Hey everyone! Sorry it has been so long since I last updated y’all, we’ve been staying busy! This trip has been flying by, it amazes me that we are already nearing the end of month seven. I want to fill you in on what has happened in the last month or so. Since my last blog post we have finished our time in South Africa, had the longest travel day of our entire trip, and have now spent three weeks in Nicaragua.
South Africa:
This month was “Manistry” month, which means that it is the only month of the entire trip that the men spend alone together. We were partnered with Kingdom Sports Ministry in a city just outside of Cape Town. Our days were spent walking through the community and meeting people who were in need of encouragement and prayer, playing soccer with the local kids, giving music lessons, worshipping together, and growing closer as a group of brothers. Our host, Bradley, cared about us a lot and it showed through the quality time he spent pouring into each one of us. He challenged us, encouraged us, and pushed us closer to becoming the men that we are called to be. The community embraced us with open arms and loved us so well. People hosted us for dinner in their homes, invited us to speak in their church, and genuinely pursued a relationship with us because they wanted to know and love us as best as they could. We also did some pretty epic stuff on our adventure days. We went cage diving with great white sharks, went to the top of Table Mountain (one of the seven natural wonders), went to the beach, hiked, and explored the awesome city of Cape Town. To top it all off, in honor of manistry month, we all grew mustaches. We had to do something super manly, right?
Travel Day:
Woah. This was a wild few days. We left Cape Town on a bus that took 22 hours to arrive in Pretoria. We spent two days there at this thing called ‘Awakening.’ Basically we got together with another squad and worshipped, prayed, evangelized, prophesied, etc. It was rad. Then we took a bus to Johannesburg, waited in the airport all day, and flew 8 hours to Abu Dhabi. We had a layover there and then took a 14 hour flight to New York City. This was an overnight layover so we had a chance to get out and explore a little bit. I chose to stay local and enjoy some good pizza and a couple of IPA’s (they don’t really have those overseas). Then it was a 4 AM wake up call to get back to the airport. We flew 6 hours to Panama City, had a quick layover and then caught our last flight to Nicaragua. As long and tiring as it was, I am really thankful for this experience because I realized how manageable it is to get to where I want to go. I used to look at a flight across the US and think it was way too long and would require a bunch of planning. In reality, it’s not that far and I should just do it. Over 80 hours of travel in a five day span makes a 5 hour flight across the country seem like nothing.
Nicaragua:
After the long travel we made our home for a couple of weeks on Ometepe Island. The island is beautiful, it is in the middle of Lake Nicaragua and has two volcanoes on it, one of them active. We spent two weeks there partnered with Cicrin Orphanage. We did a few different things on a daily basis while working with Cicrin. They run a school of about 100 students so we would teach English in many of the classes, we would work in their plantain farm, help out around the property, and hang out with the kids that lived there. We made many great relationships there and it was difficult to say goodbye to the family that had been formed. After two weeks on Ometepe, we moved ministries and are currently working with REAP Granada. We have been here for about a week and it has been great. We have been out in the community praying with people and bringing encouragement from the Lord, we have done a lot of manual labor helping out around the property, and we have taken a couple trips to the city dump where we bring food and a message of hope to the people who are collecting recyclables. Another exciting part about this ministry is that my parents will get to be a part of it next week! That’s right, mom and dad are making the trip to Granada to see what this whole World Race thing is all about. They are going to love it, and I pray that the Lord has something extremely powerful for both of them while they are here.
I think you’re all caught up! I’ll try not to wait so long next time. I love you all and am so thankful for you. This life-changing experience wouldn’t have been possible without all of your love and support.
