We have been in Nicaragua for over a week now and it’s crazy how fast the time has went by. It was a little over a week ago when 8 strangers came together to form team Nicaragua. This past week has been an amazing week full of lots of learning and some amazing God moments. Our team prayed that God would show up in big ways and he completely has.
Something God has been teaching our team is how to look for Him in the little things. God is always moving even when its not in our control. We don’t have to solve world hunger or see millions of people come to know Him to see his kingdom be brought to earth. We have spent this week in a village called El Guayabo. It’s a little city on the edge of a massive lake here in Nicaragua. In the mornings we woke up to the sunrise over the lake. It would expose the mountains and volcanos all around us. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.
We spent our time playing with children, doing VBS, speaking/doing drama at a church, and going to people’s houses and sharing the gospel and praying with them. No matter what we were doing we were surrounded by an amazing community. In Latin culture community is how you survive and we were rapidly accepted into their community. As much as were we able to love on the people they poured just as much into us. I believe everything in mission work and your walk with Christ comes down to love. We must put others before ourselves and learn to live in community. The girls learned that really fast by sleeping in a 10 x 10 foot room on the floor. Talk about a bonding experience.
We also spend most of our time ministering to the children around El Guayabo. We got to go to the school and do vacation bible school twice a day. We would take a bible story and have the kids act it out. They loved being part of God’s story. We also spent time singing lots of songs and playing games. By the end we had built an amazing relationship with the children and it was hard to say goodbye to them.
While we were there we did three church services with the church we partnered with. We shared a drama, a few testimonies, and sang. The church we went to was called Gensis. I loved how free everyone was to worship and how the accepted us into their church. Nine women in all cooked all of our meals for us while we were there. They were such a blessing.
My favorite thing we did was go door to door and pray over people. We could really feel the presence of the Lord working while we were there. It was amazing to be part of something that was bigger then ourselves. I trust that God brought healing and ministered to the hearts of the people we prayed over.
That is an overview of our amazing first week of ministry. God is really working on each one of us and really using us. Pray that He continues to show up this next few weeks!
