This week our team is working in Managua, Nicaragua, which is the capital of the country. We woke up Monday morning ready for our ministry and the only instructions we had was to be ready at 8am. No problem. At that moment we were staying at a bible institute where we basically had our own “rooms”, running water, a kitchen, and real showers and toilets because it was dorm-style!! (It’s funny what you get excited about on the race, haha.) Our contact gets there at nine and says to pack up because we are staying at a local church for the week. Well, at least we got one night to ourselves! We get to the church and the first thing I see is a preschool class in session at the church! Love it! Finally, I’m around kids, which is where my heart is!!
We are staying at the church in a neighborhood that’s apparently kind of dangerous. We are safe, but our contacts are very cautious by staying in big groups and locking everything up all the time. We also have someone to drive us places if needed, because we can’t trust the taxi drivers to take us where to go where we ask. To some people, we are “rich Americans” and have a lot of stuff worth stealing.
During the week we are visiting schools, visiting and praying over members from the church who are sick, and helping with church activities. At the schools, we are visiting classrooms and introducing who we are, telling them a bible story, and letting the kids ask us questions about ourselves. One day we cleaned up a part of the school grounds at a local school with some of the older students. At another school, we had a sports afternoon with them where we played games with them all afternoon. It was so much fun to watch the girls play games and try and teach us how to play without us understanding them at all! The boys play really rough here and no one stops a game until it look like someone may have broken a bone!
A couple of days were spent praying over people in their homes and it was amazing what I saw. Even though these people we sick with cancer, diabetes, recovering from surgery, whatever it was, you could see the joy of Jesus on their faces and hear it from their hearts. Every person we talked to talked about how they give God glory everyday and thank Him because they are using their sickness for His plan. Wow. Reality check. Where is my attitude when I’m sick or things don’t go my way? And I’m not even remotely close to their level of pain!
My favorite thing this week has been helping with the children’s activities at the church. One our first day, they had a children’s afternoon where they would come for a couple hours to sing songs, learn a bible story, and do a craft for that story. When the kids first started coming, oh my gosh. So cute! They were so shy coming in, and I immediately went into teacher mode welcoming them in and passing out stickers that I had as an ice breaker. I realized how much I missed my teaching days! It felt like the first day of school as they shyly looked at us, listened quietly to our story, and excitedly made a Jonah and his fish craft. I LOVED IT. =)
We have something different to do everyday, but it is relational so my team and I are so thrilled because we haven’t had the opportunity to do any relational ministries yet. We sleep in the church sanctuary on our air mats and take our showers behind a tarp. Not real showers—buckets showers. We had to do that last week in Leon also. It’s not that bad. We just lather up and pour water over yourself with a bowl. Last week I forbid to shower because I only had time at night and it was freaky, so I didn’t shower for almost a week! Not this time. They’re really not that bad once you get used to it. The church also has big ants, mice, and a rat running around. I haven’t gotten used to that yet!! I just can’t think about them when I go to bed…haha.
It has been a great week, and even though we don’t know what next week holds for our team, we are ready for anything!
