A long awaited update! I’m so sorry for my lack of communication. I am going to try my best to update more frequently. As of right now, I am finding spotty Wi-Fi about once a week for a couple hours at a time to get things posted and talk to family and friends, so I am extremely grateful for your grace and patience.
I’m currently writing this blog from a little coffee shop in Granada, Nicaragua that just so happens to have ice in their water, fantastic food (other than rice and beans), a few people that speak English, and Wi-Fi so I can keep an eye on the Georgia game…. a luxury. Praise God for little moments of normality like these! But I praise you more Abba for a life filled with unexpected surprises. An everyday adventure, an everyday choice to say ‘yes’ to something out of my comfort zone and an everyday ‘yes’ to be included in Your plan for the day.
We have officially lived in Granada for 7 weeks at a base called REAP. Hands down one of the prettiest I have seen. Fun fact: we live beside a volcano. We are blessed to live inside and have a bed with a mattress, actual bathrooms, and showers! We currently have 16 girls living in one room with no AC, but we do have a fan so that’s good news. If you haven’t been to Central America, let me give you the skinny..toilet paper goes in the trash can…not to be flushed. The sewage systems are not built for it. The showers are the temperature of whatever the water is coming out of the well which just so happens to be cold. Considering it is winter and at least 85 degrees every day with raging humidity, the showers are amazing. I forgot to mention that everyone shares the same bathroom. You go to brush your teeth in the morning and there is a guy walking out of a stall, it’s strangely weird and fun at the same time.
Experiencing the culture has been amazing! The locals are so welcoming and want us to be a part of their culture and language. They want us to be here and want to hear what we have to say. They automatically stop whatever they are doing and welcome us into their homes even though we are mere strangers. They bring out all the chairs in the house for us to sit in and are open about problems the country is facing and what is going on within their families. The relationships we have been able to cultivate are soooo beautiful! The staff at the farm is one big family and have generously welcomed us with open arms! The translators have a special place in my heart. Not only do we spend literally all day with them, but also their job is extremely hard and taxing and they are extremely patient with us. They are such a blessing and we could not do what we do without them. I cannot forgot about the cooks! They cook us breakfast, lunch, and dinner and man is it good! Beans and bread are the new normal for breakfast. If you’ve never had homemade plantain chips, you are missing out.
REAP has amazing ministries already in place and we have the opportunity to jump in and share the love of the Lord to the city of Granada. Our schedule looks a little like this:
5am: Morning Devotions
6am: Squad prayer
7:30am: Breakfast
8-12: MINISTRY
12: Lunch
1-5: MINISTRY
5pm: Dinner
6:30pm: Team Time
9pm: I’m out long before that…
This is a basic schedule but it changes a lot. Ministry typically is not scheduled from 8-12 or 1-5 unless it is for farm work or construction. Other than that, it is scheduled in 2 hour increments but keep in mind if you’re told to be ready by 1, you’re probably not leaving until 1:30 or 2 which means you most likely won’t be back by 3. We’re constantly ready for anything! Ministry could be any of the below but there are typically 2-3 a day:
- Prayer Room: REAP has a prayer room on base that is open to staff and the missionaries living here. Each team is scheduled for a 2-hour session and a 1-hour session per week, but we spend a lot more time in there then that!
- Prayer Walking: We have 3 prayer walking sessions per week and each one looks different. It is time devoted to connecting to the people of Granada and encouraging them. This happens in many different neighborhoods including a place called Posentepe where we go every Thursday from 8am-2pm and visit houses, hold bible studies, and lead micro churches.
- The Dump: The dump is where all of Nicaragua’s trash goes. People live there and sort through the plastic and glass for a living. Each team goes once a week to share a message and provide a meal.
- The Hospital: Each team goes once a week to the hospital to spread love and hope. The public hospital is nothing compared to what we are used to in the US. We go room to room praying, healing, and speaking the good news of the gospel, along with kind of encouragement the Lord lays upon our hearts.
- Farm Work: Each team has farm work once a week just to help around the farm. This could range from cutting the grass with machetes, to planting a flower garden, or moving a dirt pile from here to there.
- Micro Church: The farm has a micro church held every Thursday afternoon that all the missionaries and staff attend on base. It is so intentional and loving! REAP also has a ton of micro churches set up through Granada. There is at least one every night of the week, most of the time more. Each team leads at least one a week.
- Kids Ministry: Each team has a kid’s ministry in a different part of town. My team is on Friday, we typically have around 30ish kids where we play games, teach them bible stories, and do a craft.
This is Monday-Friday. On Saturdays, we have Sabbath meaning it is our day of rest to spend with the Lord, we do not leave base on this day. On Sundays, we have adventure day where we are free to explore Nicaragua. So far this has looked like exploring Granada, taking a trip to San Jose Del Sur (the Pacific Ocean and beach), and ziplining on the volcano.
The Lord has truly been expanding my heart for my team and the people of Nicaragua. It has been so cool to see the Holy Spirit move! Recently my team went to the hospital and ended up in the pediatric wing. We started talking to a boy and his father, the boy fell from the top of a wall and his leg was swelling. They were told he was going to have surgery that coming up Thursday and wanted us to pray for him. We prayed for him and began talking to his dad. He said he was a Christian and believed in the Lord but didn’t go to church anymore. I have come to find out people will say they’re Christian and know the Lord when in reality they know the name of Jesus but not the weight of the name or understand the relationship He wants with us. What the dad was telling me was automatically a red flag. The more we talked to him the more I felt the Holy Spirit prompt me to tell him the gospel. I started telling the gospel to the translator so he could tell this man and instead the translator started asking me questions. It hit me that I was supposed to be telling our translator the gospel and not the dad. This particular translator started the week after we arrived and it has been amazing to grow a relationship with him. It became apparent to us that he believed Jesus was Messiah and was the only way to the Father, but he had not been discipled or had an encounter with the Lord. What he knew was head knowledge not heart knowledge. I had the opportunity to sit down with him and talk through the gospel with him. He started asking a lot of questions that we could figure out together and I got to pray over him and some of the things he was struggling with. He has continued to ask my team and me many questions and talk things through with us. It has been beautiful to see a transformation in him that I am sure he has yet to realize.
