A Longing to Go Back

I am sitting here at my desk listening to my daughters scurry about the house and thinking of the kids in Nicaragua. I am wondering what they are doing right now, and thinking just how much I miss them. I am talking about all the kids there not just the ones that we were with at the house. I was looking at pictures today at work and showing them to my co-workers when it hit me, "their lives have not changed!" We go about our everyday lives and so do they. One of my fellow YMCA workers made a statement that drives home how we should see the kids and adults there. She said, "when we look at the pictures of how they live their everyday lives, we feel sorry for them, but we forget that they are happier than we are, even the ones from the dump with smiles on their faces!" That sort of puts things in perspective, I sometimes feel that we are the ones that are living in turmoil. I mean our lives are so cluttered and busy that we forget what it is like to just smile and laugh, so tonight I got down in the floor with my little one and just had a tickle war and we both just laughed until we hurt. I think that is what we are missing that the people of Nicaragua have, an unconditional happiness. They get in no hurry nor do they worry about things that they have no control over. We could really learn from them in we would just look at the worst situation that we see them in and look a their face; there is in most cases a huge smile. Here are some of those smiles...

As you can see smiles, smiles, and more smiles. So I guess the secret to living is to continually smile no matter what the situation.

I guess a smile could be translated as, "Always be joyful. Pray continually, and give thanks whatever happens. That is what God wants for you in Christ Jesus." Those are some GREAT WORDS from Paul in his first letter to the Thessalonians. 1st Thess. 5:16-17 (New Century Version)

Have a good night everyone!

Our messy Lives

It never fails as soon as we get back from Nicaragua we come back to messy spiritual lives. I don't mean that we are not spiritual, I mean we get out of focus because of the things that are in our lives. It never ceases to amaze me when I hear young people tell about their experience there and how it has changed their lives and I just wonder what it is going to take to get others to listen to God. Tonight at church Madison and Ashton told about their experience in Nicaragua and I couldn't help but hold my head up and think how proud I am of them, then I think of how God must feel when He looks down and sees and hears them also. Ashton told about how God finally got her attention with her sickness and how He wanted to just have a relationship with her, and Madison talked about how taking Masterlife paid off with her prayer for "Wilby".

Getting back to our "Messy Spirituality" when those two spoke I realized just how significant God is in our messed up lives. He is there no matter what! if we are so far from Him that we have to call Him long distance, He is there! I think that is what I love about God the most. He sees us in our sins and STILL LOVES US! Do you ever wonder how we really look to God? Take the worst thing that you can think of and multiply it by a million! For instance, "The Dump" in Nicaragua, it has an awful smell, flies, spoiled food, and filth, yet God was there!! When our lives look like that to God, He is still there in the filth with us, so "Our Messy Lives" are nothing for God to see because He sees us just as we are, without the costumes or masks that we wear. If you are struggling to find God, walking in a fog, or just wondering what God wants you to do, Remember, He is right there with you and leading you along the way, even when our lives are "messy".

I am not real sure where all this meandering is heading but I hope you can make some sense out of it, I just thought I would share these thoughts with you all.

We are Home

As I sit at my kitchen table and watch it storm, I am reminded of the storms of life that the people in Nicaragua face each day. I close my eyes and see the little children in the dump and think of how God's Grace is sufficient for all the needs of everyone in the world. Even though they live and eat from the dump that is how God is sustaining them and we should not feel sorry for them, but should praise God for the food and material that they get from there. I see their smiling faces and it puts a smile on my face too, even on our worst day we should find ourselves smiling because God's grace is sufficient for whatever we are facing.

I am so proud of the team of people that God put together for this trip and for their dedication and love to the people of Nicaragua especially the children. It is great to think about how people will sacrifice a week of their lives to go and get out of their comfort zone and be the hands and feet of Jesus. I will say it is easier to live in comfort and just talk about doing things for the Lord, but going and getting your hands dirty (literally) is putting your heart in action. These 13 people that went there with a certain expectation and found that Jesus had a mission for them and took that mission and went out and DID IT!! They are the ones that were changed forever. In the scheme of eternity the heat, the dirt, the smell, will not matter when one of the people that they shared with during the week walks up to them in heaven and say, "Thank you for giving to the Lord, I am a life that was changed, because you came to Nicaragua and shared with me the love of Christ I am here today!!"

I am going to continue to ppost here even though we are home, because I want everyone to keep remembering this trip and the people that we met along the way. There will be pictures from time to time, so please keep praying for them. I would like everyone that read this blog to print at least one picture of a man, woman, boy, or girl and just pray for them and for the people of Nicaragua. I know that God will bless everyone for that.

I want to personally thank everyone for their prayers and words of encouragement for this team and for eveything that we did there. I know it was all ordained by God and that is why is was a great success. There were a total of 400 souls that were saved because of your prayers and God answering them. GOD IS GREAT!!!

OUR LAST DAYS

Well it is here, Our last day here! It seems like we just got here. Yesterday the team went back to the dump and fed about 100 people with beans and rice, they also received the Gospel and 40 of them accepted CHRIST!! They didn't know that they would get fed until after they heard the WORD. In the afternoon we came back to the house and had baptism in the pool, it was great to see 5 of the people that accepted Christ this week. God is just AWESOME!! I am going to stop talking now and just post pictures, but keep in mind they don't do this team justice, I have been BLESSED EXTREMELY with another great bunch.

"THE DUMP"

GOOD MORNING!! I am sorry that I left the last post sort of missing something, well I did and it was some pictures of "THE DUMP". I fell asleep working on the video sitting at the computer!!! Here are some pictures just to get you thinking...

Now that I have figured out how to get a video on here! LOL This is a video of Ashton, Madison, and Brittany dancing with the dance team from 5th Baptist church at the crusade in San Geronomo on Thursday night. I hope that everyone is blessed as much as we were from just watching them praise God with dance.

An update on salvations: To date there have been 363 new Christians added to the kingdom. We are going to baptize some of them in the new pool that the VBS offering bought. I will put video of that tomorrow night.

Today some of the team went to the dump site and fort. Needless to say, there are no words that can describe the scene or smell there. We ministered to around 150-200 people there with God's Word and flip flops, but when we left we all felt that we should do something else so on Friday we are buying about 300 pounds of rice and distributing it to them, so they will have food for a few days. There is another ministry that feeds them twice a week, but we felt like we needed to do something especially after one of them said to us, "I know who Jesus is, but I am still hungry". I want everyone to let that sink in.