5. How friendly the people were : Seriously, whoa. compared to Guatemala and Honduras, Nicaragua was by far the nicest. Complete strangers dropped everything to help you…they are honest, hardworking, and were always willing to invest in us whenever they had the opportunity! I love love love Palacagüina!
4. The food! Holy cow…the food is insane! We were blessed to have an amazing chef living with us who made us homemade meals every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! I could tell that there was a huge amount of love that had been poured into every meal…and there wasn't one meal that I didn't like.
3. Church! I'm not going to lie…when I first got to our ministry site and I saw that we were going to be attending/living in a Pentecostal church…I was a little apprehensive. But only because it was so foreign to me. I grew up in a Northern Baptist church…people barely clap in church during worship…and I had heard stories about those Pentecostals! Turns out, it was one of the coolest experiences of my life. Yes, everything I feared would happen did. People were being slain in the spirit left and right…there was speaking in tongues…there was prophesying…but the Lord totally opened my heart to it. Their passion during worship, their love for the Lord was real. Who was I to say what was weird when it came to worship? Maybe we were the weird ones back home…maybe it wouldn't hurt to tap my foot a bit. The cool thing about church in Nicaragua was that in our community, all the churches worked together *DESPITE DIFFERENCES IN DENOMINATIONS*. Yes, you heard me correctly. A baptist church and a Pentecostal church…then another non-denominational church, all working together. Because they all had one thing in common. That Jesus is the only way to Heaven…and that they loved him. Sounds to me like that's exactly how the body of Christ should be…majoring on the majors and minoring on the minors!
2. The land! Team Mishpacha was a mountain team again this month…and I had never seen more beautiful mountains in my life. Jesus just blew me away day after day in the rain, in the sunsets, in the clouds covering the mountain tops, in the wildlife…Jesus did such an amazing job creating Nicaragua. My camera could barely stand all the pictures!
1. Our contacts. Word's cannot describe how incredible our contacts were. From the very beginning they showed us nothing but love, compassion, and just straight up Jesus! Pastor, his wife, and kids did nothing but serve us better than we even deserve…they loved us, and became like family to all of us. To be away from home for so long and to be away from your parents is difficult on the race…so the fact that Pastor and Pastora took us under their wing and helped guide, mentor, and disciple us means more to me than they could possibly know. I pray so many blessings upon that family…I could not be more grateful for their example in my life. I will miss them dearly.
