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.
