Okay, so right now I am sitting in a wooden chair in a coffee shop in Granada, Nicaragua. This is usually the kind of place I like to write my blogs if it is available, which in Central America it hasn’t been hard to find since they’re kind of coffee fanatics down here.
Now, come next month in Africa, I’m sure I’ll have to find a different scene to do this sorta thing, but for now, here I am.
I am sitting at a tiny, round table in a corner with my back to the open door so I can catch the tiniest wiff of a breeze so that I don’t spontaneously combust into a giant puddle of sweat, right here in the middle of the floor. Ironically enough, they still believe in Christmas down here near Hades Gates and as much as my body doesn’t understand it, it is actually less than two weeks away from Thanksgiving time and the holiday season.
I am reminded of this only because, as I stare off into the distance- with a glazed look, beads of sweat rolling down my forehead, trying to imagine the north pole in my head- I can see a cute little picture of a Christmas coffee drink and Away in a Manger is playing over the speaker. Yes, Away in a Manger. I had to do a double take with my ears to make sure I was hearing it right. Don’t worry America, other countries also bring Christmas time much too soon, it’s not just you WalMart.
As I sit here, trying to convince my body that we are actually just skipping winter all together this year and there will be no snow, warm cups of hot chocolate, cozy fires, snow boots, or scarves, my mind is fixed on another topic entirely.
What am I doing in Nicaragua anyway?
…Well, this month we are working with REAP Granada. We are working out on their 60 acre plot of land just outside the city, helping to plant and harvest crops. We are doing prayer walks around the city and evangelizing. Thursdays are prison ministry days. Tuesdays are-
God nudged at my heart.
No, Rachel, what are you doing in Nicaragua?
Am I here to travel and see the world?
Am I here trying to fill some obligatory sense of humanitarian need?
Am I here to take some pictures with orphans and stir a few seconds of compassion and sympathy in a stranger’s heart before they complacently scroll through their facebook feed to the next flashing light that catches their attention?
Am I here to check off my list of “done good enough” for a while, so at the end of this trip I get a “pass” to “relax” for at least a few years if not the rest of my life, since I spent 11 months on the mission field?
When I get back to America in 224ish days, will my response be the same to this question as it is here in Nicaragua?
“It should be.” God whispered.
So, again, that begs the question… what am I doing here in Nicaragua?
When strangers have asked me this question in the past, regarding the World Race, I have unfortunately danced or tiptoed around the idea of this being a mission trip mainly focused on bringing souls to Jesus Christ. Instead, I played more towards the humanitarian or “safer” side (without risking being politically incorrect) of the purpose of my trip.
Regrettably, I most often began with something like, “Oh we’re going in and helping organizations in third world countries with whatever they may need- be it food, clean water, medical, building houses, orphan care, insert worldly definition of “worthy cause” here, etc, etc.” And then somewhere MAYBE at the tail end of it I would add something general like, “Oh and yeah it’s also through a Christian organization”.
Humanitarianism by definition is “the doctrine that mankind may become perfect without divine intervention.”
“While there is nothing wrong with many acts of humanitarianism, such as feeding the hungry and creating fair trade work opportunities for the impoverished, humanitarianism cannot provide the true solution to the world’s problems. Why? Because it seeks to provide a solution outside of God.”
-Leslie Ludy
I would lead with all the humanitarian work because the reaction I got from that was one of respect, admiration, and awe; versus, my typical reaction from strangers when I mentioned I was a Christian and the ultimate purpose of this trip was to bring people to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. That reaction was one of uncomfortability, awkwardness, a nod of aggreeance but at the same time a look of “Oooohhh yeah, so you one of those crazy Jesus people, alright, I suddenly have a family emergency I gotta run to now”, or sometimes even a flat out, “Oh so you’re here to tell people that your religion is better than everybody else’s?”
“If the world hates you, remember that it hated Me first.”
-Jesus
I could save all the orphans in the world, rescue all the women trapped in sex trade around the globe, bring clean water to the nations, and put bread on every table that was empty, but if I don’t share the love of Jesus Christ and proclaim His life-saving, eternity-waging, Hell-escaping, gift of salvation, I am better off sitting on my couch living out the rest of my days with blankets over my windows watching Netflix and eating Spagghetios. Because, ultimately, I will have made zero impact on eternity. Zero impact on a single soul.
“If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.”
1 Corinthians 13:1-7
Jesus did not pour out His blood on a splintery cross with 6 inch nails driven through his bone, flesh, and marrow for us to be silent.
