First, I would like to say a huge thank you to all you supporters for your prayers, encouraging words, and monetary support. This is not just a me thing, this is a Kingdom thing and you are participating on this journey with me. You are all such a blessing to me. That being said, I’m going to try… try, but no promises… to get back to blogging a little more. Life has been crazy busy the last few months so I’m going to try to detail a lot of the changes and the ministry I have been doing on the Race (because I’ve heard that people would enjoy general blogs about ministry I’m doing in addition to blogs about what God is doing in me). So here it goes… a rundown of my ministry and life the last 4 months (some of which will be a repeat from some past blogs)…
First, on the Race we frequently talk about how life is ministry and ministry is life. Yes, you have your set “ministry”, but everything you do is ministry from interactions with teammates and how you serve them to interactions with ministry contacts and serving and loving them. Everything you do impacts the Kingdom, either positively or negatively, and is therefore ministry.
In September I started the Race in Guatemala and my team and I spent the month doing ministry in the local government hospital. Many of my team members observed and even participated in a number of surgeries and C-Section deliveries (not me, it’s not my thing) even though some have no medical background. Personally, I spent the first week reorganizing stuff that was all over the hospital and moving it into one location and helping organize it on shelfs to make the hospital neater and things stored more effectively. Then the last 7 days or so I spent in the “shop” which meant I was sanding rust off of hospital equipment and then repainting it. It was pretty monotonous work and not always the most fun, but I had a great time with teammates, great conversations, listened to some sermons and music and just really started bonding with teammates in that space.
In October my squad moved on to Nicaragua. My team was given the “Unsung Heroes” ministry which means we went around Nicaragua to find new ministry contacts for AIM (our parent mission organization) to potentially partner with in the future… and boy did we find some super neat people and contacts.
First was Jaime and Monica. They were starting up a men’s discipleship ministry. They had run one in Mexico for 10 years but then felt called to Nicaragua to do the same thing. So they left the Mexico ministry in the hands of people they had trained up and came to Nicaragua to start a new ministry. They didn’t have a ton yet, but they had relationships already built and they had land to start building on, all in 3 months. I think the greatest thing is they had great hearts for the Lord and his people. They loved us so well and cared for us and gave us food and a place to stay for almost a whole week which we really needed at that time. They are such amazing people. During that time my team of 7 split, with 3 staying at Jaime and Monica’s and 4 of us going to the island of Ometepe. We didn’t find any ministries on the Island, but we saw the destruction of a recent mudslide, which led to a blog I wrote previously.
From there we moved on to Matagalpa where we met so many amazing people and ministries (hopefully I cover everything). Here’s the list and then I will expound on them… 1. Baptist Church, 2. Ferrell, 3. Harvey and Rosemary, 4. Ben and Sheena (and Dina), 5. Familias Especiales. And three other important people/minsitries… 1. Fara Clinic, 2. Young Life, 3. Joey and Sara.
So, first, the baptist church. We went to this church and found out it runs a private school that is high quality but there are many other projects that a team could potentially do from teaching English to doing work projects to going out and doing community evangelism. This church wasn’t exactly set up to host anyone yet, but they were a nice little start.
Ferrell was a man who had been in Nicaragua for 3 years and had a ministry that was really blossoming. I wasn’t involved much in visiting his ministry but it was a program, and I believe an education center (not officially a school… I think) and it had grown to over 100 kids I believe. He was doing some great ministry and God was really moving through him.
Harvey and Rosemary had recently moved to Nicaragua and were starting to do ministry with street kids with the intent of opening up their home to potentially some of the kids and to teams. They intentionally didn’t decorate it nor put a lot of furniture in it so that spaces would be free for large groups of people to stay and do ministry with them. We spent a few mornings with them just feeding breakfast to a group of 7-12 street kids and Harvey would share a verse and a short devotional with them before feeding them. They were an amazing couple with a huge heart for the street kids and please be in prayer for them because when we were leaving they were having various meetings with government officials about the ministry they were doing.
Ben and Sheena (and Dina)… Ben and Sheena are a couple who opened an ice cream shop while we were there with the purpose of the ice cream shop providing money for them as they plan on becoming a foster home for kids in Matagalpa. The ice cream shop was step one before the foster home (they would probably open an orphanage, but orphanages get shut down in Nicaragua because the government wants to look better by keeping their orphan statistics down because no one knows how many orphans they have if there aren’t many orphanages, but orphanages mean easier numbers to track. Anyways, we spent tons of time helping them for their Grand Opening weekend and they ended up selling out of all their ice cream the first weekend… they only had 12 gallons or so made, but still… I estimated they brought in $1500 dollars or more in sales (not profit… sales) that first weekend, which is a ton in Nicaragua. It was so amazing! And the ice cream was probably tied with Whitey’s as my favorite in the world. I haven’t heard from them since we left but I heard from a teammate that they made twice as much ice cream the next week and sold it out in 4 days (Thurs-Sun… after being closed Mon-Weds for R&R after the chaotic opening weekend). And Dina is their financial supporter from back in the states who helped them get off the ground and she took our team out for dinner and just really blessed us, not just with dinner, but with conversation and some amazing encouragement.
Familias Especiales was a ministry run mostly/exclusively by Nicaraguans that has been around for almost 20 years and ministers to people with disabilities and their families. They have a school for children with disabilities and they have tons of different ministries that support the ministry as a whole and provide jobs for handicapped people who otherwise would not have much, if any, work. They have deaf people, mentally handicapped people, pretty much any person with any sort of disability is free to work for them and be ministered to by them. Within that they make yogurt (including coffee flavored yogurt, which I’ve never seen before), cheese, pinatas, posters, banners, painted artwork on recycled CDs, individually painted greeting cards, rebuilding/rerpairing walkers, crutches, and wheelchairs for physically disabled people, and many other things. It is an incredible ministry to people who are often neglected worldwide but are often neglected even more so in poorer countries because there just isn’t the money or resources to often provide the extra care and attention some/most of these people need. The workers we met were so precious and the ministry was such a blessing to see, even if it was only for a few hours.
Fara Clinic was a ministry I found online and used pictures from Google searches to find out where it was (addresses don’t always exist overseas) and while they didn’t really need any help (it was sponsored by a church in the states and was a very 1st world clinic in a poor country) it was neat to find it and see the ministry being done there.
Young Life – we spent a night at the Young Life camp just outside Matagalpa and it was just such an awesome place and it was great to be reminded of the ministry Young Life does around the world.
Joey and Sara were a couple we met through the Young Life camp. Joey works there and he and Sara really supported our team and loved us. They had us over for breakfast the day after we met Joey at the Young Life camp and we babysat their kids and housesat for them for a couple days. I mean, who asks people to babysit for them 2 days after meeting them? That is just what happens in the body of Christ. Christ breaks down walls that the world says should exist. We had so much fun with them and their family and it was the first taste of many I have had on the Race of families with kids doing ministry overseas because they don’t let their kids dictate their lives and what they do, but rather they bring their kids along for the life they are living wherever God calls them. Joey and Sara were the first example of many on the Race of families living out the Kingdom and the calling God has placed in their lives no matter their family situation, kids, no kids, infants, older kids, it doesn’t matter. These families answer the call that God has placed on their lives and it has been amazing to watch and learn from.
