Nica drink some agua
That title is serious because Nicaragua was hot hot hot!!!
I'm not going to sugar coat the majority of this month. I'm going to give it to you straight. Nicaragua started out fantastic. We had debrief for 5 days in Granada to start the month out. Debrief was awesome and relaxing and we had a spa day! The last day of debrief we did a squad outing to tour the small islands in Lake Nicaragua that were close to Granada. I had spoken with my squad mom, Lisa the day before about being rebaptized and it was really cool to watch God put the plans in motion. We decided to wait until after the outing to do the baptism on the lake shore. But our boat ended up stopping in the middle of a few islands. So, in that beautiful spot The Lord refreshed my view of my relationship with him. I wanted to be rebaptized because I was baptized when I was so young and I didn't understand what it really meant. The Lord used it as a way to remind me that the old is gone and I am a new creation in him. It was also a way for me to recommit my life to him. It was a beautiful time and God did a really awesome spiritual cleanse of me.
Very soon it was time to start ministry. Our team this month wasn't set up with an established ministry. Our job was to ask The Lord to lead us to ministries that could potentially be partners for AIM missionaries in the future. The first week we stayed in Granada. We honestly had a different view for the month than what they wanted us to be doing. So we prayed in the city center and walked around the square everyday similar to Joshua's walking around the walls of Jericho. We walked and prayed for the walls in the hearts of the people of Granada to be broken down and for darkness, spirits of depression, and victim mentalities to be cast out. We prayed that the people, though poor in the eyes of the world, would be rich in their spirituality and their love for Jesus. It was also an awesome time to pour into our team. We spent time each day growing with one another and listening to whatever God wanted to speak into us. Our unity was so clear and obvious. When we felt called to go to Managua the next week we were still ready to experience new ministry.
But, Managua wasn't the easiest time for us. Finding ministry partners when you don't already have a ministry contact is really hard. People weren't as receptive as we had hoped to meeting with us. Thankfully, we got to spend some time at the ministry of another team on our squad and Stephen, the guy who runs their ministry, set us up with some other people. One reason Managua was so hard was that our team started to get really sick. The doctors didn't have a diagnosis so sleep and rest were most important. Not being together and pouring into one another and also being discouraged in finding ministries really broke our unity and our spirits.
A few of us went with the ministry Food for the Hungry to visit villages outside of Chinandega and Somatillo. It was a really cool experience. They treated us so well and we felt really cared for. Getting to visit the villages that were really just dirt roads and way out from the city was neat. The people in the communities seemed really touched in the interest that people took in them and we got to learn a lot about them and their needs.
When we got back to Managua we needed a new place to stay. Thankfully, we met with a woman named Anne (she worked for Vida Joven which is young life!! And she is originally from memphis! Instant connection) who offered her home to us for the weekend while she was at the beach with her husband. It was the ultimate recuperation paradise and the majority of our team was better by the end if the weekend, when we left for Leon.
Unfortunately for me I caught the sickness. So our week in Leon, which we named recuperation week anyhow, was spent in bed. Eventually we self diagnosed and we are pretty sure 3 of us, including me, had Dengue. After a few days of fever, chills, profuse sweating, headaches, body aches, and some weird looking rash, I was on the up and up. And boy was God going to provide for us in a small town just 20 kilometers from the border of Honduras- Ocotal.
