Our team gathered together in the common area of our hostel, we turned on the rotating fan to displace the heat of the Nicaraguan sun that burned so brightly. From here we decide what to do with our month. Where will we go and who will we meet? Jokingly Unsung teams often say that the Holy Spirit is our contact, but we know the seriousness of listening to Him and following His leading. Starting each morning with prayer and waiting.
We had been in Granada for about a week and I was starting to feel restless. We had only met one possible contact and I know that it’s not about numbers but part of me feels more successful if we meet more people. I had contacted a ministry I worked with in the past in Managua but I had yet to hear back from them. However we had a couple possible leads in Managua. The plan was to pack up our belongings and head to Managua. I was ready to move, the only problem was that we could not find a hostel within budget. Actually the cheapest we could find was 3 times our budget. We thought, let’s step out in faith and just go, trust God to lead us to the right place.
We woke the next morning to find that Bekah had been sick in the night and probably wouldn’t be able to make the trip that day. Still we were persistent and decided that four of us would go ahead and find a place to stay. Lynda entered the room around noon and told us her Skype meeting was over and we could go. We decided to wait about 15 minutes to finish getting ready and we were going to be on the move. In those 15 minutes the clouds started to roll in, we heard a clap of thunder and the down pour began, this is common in the rainy season but terribly inconvenient. As the rain poured from the sky I knew it was over, we didn’t have any chance of getting out of there and I curled up on my bed to wait out the storm.
The next day we woke up and decided to reevaluate the plan. Obviously there were a lot of things keeping us from Managua, and because we can’t rely on a host to tell us where to go, we began praying. The day before I felt the slightest urge to go to Leon, but I didn’t want to admit that because I had no desire to go there. As we took time to pray silently to ourselves I felt once again to go to Leon. I prayed God if you want us to change our plans and go there, you better tell someone else to speak up about it first. I spent the rest of my prayer time embracing a deeper trust in God’s plan rather than my own. Sometimes it is hard to trust God, I realized that I really wanted to go to Managua mostly because I wanted to meet up with my friend who became a little brother to me when I was here two years ago.
We regrouped to discuss with the team what God was speaking and immediately Bekah spoke up that God put Leon on her heart… And I knew we were meant to go there. I was honest with my team about my feelings, even though I too believe we were supposed to go to Leon. “Well, let’s go to Leon” someone declared and the decision was made. A peace filled my heart and I knew that was the right decision.
As our bus approached the city I thought for a moment, we still don’t know where we will stay. But I knew if God is leading us to this city he will also lead us to the right hostel. I prayed silently, God let us know somehow that we have found the right hostel, show us… show us though a butterfly. I don’t know why I prayed that, maybe because they are pretty and welcoming. Anyway, two of the girls realized that they had heard of the same hostel and we began to ask people for directions. We were lead to Casa Ivana, I looked up as I stepped in the door and saw a huge butterfly flag. I knew this was the right place to stay. God was so obvious to me in that moment.
At times it is hard to discern the voice of God, in this instance my own voice was louder than His. When I was willing to quiet my heart and really surrender my plan, God’s plan became apparent. Surrender is a word commonly tossed around in Christendom and at a point in my life I thought that surrender was something you do all at once. I quickly learned that surrender is daily, every moment and feeling. It’s actually really hard, but no one has ever deceived me by telling me that being a Christian is easy. I know that my surrender that day was worth the cost and in my next account I will share with you the plan that God had in Leon.
