Hey friends and family!
It’s been a while since I’ve updated you all. I am currently in Nicaragua! We arrived on October 8th, had a mini debrief for a few days, and began ministry on October 12th. Here is a snapshot of our life on the field this month….
Mini-debrief
Mini- debrief was AWESOME. My squad had 2 days of teaching and leading one another in areas that the Lord has been growing us in. We had sessions about selah, abandonment, lesson planning, photography, story-telling, vulnerability, homelessness, forgiveness, suffering in congruence with God’s design, social justice, breaking the boxes we put God in, Identity, leaning into the Holy Spirit, listening to God’s voice, feedback, spiritual authority, and diving deeper into scripture. It was incredible! I learned so much! I am so blessed that I get to live and learn from this amazing group of individuals.
Host
We are staying about 10-15 minutes from the city of Granada, in dorm style housing. We are on a 70 acre farm surrounded by the most beautiful mountains and volcanoes! Our ministry hosts Scott, Jennifer, Katelyn, and Nathan are passionate about our growth in our relationship with God and creating discipline with spending time with Him, so we have mandatory 5am prayer on Wednesday, quiet time from 6am-7am every morning, optional fast on Friday’s, and Sabbath on Tuesdays. The mornings are early, but our days are full of so much fruit because we are making God our first priority. It’s been so good!
Ministry
Ministry this month has been so much fun. We get the chance to be apart of a lot of different things.
The local dump: we get the opportunity to go to the local dump in Granada and share a short message and feed the men, women, and their children who are there trying to salvage items to resell and earn their living. Did you know that the average person in Nicaragua makes a $1.00 a day? I have no idea how these sweet people are able to provide for their families. It’s so sad.
Tamarindo project: we’re creating jewelry out of tamarind seeds harvested on the farm so that we can teach local women how to make jewelry. The goal is to create a sustainable company that creates jobs for local women and be completely ran by them.
Church partnership: each team in my squad is partnered with a local church that we go out and evangelize with a few days each week. We get the opportunity to learn from the pastors, build relationships with the locals and teach them about loving and grace driven evangelism.
Manual labor: We get to work alongside of the locals on the farm cutting grass with machetes, picking 8,000 limes, fertilizing plantain trees, or even picking plantains. Guys, its been so much fun getting to work beside the incredible people! So much fun!
Sports ministry: this is huge here on the farm. Our weekends are full of playing games with the most adorable kids, sharing messages with soccer and kickball teams, and interacting with any athletes and their families during the games.
Nursing home: I went for the first time this past Friday and oh my goodness my heart. I LOVED it so much. We got the chance to love on the residents, celebrate a birthday, listen to their stories, and share stories of our own.
Who knew this was ministry. Gosh, so many heart eyes for these sweet sweet now friends of mine.
Hospital: we visit the local hospital and pray for healing over the patients.
It has been an incredible month. God is still blowing my mind with all of the things he’s teaching me about Him as my father and about myself. This journey has easily been one of the hardest things I have done, but SO life changing already. I am so thankful!
We are in our final week of ministry here in Nicaragua. Where in the world has month 3 gone?? We leave for Honduras on Sunday! We are entering our last country in Latin America!!
As always, thank you so much for your continued prayers for me and my team! As we journey we are finding that WiFi is few and far between, so thank you in advance for your patience. I will try to keep you all as updated as I can.
Much love,
Kayla
