Hey
guys,I’m
a late comer to the July Race and to this blog. I just gotta say I have enjoyed
looking over your blog posts and am very excited to get to meet all of you guys
in just a few weeks.I traveled to
Nicaragua through AIM last summer for a month and I have to admit that it was
the best experience of my life. It is hard to summarize all of the things that
happened, but I will try.
A bunch of twenty-somethings that from all around the United States came
together as a group in Atlanta. From California to Florida and everywhere in
between. Each individual at a different point in their life. Each with their
own personal struggles. We had so many differences, yet we had one common
thread tying us together… God. We all strived to seek after Him and lose ourselves
in the process. We laughed together…we cried together.
The seemingly hopeless condition of poverty in that nation shook me to my very
core. It was like a Western-culture-veil was lifted from my eyes so that I
finally could see how the majority of the six billion human beings inhabiting
this world actually live. All of the things we take for granted like
clean water, food and electricity were rare commodities. The sorrow and grief I
felt inside was excruciating. Picture this–families with no money and no home
actually live in landfills in many third world countries. They scrounge through
garbage for food and for items to sell. They have countless diseases and
infections. Families living in the dumps in Nicaragua have even prostituted
their daughters to the dump truck drivers for first dibs on the trash coming
in.Through all of the darkness I experienced in
Nicaragua, the contrast of love and light was always present. God was present.
Hope was present. Our group consisting of several twenty-somethings spread the
Good News of salvation through accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.
We traveled to that dump in Nicaragua where people were hungry and we fed them
a hot meal every week. With every meal we gave them a Spanish version of the
bible.
(Woman at dump reading the New Testament with her son)
Although the people we lived amongst were physically
poor, they were more spiritually rich than just about any American could
imagine.
Matthew 19:24
…it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich
person to enter the kingdom of God.
The material things in our lives sometimes give us a cushion from feeling as
though we even need a Savior.
Those who have nothing are not blinded by ‘things’. They can truly see God in
his full glory. While they are physically poor, they are spiritually rich.
Matthew 19:30
…many who are first will be last, and the last first.That group of twenty-somthings left Nicaragua a family. I can’t wait to team up
with more brothers and sisters for the next 11 months and shed some of God’s
glory to the darkest corners of the world.
