I'm Home!

We got back on Sunday June 19th at midnight!  There were some complications in the Miami airport but luckily they got figured out and God helped to deliver our team home safely.  While this trip was much different for me than my last, it was still a wonderful and powerful trip that I will never forget.  I was so thankful to have the opportunity to see all of the people that I formed relationships with last year; it was an answer to prayer! The Lord gave me a unique opportunity through my past experiences in Nicaragua to serve him, follow up with old friends, and make new friends.  Our trip was packed with stories and excitement, so I am going to share a few highlights and experiences that particularly impacted me.

1.)  I got to go visit the family that my team invested in last year and they were doing great! There mother wasn't there (Maria), but their father was and he had not been there much when we went last year so it was wonderful to see him there being a positive influence in his children's lives. All three of the kids were smiling and I was so happy to see them. The girls remembered me, especially the oldest named Dania, and they said they still had the Bible we gave to them and they continue to read it often.  They still attend the church in their neighborhood and their whole family seems to be growing in a relationship with Christ.  Being able to see them was an answer to my prayers as I prepared for the trip and their continued pursuit of Christ was an answer to my prayers from this past year for them. (If you remember, one of my previous posts had a picture of my team last year with this family. Go back and look at that picture and then at this one; it is so amazing to see the friendship from year to year!)

here they are :) Dania has grown so much! She is almost as tall as me now!

2.)  When we went to the dump, I went with a different perspective than last year because I had already experienced it. I felt more prepared with a realistic expectation of what the dump would be like and an understanding of what the living conditions were there. Though I will never truly know what it is like to live near the dump and work there, I do know what the dump environment is like and some of the struggles are for people who work and live there. I felt that this knowledge really equipped me to not be overwhelmed and to be used by the Lord to speak to the people. God led me to Isaiah 55 and Mario, one of the translators and spiritual leaders in Granada, allowed me to pray and speak about this passage to the people we brought food to at the dump.

It reads: "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." Isaiah 55:1-2

I thought this was a great picture of complete satisfaction found only in the Lord.  These people at the dump were thirsty physically and spiritually- they wanted the food and drink that we had brought them, but they also were in need of a Savior and a loving Father to fill their life and satisfy their thirst.  God is what is good; he satisfies us and we can find delight in him that cannot be found in money or food.  I did not read the rest of Isaiah 55 to them at the dump, but if you are interested in more, I think that Isaiah 55: 10-11 continues to explain what the first few verses are saying.

On the left is some of our team and the right some of the Nicaraguans who work at the dump and came to be fed and listen to Mario. At this point, I had just spoken. The food is there on the table in the containers: beans, rice, cheese, and clean water.

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There are beautiful mountains in the background, but behind where our team is standing there are piles and piles of trash.

3.)  While there were many experiences and stories from this trip, I am only going to share one more. This one in particular was very meaningful to me. Last year, I made a very close friend in Nicaragua.  Her name is Nataila; she one of my previous posts because learning her story, meeting her children, and making a friendship with her last year was so important to me.  Both last year and this year I felt like the Lord did want to use us at the dump, the nursing home, and in other ministries; however, I also think that He wanted to use our team to encourage, pray over, and refresh the missionaries and Nicaraguans that live daily in Granada.  The Lord gave opportunities for that to happen just like it did last year.  He allowed for my friendships with Natalia and Francisco to continue. 

My team had the opportunity to continue to develop a friendship with Francisco.  He went out and shared his faith in Granada for the first time with my team (team Mango) last year. Since then, I found out that he has been translating for groups that come to El Puente (where we stay in Granada) and he has continued to work in a hotel and is going to school for hotel management. You can be praying for him as he works to manage his time between work, ministry, family, his neighborhood, friends, and time with the Lord daily. We were able to encourage him and pray over him as he has been struggling with this lately.  Also, I found out that he is currently applying to work at a hotel that will pay him twice what he currently makes, so keep him and this job opportunity in your prayers please!

This is Francisco with one of the guys from our team.

Being back in Nicaragua with my friends, I felt like I had never been gone. I remembered so much about them and it was like long time friends had been reunited.

Natalia continues to amaze me! She is a translator, goes to school (college) on Saturdays, is the mother of two children, and SHE IS OPENING A SHOP!!! I am so excited for her! Last year, some of my teammates and I bought scarves from Natalia that she had made. Last summer when a team went back, she was making skirts and dresses. Now she has added shirts into her repertoire and she is preparing to open her very own clothing store.  I am so proud of her! She is someone who makes goals and accomplishes them; she has so much energy and drive in life! Natalia is hoping to open her store in a month and she will continue to run it as she finishes her business classes towards her degree. There are certain women that Natalia has asked to help her make clothes in preparation for the opening of her store.  The name of her store is something like "Giving Hope" in Spanish and her hope is that she can help show women that hope can be found in Christ and provide them with jobs through her store. Natalia is such a talented entrepreneur and I think I am her biggest fan :) 

Me with Natalia in the area that is soon to be her clothing store!

Natalia, me, and her two children, Dalia and Junior.

I also got to invite Natalia and her children to a fiesta we were having for the girls from a nearby orphanage and then to have dinner with our team on our last night in Nicaragua. She felt very loved and cared about and I know that she really appreciated having close friends there that she could visit with. I was glad I got to spend some time with her children and share some of the lesson with them that we had been sharing with other children all week: Dios amo (God loved), Dios Dio (God gave), Creemos (We believe), Recibimos (We receive) explaining that God loved us so much that he gave his son to die on the cross for us and we believe and trust in God and this truth and we receive Christ in our hearts and the gift of eternal life.  This is something that we share with the kids at Athens Church's children's ministry also.  After sharing this I also shared John 3:16.  

