This month my team and I are working on finding new contacts all throughout Nicaragua for future World Race teams to partner with for ministry. This month has already proven to be a pretty incredible one. One in which God seems to be saying, “step back and watch what I can do.” The following is one of the MANY stories that I have to share and it’s only six days into the month. Keep bringing it, God!
Today (Tue., Aug. 5th), my team and I left a ministry that we were visiting in Somoto and returned to our hostel for lunch. As we sat down to decide what we were going to eat we realized that we had bought dry beans, which take a lot longer then canned beans to cook, so we weren’t going to have enough time to cook those and leave again in two hours for more time at the ministry. Thankfully, our treasurer for the team came up with the great idea to go out for lunch, so we did!
As we left our hostel we decided to walk around to see what our affordable options were. We stopped at the first restaurant, went inside to check prices and realized that we should keep looking. The second restaurant we saw was across the street so we crossed and a few of our girls went inside to check the prices. While some of us stood on the steps waiting for the response, we realized that the table cloths had sunflowers all over them. For those of you who don’t know, our team name is Girasoles, the Spanish word for sunflowers, and upon finding out the prices we decided to stay there to eat.
“Look, the pattern on the table cloth is made up of sunflowers” a few of us realized. “It must be meant-to-be,” we half jokingly stated. I even pointed out another restaurant part of the way down the street but everyone was content with where we were so we stayed, sat down and placed our orders.
At some early point during our time there the waitress who was also the owner asked us if we were all Christians and we said, “yep” with smiles on our faces.
She then went on to tell us that her mother had recently passed away and that today we were going to bless her. We weren’t sure what she meant by that but none of us objected.
We continue waiting for our plates, prayed real quick then began to eat once our meals arrived. Once everyone began to slow down and sit back from our plates, we began to sing “Lean on Me,” together. Some of us sang the melody and some of us sang the harmony. I love when we sing together because we’re in total unity during those moments. We just sing for the sake of singing and we have so much fun doing it.
Plus, every time we sing joyful or meaningful songs together the atmosphere seems to change and it feels like we are having the privilege to pave the way for the Holy Spirit to minister. Sometimes it seems like the singing is ministering in itself.
We attempted to sing a few other songs, only in Spanish, then one of us got up to pay. Before we left we all agreed that we wanted to pray for our waitress, whose name we found out is Johannah (sounds like yo-hanna in Spanish). I had the priviledge to lead us in prayer while my girl Sandra translated.
While we were praying God gave me a picture of Johannah on her knees crying and He reminded me that He catches every one of our tears in His hands and that it’s His arms that wrap around us when we need comforted. He is able to take even the most painful, most tragic circumstances and cause something beautiful to come out of them.
When we were finished she told us all that she had prayed after her mother died that God would send people to pray for her and, specifically, people from far away.
“Missionaries,” she said as she gestured towards us.
Just about all of us started to cry at that point, including me because although I know God is working in and through us, we don’t always get to hear or see the effects of what we are doing. Sometimes I wonder if we’re making a difference at all but today we got to see first hand God answering someone’s prayer. We got to know while He was using us that we were being used. We were literally an answer to a precious woman’s prayers and the best part is all we had to do was find a place to eat lunch and be ourselves.
She also ended up sharing with us that before her mother died, she came to her and said, “Johannah, Jesus is my Lord and savior,” without any questioning from her daughter. “So I know that my mother is with Him,” Johannah told us with a gentle smile on her face.
Every morning our team is purposeful in meeting together to start our day off with prayer and sometimes praise and worship and today, like every morning, we asked God to be a part of our day and for the Holy Spirit to lead us. All throughout the day He showed us time and time again that He hears us, that our prayers aren’t in vain and neither is the time we’re spending on the World Race.
He is faithful. He is gracious.
Today was the first day that Johannah decided to open her restaurant since her mother died and in order to make it feel more lively she changed the table cloths to the ones with the sunflower pattern.
(Johannah is the one in the middle wearing all black.)
There were so many things during our day that if they would have went differently we would have never met Johannah, but God knows exactly what He is doing. He is gentle yet strategic, and He has countless children yet cares about the cares of every single one.
