I have decided that I love Central America. This list is getting super long and I could go all day, but I’ll spare yall from getting too bored. But the main thing that has captured my heart in Central America is the people. I have never met a more loving, kind, sharing, open, fun, hospitable and straight up awesome group of people in my life. The relationships are easy to get going and so rewarding when they flourish. I feel like I have learned so much from the relationships I’ve built in Honduras and here in Candelaria, Nicaragua. I love the ministry here because it’s what we make of it. Since New Song is a mission that’s already up and running, they have everything well organized with lots of various activites that are ready for us to get into. We’ve worked mostly with the youth. I didn’t realize how much I love teenagers, but working with them the past two months has been totally awesome. I think I’m so passionate about building relationships with them because I wish I had people pouring into me and investing in me when I was that age. We hang out with them, play games with them, get on the computers together, take walks, race on bikes, dance all night at a quienceanara party, pray over them, and bask in each other’s company..it’s so great! Our first day here we met a woman named Rosa. A seriously powerful prayer warrior and amazing woman of God. She wakes up every morning at 3:30 am to pray and spends everyday visiting people in the village. Rosa elludes God’s love wherever she steps foot. What an insane blessing that we get to walk alongside her while were here and I want to be a sponge and soak up as much as I can from this woman. Oh, and her daughter was pronounced dead for three hours by numerous doctors…Rosa told her to speak. And she did. Yep, that’s who I have the privelege of spending time with for a month, I’m pumped. Another exciting thing we’ve been doing is going around to different houses and meeting people outside of the mission (we live on the church property). We go with Rosa and pray over sick people, widows, non-believers, anyone. I really love spending time with people and seeing the hopelessness in some of their eyes because I get excited knowing that God has so much hope for them. One of the people we’ve gone to visit is a widow named Maria. She says she’s 113 years old, her daughter says shes 101. Either way, Maria is old and quite possibly the cutest being I’ve ever seen…and the most wrinkly. I’m going to take a picture when we go see her on Wednesday so yall can witness this precious woman. She sits in a rocking chair with a long white braid on top of her head, a pink dress (which out she pulled a Nicaraguan form of Icy-Hot from under it) and shoes on the wrong feet. We sing to her (and by we, I mean Amanda), read scripture, laugh, and let her play with our hands–ours are huge compared to hers and she thinks it’s hilarious. We’ve asked her what she wants us to do around her house when we come visit, but sweet Maria just wants us to sit there and rest. So we are going to go and sit and rest with Maria and love on her as much as we can while we’re here. I am falling in love with Nicaragua and the people here. I’m scared to have my heart broken again knowing I will be leaving again in two weeks to repeat this process all over again. But God loves us so much that the least we can do is pour that out into other people, so that’s what I’m going to do. Besides, what better way to have my heart broken than for what break’s Gods and to have pieces of it scattered throughout 11 different countries? That’s a beautiful heartbreak, if there is such a thing. Oh, and I quite possibly experienced the craziest day of my life yesterday and my faith was tested like never before. We have the next two days off from ministry to go on a little adventure roadtrip where I’m going to process everything that happened. So stay tuned for my next blog…it’s a wild story!
I know it’s only month two, and I really can’t wait to experience Asia and Africa, but Central America seriously rocks.
The beautiful sunsets I get to watch each night
worshipping with no structure (people who can’t sing, random dogs in the church, kids running around, people shouting and praying outloud,etc.)
no concept of time–Mom, I’m never late here, lateness doesn’t exist. I think I was put together with a Central American mindset–
loud music at all times of the day
the* stars*
letting a 16 year old boy pierce my ear in the living room with the earring from his ear
celebrity status–I guess there aren’t too many gringos in the places we’ve been
icing in your face whenver there is cake around (maybe that’s why Americans are fat; we actually eat our cake)
hugs so tight they hurt
no personal space
cramming three times as many people into whatever mode of transportaion we’re in was designed to fit
love notes
naked babies playing in the dirt in the street
four year old girls dancing on tables at a party at 11 pm
random dance parties
purple drankkkk
sketchy food that you eat to be polite and praying over it that you aren’t puking from the mystery plate later
people sweeping their dirt floors for you when you enter their house
Rosita (15) and I hanging out in Lisa’s room in the hammock. Love this girl!
It’s weird I feel like we’ve done a lot since we’ve been here, but at other times I feel like we haven’t…if that makes any sense. We are free to do whatever it is God is calling us to do. Our ministry contacts, Linda and Tommy (the amazing couple that started this mission), Lisa, and Diego are all amazing men and women of God that are pouring into us this month which is such a blessing. We have worship together three mornings a week, we’re diving into discovering the power of our spiritual gifts with Linda, and just fellowshipping together. We also have free time which has been what I really needed after leaving Honduras to get my mind and my heart where God needs it to be to pour into this month.
Elisa’s queinceanara (15th birthday)…they’re bigger than weddings here!
The girls on my team are starting a youth girls bible study which I’m really excited about. Our prayer is that the girls will build trust among each other, be able confide in each other and be vulnerable to each other with no judgements being passed. That’s the kind of relationships women need. God designed us to be sensitive, powerful, and beautiful and we want to call these qualities out in the girls so that they will rise up to be women of God that will be looked up to in Candelaria.
