Unsung Hero:
7 cities; 6 ministries; 5 weeks; 4 hostels; 3 houses and a hair salon; vans, trucks, chicken buses, and a ferry; mice, bats, scorpions and ants; a lot of prayer; a lot of trust, and a lot of faith; all rolled into one amazing month.
For those of you who haven’t heard, last month was a month without a plan. It’s called Unsung Hero. Our only goal was to follow the Lord wherever He called in order to network with Christian ministries in Nicaragua.
We started the month in Granada with the entire Squad. Then, one by one, the other teams left for their ministry sites and Mighty Love sat in front of a map of Nicaragua and prayed. We asked the Lord for guidance and for provision. And He answered!
Big time.
We felt drawn to the regions of Managua, Carazo, and Rivas so we spent several days researching those areas. With the skeleton of an itinerary in place, we took each day as it came; holding our plans with loose hands and we watched as the Lord moved mountains to get us exactly where we needed to be in just the right timing.
Our first stop was the city of Managua.
A friend of a friend had connected us with a church there that welcomed us with open arms. They also unknowingly answered some “impossible” prayers we had prayed earlier in the week (see my post “Nothing is Impossible” for the details!) The experience was a cultural immersion (almost everyone we met spoke only Spanish) and by the end of the week, we parted ways with many tears as we left our Nicaraguan family. While we were there, we also visited two amazing ministries: Alongside Ministries and Nicaraguan Resource Network (NRN).
My teammates covered their stories in more detail in their recent blog posts:
Alongside: Simplicity of a Hero
NRN: My “home” away from “home.”
After a few days of waiting and enjoying time with families from the church, we finally heard back from a ministry called Arms of Love, who invited us to come spend a few days with them in Jinotepe. We traded the bustle of the city for peaceful hills and cool breezes in the houses Arms of Love have created for orphaned children and young adults. (See Unsung Heroes: Arms of Love).
The next stop was Rivas where we met an amazing young woman named Anna. After spending some time with YWAM in the States she returned to Nicaragua and began ministering to her community by working in the city dump. She started building relationships with the families who harvest trash for a living and it has turned into a feeding program and community center for the local kids. (See Accidental Hero Revealed).
We spent a few days with Anna, then hopped onto a ferry to Ometepe Island to meet our fifth ministry: Helping Hands and Heart for Christ Mission, (H3C). H3C has a variety of ministries including a sewing school for women for sustainable income, a school for the deaf and mentally disabled, and they work with local pastors to spread the amazing message of Jesus to the island communities. (Check out “Bloom Where You are Planted”).
Then we rested!
If you couldn’t tell by now, our month was jammed packed with ministry and travel up until this point so we stayed the night on Ometepe and enjoyed our first off day of the month. We rented a hostel with hot showers and sheets on the beds (which is something to be so thankful for!) Then we took a tour of the island, visited a natural spring, and spent the day at the beach. It was glorious!
The next day we were off again, returning to Rivas as we waited to hear back from several other ministries. We stayed two nights in a sketchy little hostel, dyed Alena and Andies hair, and a day later enjoyed our second off day in the beach town of San Juan del Sur where I swam in the Pacific Ocean for the first time!
By this time the month was coming to an end and we decided to return to Granada to visit Jenn and Scott Esposito, some missionary friends we had met on our first visit.
We arrived in Granada, spent a few days writing blogs, doing paperwork, and resting after weeks of nonstop traveling, then we moved once again to stay with Jenn and Scott. They were planning a conference for the barrio community of Pantanal and had several teams flying in from the United States to help. Despite their already full house, the invited us to jump on board with open arms. It was the biggest blessing!
We spent Friday praying over the land where the conference would be held; and then Saturday the conference lasted from 7am till 5pm. Many people were healed, saved and delivered and our team was blessed abundantly by all of the amazing men and women who came to speak at the conference.
On our final day in Nicaragua we were invited to have lunch with a friend, who happened to be renting a house on the banks of a crater lake on top of a volcano!!! The water was crystal clear and the banks sloped gently down for a few feet, then suddenly dropped off to depths of nearly 200 meters! Not expecting the underwater cliff, I found myself swimming much sooner than I expected! It was a beautiful and relaxing day, and we finished it off by having dinner with our family from Managua.
The next day we packed up our bags, met the Squad, shared stories and crossed the border into Costa Rica.
So here I am, in Costa Rica, writing about Unsung Hero Month.
It was incredible.
We grew as a team.
We grew as children of God.
And we learned to trust God and each other more than we ever had before.
Be blessed!
Love, Chelle
