Leon, Nicaragua

It is so hard to put in to words all that I
have experience over the past couple of days. Life moves so quickly when you
are always on the go and traveling. I’m extremely excited that we are finally done traveling for the
month. We arrived in Leon, Nicaragua on Wednesday morning, and
we will be here until the end of August! 

We left Antigua, Guatemala
early Sunday morning and spend all day and part of the night traveling down to Granada, Nicaragua. Three of the teams stayed in Guatemala for the month, but the rest of us will
be living in Nicaragua
for the next four weeks. We covered four
countries in just one day of traveling… Guatemala,
Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. It was a lot, and I was happy to have two
days in Granada with our larger group before
traveling again to Leon. 

Now we are finally settled and ready for
what lies ahead of us! We are living on
the outskirts of the city in a small community called Candelaria (this is our
best attempt at spelling it)! It is a
very poor community that Tommy and Linda Gables have been working with for the
past three years. My team and I are
living in the unfinished medical center that Tommy and Linda have been building,
which is next to the church and the pastor’s house. It seems that we are in the heart of the
community and we have been warmly welcomed into this new family! 

We have already been thrown into ministry,
and there is no escaping it when your ministry is right outside your door… and
peeking through the windows at all hours of the day!  I’m learning how important the ministry of
presence is!  It’s not easy to live like and among the poorest of the poor, but it is the best way to truly develop a
love for the people. It also clearly displays and communicates your love for them. It’s not always
easy, and a lot of the time I  want to escape, but my heart is already falling in love
with the  people here.

Here is a brief overview of what we have
been doing so far…

On Wednesday we went to a primary school
and spent a couple of hours playing with the kids and sharing our testimonies and
stories with them. It was a blast! When
one of the translators heard that I played soccer, I was asked to start up a
game with some of the girls. Of course,
the boys quickly joined in and took over. It was fun but very difficult. I had no idea who was on my team and who wasn’t. All the kids looked the same, had the same
uniform on, and of course the language barrier didn´t help…so I just passed the
ball to whoever I felt like at that moment! 

Yesterday, we spend the morning organizing
the medical center and moving all kinds of supplies into a little storage space
across the way.  After we had finished as much as we could, we went on a
trip with Linda and another man, Michael, to visit a village that they want to
start working in. Unfortunately, we never made it to
the village because our truck got suck in the small river that had flooded the
night before.  Michael listened to the advice of a tractor driver and took a different way across the river. After we got ourselves stuck, the tractor driver laughed and drove away.  It added a little extra adventure to the day.  The river was very poluted and trying to dig ourselves out of the water and mud for hours wasn´t pleasant. We finally made it out when another tractor came to rescue us.  After that we decided it was best to visit the other village another day!

There is so much more to write about, but
my time is running out! I’m excited for
the next month but please pray for our health and safety. The community will protect us with their
lives and we love and trust them, but we are not living in the cleanest of
conditions! Pray that we will be
protected from any kind of illness that may be lingering in our food and water.  Also, please pray that we make the most of every oportunity this month. 

More to come soon!