Finally made it to Nica. I have been waiting to get here. Nica is where I went on my first mission trip 4 years ago, and I left there a different person.
When we first got here we stayed in Granada for debrief. During debrief each of the teams met with two coaches who flew from the States to spend a few days with us. Team Happy Feet had a lot to work through. After 3 days of fighting in prayer, our team had experienced enormous amounts of freedom. Awkward tension had left, and we were ready to head to Jinotepe to begin working on becoming a family, a real family!
So here we are in Jinotepe, Nicaragua working with a ministry called, Glenn and Lynn, who have an amazing prophetic history that is yet to be completed.
This month we are staying in a house by ourselves, only Team Happy Feet. God knew exactly what would help us become a genuine family. Not to mention He hooked us up with beds, warm showers, FURNITURE, and yummy food. Even without those little blessings, the time alone would have been enough. This month we don’t have our other friends to run off too. We only have each other and the Lord of course.
So what have we been doing in our house all alone? Well, watching Amish movies, making movies out of weird looking boiled eggs, and playing NERTZ until all hours of the night. But so much more is going on around here. Lots of laughter. Lots of tears. Lots of LOVE. Lots of FREEDOM!
We worked with Pastor Manuel who pastors a church in one of the poorer areas in Jinotepe. We went to his neighborhood to help the preschoolers, hand out rice and beans, and love on the people. Pastor Manuel commits so much of his time and resources to the church, and the church is really too poor to support him and his family. He had been wanting to paint his house for years, but had been waiting for God’s timing. Our team bought paint and painted his house.
We also visited a couple of nursing homes and orphanages.
The nursing home visits were actually my favorite because of a man named Mario. He was feeling alone and like he had no purpose for his life anymore because he was stuck in the nursing home. We were able to speak a lot of life into him and pray for him. The next couple of visits he always had a smile on his face. He was like our Nica grandpa. We printed him off some pictures, and he wanted to bless us with some gifts too. He gave us some deodorant and baby oil! We even prayed with him to accept Christ. He told us that he would never forget us. I will never forget him.
It really was a good month for Team Happy Feet. With God's grace we actually became a family!
