We made it to Nicaragua! This month we are partnering with Light and Salt Ministries (LASM) in Nicaragua. We started out the month by moving a couple tons of dirt, cleaning the ceiling, and painting our host’s kitchen. Now we are at the LASM center teaching English, creating Thank You cards for their supporters, updating their website, and sewing with the ladies. Our time here in Nicaragua is short, only 2.5 weeks, but we are trying to make the most of it.
The center focuses on teaching and equipping young boys ages 9-14 several different life skills. Their goal is to share Jesus Christ with them in hopes that He transforms and renews the boys’ minds. The boys then grow up with a new mindset and the ability to change their families and culture. The center also empowers single mothers/abandon women by teaching them how to sew clothes for a living. There is a lot going on here and the center and I am excited to see what fruits bears in our short time here.
This past week I have been battling a cold-sore that I didn’t know was a cold-sore at first, so I actually have 3 or 4, or 5 or 6, it keeps growing. My lips hurt. It hurts to talk. It hurts to eat. It is an annoying annoyance. I constantly have to remind myself not itch, scratch, or even touch my face. It’s hard. It’s challenging. It takes a lot of effort to talk with my team, with the boys at the mission, but I have a choice. I can choose to be mute and wallow in my pain or I can choose to fight through the pain and participate in the activities at the center. My choice? I am choosing to fight through the pain, the annoyance. I am choosing not to scratch/pick my face otherwise I might spread it even more. Having several small blister/scab on your lip is annoying but it is a constant reminder that I have to fight the urge to scratch it. I am learning to fight the urge—whether it’s a cold-sore or the urge to think about team changes or the urge to get on Wi-Fi at ministry. Right now am I fighting the urge to return to all the comforts of home—a soft bed, a hot bath or shower, a relaxing couch, a room that doesn’t contain hundreds of mosquitos, scorpions, tarantulas, or other various spiders. I constantly have to fight the urge, fight the pain, because if I don’t fight it, it won’t go away.
The more I continue to think about my present situation, the more I am reminded of Job’s situation. Job lost everything, his property, his family, his health and STILL Job praised the Lord.
“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
—Job 1:21
Am I still praising the Lord in my circumstances? Am I choosing to fight the urge, fight the pain, rather than let it best me? Yes. No, not really—it’s extremely hard, I CAN’T do it by myself. I NEED the help of my Lord, my Father, and the Holy Spirit. I NEED to place my faith in Him alone, because I can’t do life without Him. I NEED to fight through the pain and choose the simply LOVE of GOD above everything else.
So why am I telling all of you about my this about my pain. I am telling you about my pain because I want to let you all that the World Race is extremely hard and challenging. I have to constantly choose to fight the urge of pain and choose to place hope in the LOVE of GOD. I also telling you this because the lesson I am learning through this suffering. The lesson—to choose to rejoice in my suffering and place my worth in the LOVE of the FATHER.
“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
—Romans 5:1-5
*Update* Went to the Doctor today, turns out I have a bacterial infection not a cold sore. Got some topical antibiotics, should be healed up in a week.
