This is just a quick updating letting you know what I’ve
been up to over the last two months:
Nicaragua
In Nicaragua, my
team along with a couple other teams had the opportunity to work in
Jinotepe. We worked with Glenn and
Lynne, who were awesome. We also got to
stay at Casa Mateo, a nice hotel that they run. As far as actual ministry goes we were all over the place. Here
are a few of the things that we got to do last month. We got to visit a senior center and love on
the elderly who for the most part are neglected by their families. We got
to go to a school for children with disabilities, for the most part we just
played games and hung out with those awesome kiddos. We also went to the hospital and got to pray
for the sick. Also, one of my favorite
parts of the month happened at the hospital. One day during our visits we were in the children’s ward and we met a
little girl named Avilla. She was in for
some stomach pains, but she seemed seemingly fine. She was hoot, man did that little girl have a
personality. After playing with her for
like 10 minutes this little 3 year old took me by the hand and led me around
the hospital for like 35 or 40 minutes. We had a ball. I saw all kinds of
parts of that hospital. All the time she
was calling me “Hermano( or brother).” The rest of our ministry consisted of visiting two different
neighborhoods and helping out with some church services. In the neighborhoods we would go and just
talk to the people that were hanging around, play soccer, pass out food, it was
sweet to even see a few people come to the Lord during some of our house
visits. We also had the opportunity to
work with two teams of Real Life girls.
Real Life is a sister program of the World Race that is also through
Adventures In Missions, and it is for college age students and they go to one
location for like 3 or 4 months. These
ladies were super legit, we loved having them around. Also, probably one of the craziest travel
moments on the race, was when we fit 19 people in a normal pick-up truck as went
down some extremely bad quality dirt roads (sorry mom!). The weather was also beautiful. The city that we stayed in is known for its
winds. I would say there was a constant
wind of at least 20 mph. What a blessing
that was. As the rest of our teams burnt
up, we were enjoying some really sweet weather. I Loved Nicaragua!
El Salvador
As we drove into San Salvador, I couldn’t quite believe what
I was seeing. It looked like a normal
American city. The roads lined with
malls and fast food restaurants. After leaving
Nicaragua which is one of the poorer countries in Central America, we arrived
in El Salvador which has one of the better economies. This
month we have been working with a church in San Vicente, which is about an hour
east of San Salvador. Our main ministry this month has been to help
out with some evangelism campaigns that have been happening in some surrounding
towns. That generally looks like us
going and passing out fliers and telling people about the campaign before it
begins, doing dramas, and then praying for people at the end of the
service. One cool thing that happened is
that we went to one church to do a drama; we knew it was a large church, but we
did not expect to find TV crews their filming the church service. We were definitely on TV in El Salvador. At the campaigns we have seen some sweet
stuff happen , such as people getting saved and healed. I also had the opportunity to preach at a
youth service earlier this month. I
thought about just using a sermon that I had done in Africa a few times, but as
I began to pray about it the Lord just kept saying speak on my love and share
the gospel. So although my thoughts were
very scattered that’s exactly what I planned to do. As I entered the service, there wasn’t a ton
of youth there. I would say 20 or 25
max, with probably about that many adults. Immediately, I start thinking about going back to the already written
sermon. And then the Lord spoke clearly,
” stay true to what I’ve already told you to say.” And that was that. I got up there and spoke on love and shared
the gospel. I can assure you that it
wasn’t eloquent, in fact I felt scattered. If you didn’t know this about me, public speaking is not my thing. But I did it. Lesson learned, stay true to what the Lord says even when it makes no
sense in your natural mind. Trust me, he
will use it!!! So ministry will wrap up
here in the next couple of days and we will be headed to our last country—Guatemala. My team will be in Puerto Barrios which is
on the northern coast across from Belize. Not really too sure what we will be doing, but when do we ever?
Hopefully this gives you a little insight into what’s been
going on.
Love you all and Look forward to seeing your faces soon!!!!!
tyler