He did not endure the screaming pain of having thorns the size of daggers thrust into His skull for us to “do our part” and give a small donation to a charity during the holiday season to make our conscience feel better about the flat screen TV we know we’re getting come black Friday.
He did not have His flesh ripped from His back as He was lashed relentlessly 40 times, for us to sit in service on a Sunday morning and sing a happy song and nod during the sermon or maybe even utter a “Preach pastor” here or there and then go back home to your job, family, girlfriend, boyfriend, insert anything else that is commonly placed above time with Jesus (no, really, think about that one), just to forget about Him until next Sunday rolls around and you block out MAYBE one and a half to two hours TOPS for Him on Sunday morning.
He was TORTURED and DIED…. for YOU. That’s personal.
“There is no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for a friend.”
John 13:11
Not just a man… the very Son of God not only calls you friend, but thinks so much of you that He DIED for you, just so that you would have the chance to be with Him forever. The Creator of the Universe loved you SO MUCH that the thought of sin separating you from Him for all eternity was more than He could possibly bear. So much so that He was willing to sacrifice His ONLY Son, to take YOUR place on that cross. To bear YOUR sin and shame. To take YOUR punishment.
Can you imagine how He must have felt when breathing His last breath and finally being able to say,
“IT. IS. FINISHED”.
He literally went to Hell and back.
FOR. YOU.
And what do we offer Him in return?
A like on Facebook, or if we’re REALLY committed maybe even a share? But maybe we change who can see it if we share it because we don’t want to OFFEND our non-Christian friends.
Maybe 2 hours TOPS per week… out of 168… do you realize that that is literally not even 1.2% of your entire week…. ONE. POINT. TWO. Most of which is spent mindlessly scrolling through “social” media while you ignore everyone else around you or numbing your mind on the TV screen.
We ask Him to bless our food when in reality, is He even invited in to your home?
Or is He confined to the walls of the church building on a Sunday morning?
Are you fired up yet? Are you convicted yet? Good!
I believe Satan’s greatest deception of this age is distraction and desensitization. He doesn’t even have to attack you so long as He can keep you distracted, comfortable, and focused on anything BUT Jesus, He wins, and its much less work for him anyway.
Jesus went to Hell and took the keys back from Satan.
He opened your prison cell.
Are you still in your prison cell reclining in a Lazy Boy and flipping through TV channels all the while your prison door is swung wide open and Satan is lounging outside with his feet up eating a bag of popcorn sneering to himself about how easy it was to make you comfortable enough that you actually willingly stayed in his prison?
So.
What am I doing here in Nicaragua?
“Anyone who will confess Me before men, him also will I confess before My Father Who is in heaven. But whosever will deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father in heaven.”
Matthew 10:32-33
Let me take this moment to sincerely apologize and ask forgiveness to whoever I may have emphasized putting humanitarian works before the ultimate love and sacrifice of the Savior of the World. I did you a grave disservice. I exchanged comfortability for your soul.
Never. Again.
Before friends and family, coworkers and strangers, I would like to openly confess that I am here in Nicaragua with the sole purpose of knowing Christ and making Him known.
Loving orphans, feeding the hungry, tending to the sick, giving to the needy, those are all just a by product or an overflow of Jesus’ love poured out in and through my life. I can take no credit for it. But I also would not consider anything else a more valuable way to spend my days here on earth than in the shadow of the One who gave it all.
“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes.”
Romans 1:16
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So, now, let me ask you…
What are you doing where you’re at?
Does it have any eternal value?
Jesus died for you. The LEAST you owe Him is your life in return.
Maybe you could start with giving Him a tad more than 1.2% of your week?
I am not sharing anything with you that God has not first convicted me of! And so, I have decided that as of Sunday, I will be fasting wifi for the month.
No social media.
No contact with people back home.
No distractions.
Just me and Jesus in Nicaragua.
Satan has attacked me with doubt and fear because social media and contact with people back home is the main and really only way that I can bring awareness to and do fundraising to reach my financial deadline by the end of THIS month to keep me out here on the mission field.
But God keeps showing me that He blesses us when we say YES to Him. When we CHOOSE to be with Him. When we SACRIFICE for Him.
He is not just a Sunday morning deity. He is my all in all. My everything. The very breath in my lungs.
So, despite the fear the enemy is speaking over me, I am choosing IN this month.
I want all of Jesus.
100%.
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me; and that life which I now live in the flesh, I live in faith. The faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”
Galatians 2:20
Blessings from Nicaragua <3
