semana Santa in 2014, Managua experienced a strong earthquake, causing the government to announce that all schools were closed for Friday. Then on Friday another strong earthquake rocked Managua. There were many hundreds of aftershocks. After a week and a half off of school during Semana Santa, the government announced that it was still unsafe to return to schools. So over three long weeks after the holiday break, we were not allowed to go to school. During that time, teachers sent assignments to the students via email and Google Docs. Everyone was happy when we were allowed to return to school after a month away from NCA.
August 2015 – Amplify, Thrive, Launch and Serve
At the beginning of the 2015-16 school year a change was made in the Youth Group program. After nine years of having Youth Group twice a month for 7th-12th grade students, we decided to have four different kinds of Youth Group events that would each meet about once a month. ‘Thrive’ would be for 6th through 8th grades; ‘Launch’ would be the Youth Group for 9th through 12th grades; Amplify would be a combined worship night for middle- and high-schoolers, and Serve would be a student outreach led mainly by High School students.
2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016 – Middle School Retreats to Ometepe
Even though we have a Middle School Retreat every school year, the ones I have loved most are years when we went to Ometepe Island. Each time we go, we take around 30 students to climb the Maderas Volcano. It is a challenging and fun hike which takes between 7 to 12 hours to ascend and descend the dormant volcano. Mr. Star had taken a group in 2004, a few months before I arrived to Nicaragua. The first year I went—in 2006—we stayed in a hotel, but due to the disruptive retreat games and activities, we were asked to not return to that location. Thereafter, we stayed in an orphanage called CICRIN. In 2012, however, CICRIN was not available, so we stayed on the property of a missionary family, Tom and Esther Fritz. That added to our adventure because the boys slept in leaky tents and the girls slept on the floor of their ministry building. We discovered that the tents were leaky when it rained—most of the night, in fact—which made the climb up Maderas much harder. Not only is the hike fun, I love time on the ferry across Lake Nicaragua, the views, and watching the fun that happens near or in the crater lake at the top of Maderas. Only once did I venture into the thick mud near the lake, and I was thankful that it rained to wash that thick mud off.
