We’ve been in Jinotepe, Nicaragua for almost two weeks now. Jinotepe is a small town that has a very peaceful aura about it. Wikipedia page says it has 30,000 people, but it provides everything we need from a supermarket to a pizza place. Chad and I work out at the local gym, and we love eating at our favorite American diner in town, Terry’s. Terry provides us with hamburgers, fries and milkshakes and good american customer service hospitality. Jinotepe is around 10 miles from the Pacific coast, and we are supposed to go to the beach later today for our off day. There is a village we minister in where we can see the ocean from the village that sits above sea level and it is beautiful.
Our schedule is not too busy, but also very diverse. One day we might visit a hospital to pray for sick people and that afternoon we visit houses in a “barrio” which is the Spanish word for slum/run-down neighborhood. The church here has a good deal of really committed people. Pastors and some of their elders truly love Jesus and seek to serve him, but there is also an absence of young people. We attend a church on wednesday and friday afternoons and there are more americans than locals so that is a little disheartening. The committed christians here are on fire for God. I’ve watched Manuel, a pastor we work with, stand in a woman’s house and tell her boldly that she needs Jesus until the woman broke down crying and accepted Jesus on the spot.
There is a constant flow of short-term teams staying with us here in Casa Mateo. Some teams are incredibly encouraging like I talked about in my previous blog. There are other teams that I feel simply are here check off the list of yearly week long mission trip. I guess I feel that way myself sometimes too.
We are certainly enjoying ourselves here. I’m struggling to learn any spanish, but I have teammates that translate for me. Hopefully we can be an encouragement to the local church and have some sort of eternal impact on this really incredible town and local church.
