These past 3 months on the race have flown by! Here are some updates!
Nicaragua
In November, I was in Chinandega, Nicaragua working with Vision Nicaragua, a wonderful ministry that hosted my entire squad (45+ people) on their compound (with a volcano almost in their background). Each day we would head out into nearby villages and preach the gospel door-to-door, walking trash filled streets, praying for people and loving on them whatever ways we could. It was so interesting to see how the Lord moved: bringing the right people to the right places to say the specific things. It was so refreshing that people were willing to talk about Jesus and openly received us! It was an amazing month that I did not want to end! (If you would like to know more about this organization, check it out here:[ http://visionnicaragua.org/ ] They have an child sponsorship program!)
This is what many homes looked like, in the villages surrounding Chinandega. Some of the poorer houses were made from garbage bags instead of metal.
Almost everyday, we went out and walked the streets of different villages, praying for people and asking them about Jesus. (photo cred. my squad)
Some streets were clean and others filled with garbage that they would burn. They had no system set up to pick up their trash.
We were welcomed by many people! One couple gave us watermelons after we prayed for them! (photo cred. – my squad)
More picture of door-to-door ministry! It was a big part of our month. (photo cred. – Cherish)
When we came home to eat, this was our view from the compound! Beautiful!
Honduras
After two very long travel days in December, my team (6 of us) separated from the squad and we made our way to Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras to work with Legacy of Hope ministries. They had 3 different places for my team to work. One was the “Centro de Paso” (meaning Passing Through Centre). In this building, kids fresh off the streets would stay for a couple days (but often longer) until they had been found more permanent home (say with a relative or family friend). We had many types of people stay at the Centre, from a 16 yr old prostitute that was brought in off the streets to a sickly baby abandoned at a cemetery (by the end of the month was nursed back to health). Another facet of the ministry was the “Transition House”. This was a more “permanent temporary” foster home. These kids had nowhere to go, so they stayed at the transition house until the government would come, assess and move them to their appropriate foster homes. These kids suffered from attachment disorders and were just needy for loving parent figures. The final facet of the ministry was working with the Spangler Family. They headed Legacy of Hope ministries and had themselves adopted 7 children (ranging from ages 11-3) , along with taking care of their biological 2 kids (one in high school, the other in middle school). These adopted kids suffered from attachment disorders, many of them scarred emotionally, mentally and physically. We would work in the house alongside the parents to clean the house, make meals, disciple the kids and give the parents time to pour more into the Legacy of Hope ministry and into each other. We spent Christmas with them and were so blessed! The Spangler’s cooked us a turkey dinner and we were able to have a Christmas tree and sing christmas songs!
(All photo cred. goes to Cherish!)
This was the beautiful neighbourhood that we worked in! It was lovingly referred to by locals as where the “White People” are. (The kids are going for their daily walk).
Honduras is very mountainous and hilly. This was the view from one of the little areas of neighbourhood. There are more hills beyond this with more of Santa Rosa de Copan!
All the little kiddos eating at snack time! They loved to eat!
I worked mostly in the Transition Home! These next two pictures show the little faces we worked with! (left to right: Caleb, Alejandro, Hosanna & Lilly at another snack time)
The other two little people I worked with! (Olivia & Remi)
Guatemala
On December 29th, we headed northwest to Antigua, Guatemala (our ministry location for the month of January). After meeting up with the rest of our squad for a weekend of teaching, prayer and rest, we divided into teams again and settled into our ministry for the month at “Casa de Fuego” (House of Fire, called this because of our location so close to the most active volcano in the world, “Fuego”. It erupts every 15 minutes or so!). Our ministry for the month was called “Unsung Heroes”, where we went out into Antigua, following the Lord’s lead, trying to meet up with other ministries to see if there are any needs we can fill (or future teams can fill) to help further the Lord’s work. We were able to temporarily partner with BuildinGUATE, an organization that works with people that live around a landfill, building homes that are sanitary, safe and providing clean water and food for them. Learn more about them here: [
http://www.buildinguate.com/ ]. The Lord was so good and led us to other ministries in need of assistance!
Our lovely hosts for the month: Craig and Carol! They recently moved to Antigua to start a AIM base. They are the greatest! Check out more of their story here on Craig’s blog: http://craighill.myadventures.org/
The view from our ministry hosts’ roof: Volcano Fuego erupting! This happened often and was such a picture of how great our God is! (Also, a dream come true for me. I “lava” the lava!). The volcano picture for this blog is also real, taken by our ministry host!
This was on our first day of going out into the City of Antigua! We had no plans, were just going to go where the Lord led. The first people we bumped into were some American missionaries that were here for a couple days! It was so crazy!
This is a painter that we met on the streets of Antigua. He is so talented. We spent some time to get to know him and worship the Lord with our creativity! This was one of the cases were while we were ministering to him, the Lord used him to minister to us! Such a great day!
Here, we are wielding sledge hammers to help BuildinGuate (find out more about them here: [ http://www.buildinguate.com/ ]) build a septic system! Such a good day! Our muscles were sore after that!
Thank you for all of your support and prayers, they are so appreciated! More updates to come!
Carissa
From Sungai Petani, Malaysia