Last week while we were prayer walking, my team went to a new house and ended up staying there the entire session. We did not know the situation walking in except that the man’s mother had been praying for him to come to the Lord. When we walked into the home, we met a 20-year-old man who had an addiction and looked defeated. By the time we left, he was beaming and laughing; he looked like a completely different person. Three people in my group were able to share with him parts of their testimonies and everyone in the group shared a verse or word the Lord had laid on their heart. It was a beautiful moment of redemption when He decided to rededicate his life to the Lord! We revisited him again Wednesday and joy was evident in his face. He told us he felt the Lord’s presence Monday when we prayed over him! He also had the opportunity to talk with his mom about what happened and went to micro church with her that night. God you are so so good!
After Thanksgiving, our 3 teams are splitting up for the first time and will spend month 4 apart. My team just got word where were going: Drum roll please!!!!!!
The island of Ometepe!!!!
We will be leaving REAP November 30th to travel to the island where we will be working at an orphanage. As of now, that is all the information we know. Please keep Team Revel, Team Eden and the Wanderers Team in your prayers! The squad will be reunited December 23 for Christmas. At the beginning of January, we are scheduled to leave Nicaragua.
Speaking of Thanksgiving, all the Americans and translators that lived in America at one point celebrated the holiday together! We made American dishes and celebrated together. Although it was hard being away from home, it was truly a holiday I will never forget.
A blast to the past:
I left off the last blog talking about Samaritan’s Purse. My entire squad as well as the guys from the other two squads spend 2 weeks from September to October in Jackson, Kentucky working with victims of the flood in that area. In 2021 Jackson had a flood that Samaritan’s Purse assisted with. Two weeks after they finished helping the victims of the first flood, this flood hit but was three times more deadly than the first. It completely wiped out their homes and everything they owned. Devastation and hopeless ran throughout the county. The people at SP witnessed for 2 weeks the Lord’s hand throughout that county firsthand. We witnessed the beginning of a revival and a rebuilding of community just during the time we were there. Over 10 souls proclaimed Jesus as their Lord and Savior during our time there.
My SP team worked on a variety of houses. Many of the owners were at a loss for words because they may have survived the flood but at what cost? To lose everything? To hear the cries of their neighbors being swept away in the flood? To watch a rescue boat drive past their house and not pick them up? To hold onto the siding of their house for 8 hours through the night until help came? Again devastation and hopelessness. One of the houses my team worked on during the first week was that of an older man. He lived in a trailer and had not touched it since the flood because he couldn’t. By the time we got there the mud and water had been sitting in the house for 2 months during the hot summer heat. Everything was ruined and covered in black mold. He sat there and watched as we carried out everything from his home and placed it in a pile by the road. While many of us were working, some of the team talked to the man’s family that lived beside him. Their house was destroyed as well, and we were able to put in a work order and gut their house afterward. Throughout the week, we saw the Lord soften the son’s heart of the older man. Not only did he accept Christ, but he wanted to be baptized as well. We were able to baptize him in the same river that caused so much death and destruction. What a testament of the Lord to turn the sign of turmoil into new life and hope. The story doesn’t end there, the family decided to restore their marriage and renew their vows! What a blessing it was to be a part of that monumental moment! This is just one testimony of the Lord’s faithfulness during that time!
After SP, all three gap year squads met back up in Gainesville for a week of debrief to prepare before we went our separate ways. The night of October 13th, my squad got word that Nicaraguan government was kicking Christian organizations out and were not going to let us through customs. The night of October 14th, we left for the airport headed for Nicaragua anyways. We were handed a “tourist” schedule and if asked about our business in the country, instructed to reply that we were going for tourist things. That night we slept in the airport and the next morning hopped on our 9:45am flight. That morning the Lord continued to show favor upon us and from then on His peace took care of me and gave me faith we would get through the border. We landed in Costa Rica and piled 26 people into a bus for a 6-hour ride to the Nicaragua border. At that point, we didn’t know if we would turn right back around or get into the country. About an hour before we reached the border, the bus that was carrying our 50-pound bags said they couldn’t go any further, so they passed 26 big packs through the window and it’s a miracle we all made it. By the time we got to Costa Rica’s customs it was dark, so we literally walked across the Nicaraguan border in the dark. We were immediately met by border patrol where they checked our passports and covid tests at least two times before they directed us to customs. They then proceeded to check everything two more times. By this point people were nervous and were not sure what to expect. One of my squad leaders was questioned almost the entire time we were there. They took our schedule and called all the hotels on the list and then came back and told us we didn’t have reservations to any of them. A couple minutes later they gave us back our passports, checked our bags, and welcomed us into their country. We were on a bus and on our way to Granada in less than 5 minutes. Later we found out the Lord highlighted the guy who was going to fight for us to get into the country that worked there and gave Clayton a vision of the woman that was going to be hard to deal with. He is 100% the only reason we got in! It is also the proof of power in prayer! We had so many people praying for our entrance into Nicaragua, it truly was amazing!