4 Days!

I'm leaving in 4 days and the Lord provided all of the funds for my trip in only 4 days last week! Thank you so much to everyone who is praying for me and has contributed to my trip! The Lord has used you all to show his love and his role as provider in my life. I continue to be in awe of all He has done in such a short amount of time.  It is amazing that it is so hard for us to trust God sometimes; He clearly knows what He is doing and He has a perfect plan. While I am a little bit nervous and a little bit excited, I know that the Lord wants me on this trip for some reason and I know He is going to teach me so much on this trip. I am so honored to have the opportunity to go to Nicaragua and show love to the people there and serve them. God is so good and I am so thankful for the gift of His Son for us and I am so excited to share this good news and see Jesus change people's lives!  

John 3:16

Inspiring Stories from Last Year's Nicaragua Trip- 2010

While I was in Nicaragua, I had the opportunity to have great conversation and form a friendship with one of our translators.  Her name is Natalia, she is someone who I have been praying for, and her story is quite inspiring. God rescued her from an unfulfilled life and showed her a way out and restoration in a relationship with him.  She now walks faithfully with the Lord and is growing and maturing so much in her faith and relationship with Christ. My prayers for her are for strength as she takes care of her two children and younger brother, in addition to determination and perseverance as she goes to school for business, and makes clothing (entrepreneur).  She is only four years older than I am and I was able to encourage her in the role that she has as a single mother and in her aspirations as a seamstress.  I am excited to be able to return to Granada and continue building a relationship with her.  I also feel like I will be able to encourage her even more on this trip and have meaningful and helpful conversations with her due to some of my experiences and the classes I have taken this year in my Child and Family Development major. Below is a picture of me with Natalia.

        

The other person in this picture is Josh.  Josh was on Team Mango with me and we served alongside one another while in Nicaragua.  We both got to know Natalia and he was able to be a great example for her of a man who loves the Lord, serves the Lord, and is caring and kind; she was not used to respectful and supportive men being around her and I think his respect for her impacted her greatly.  Also, Josh and I got to love the women who worked in the kitchen by helping them cook and trying to communicate with them—he got to form a neat relationship with the son of one of the women while I bonded with the women; however, he also showed these women that he was different because he helped them and learned to cook chicken and plantains.  I was very blessed to be able to see Josh interacting with the Nicaraguan people and loving them and the friendship that he formed with everyone in our group was so meaningful.  As many of you know, Josh passed away shortly after our trip to Nicaragua.  He is greatly missed and had such huge impact for God’s kingdom while he was on earth, but I know he is happy in heaven right now!  Josh and I were so excited after returning from Nicaragua and said last year we would go back next spring break.  While that did not end up happening for either of us this year, I am choosing to follow God’s calling and go back now.  While I am sad that he will not also be there, I rejoice in the fact that he is with our Father!  Though God’s work through Josh in Nicaragua has been completed, my work there for our Father will be continued in June.

The pictures above are of me with the family that my ministry team got to form a relationship with for three days while we were in Granada. We had the opportunity to share the word of God with them, wash the children’s feet, and tell both the mother and the kids who Jesus Christ is.  The mother of these three children was so grateful for us; they all received us with open arms and I greatly enjoyed spending time with them.  I just loved getting to play with these children! We danced, did crafts, and read Bible stories that they had never heard or been exposed to; when we asked them, the children said they did not know Jesus Christ and I was absolutely overjoyed to tell them all about him.  Before leaving, we got the opportunity to give their family a Bible because they did not have one.  It turned out that this Bible would be the only book that they had ever owned and they cherished it and began reading it right away.  Being used to tell this family about Christ was a blessing and I hope to reconnect with them when I return! I am anxious to see what the Lord has done in their lives since I was there.  After giving them the Bible, each person on our team shared a Bible verse that we found meaningful and the one that Josh wanted to share was Ephesians 5:1-2—“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”  This is a favorite of mine and when he mentioned the verse, I knew right where to look because I was reading the book of Ephesians while we were there.

The last day that we were there, some of the local Nicaraguans that had been serving alongside our team throughout the week lead our team in one final time of worship. They proceeded to thank us, pray for us, and wash our feet. I was completely humbled. In my mind I should have been washing their feet and showing love to them, but the Lord didn’t want that.  He wanted to show me a humbling love; he wanted to show me how much he cares about all of his children; he wanted to show me that he is always present and that even though I was leaving the next day, he would still be there to take care of the people I had met.  

Mangoes?

(Our mangoes were like the ones in the lower left corner)

     Last year when I went to Nicaragua, we had a team of 15 people and we were split into smaller ministry  groups of five people.  Each team had their own name: one was team Loco and another was team Salsa.  My small team of five was called "team mango”.  This name was chosen at random and really did not have sentimental meaning to my team; however, on our first day there, we went out and did prayer walks through the small neighborhoods and the town of Granada.  While we were walking through the neighborhood known in Spanish as "barrio", one of the families living there offered us mangoes from their tree. This family insisted that we have some of their mangoes and they invited us into their front yard area. Each of us had one and then they sent us off with a grocery bag full of more mangoes.  This poor Nicaraguan family that had little to give was so generous with what they did have and they showed such selflessness and love to a group of Americans that they didn't even know. I was in awe of the Lord and the love he showed us through these people.  What is funny about this story is that my ministry team had not gotten used to our name yet, so at the time we did not remember our name and the relation this story had to it.  It was exciting the next day when we all realized the unique symbolism that the experience we had in the barrio had for our team and then the name stuck from then on since it was so fitting and meaningful to us.