Where do I start? God has been so faithful to us this past month and I’m left standing in awe of how God works so specifically and beautifully in our lives and also in the lives of those with whom He led us to.
There are many stories to share about who we met and how we met them, and some even connect with each other. So this is my attempt to tell you the events that occurred throughout this past month.
We stayed in Granada for a few days to recover from jet leg and do some UH (unsung heroes) training with the team. We were then sent to Rivas. We arrived there with no place to stay (our online search only resulted in hostel way out of our budget.) so after getting off the bus, some taxis driver literally picked our bags up and headed to their car. We asked them if they knew of an inexpensive hostel. They did and took us there. This place was over our budget, but better then what we found online. We decided to stay there for the first night. A couple of hours later we found a hostel within our budget. We moved the next day and stayed there for a week before going to Julieta’s Hostel where we stayed the rest of the month. It was a huge blessing to stay with her. And our rooms were a lot more cooler with more windows than the last place which was like living in an oven.
We didn’t have any names or contact so we started out with a lot of prayer walks around town. And this is how we met most of our contacts. Some teammates were out and heard Christian worship music and followed it to a home. We ended going to their church and met with the pastor and submitted their information to AIM for them to send a team to serve alongside that church in the near future. Other team mates met a pastor and told him what we were doing and he said the he could have 5 other pastors in a meeting the next day. So we were able to meet with several churches at once. We also met someone who a part of a gospel drama/dancing group called Gospel Changers. Come to find out that this ministry is directly involved with one of the churches we met with! We were able to join them for a day at a high school. They did a lot of skits that clearly proclaimed the gospel to the students and 100 lives were saved that day. It was beautiful to be able to be there and I’m so excited for future teams to work with them.
We also did a ministry in the park on day. We had a poster for people to finger paint balloons to show that there is freedom in the truth of Christ. We also did some dancing and invited the students to come and join us.
Throughout the month we had many encounters and divine appointments with people. Every time, we were able to hear their story, encourage and pray for them.
We met Mike in the park and he shared his story about his struggle in a legal battle of getting his hotel back. His partner in business has taken everything. He simply needed someone to listen as he shared.
We met Martha, an elderly woman. A team mate and I were standing at an intersection in a neighborhood trying to decide which way to go when she called to us from her porch and we sat and talked with her for several hours. We were able to go back several times and visit with her some more.
We met a group from Africa who were so excited to see us because we spoke English. They are trying to get visa to get into the USA and were traveling around waiting for the visa to go through. One of the women in the group had left her 4 year old son in Africa with the plan to send for him when she made it to the USA.
It was a huge blessing meeting these people throughout our month. Simply hearing their stories and what they learned through their struggles and knowing how to pray for them is what God ask of us when we come across those whom He directs us too.
There are many more stories I could share, but it is difficult to share via blog.
Every week we have an adventure day. Which means we go out and do something fun like hike part way up an active volcano in the pouring rain to a waterfall, which by the way was one of the most beautiful hikes I have ever done. And surfing at the beach. 🙂
