Life in Nicaragua

So the lack of wifi have made it difficult to post anything. That being said, there isn’t a place in town where I will be able to post anything more than blogs. So no videos from this country. Those will have to be posted once I’m back in the states at the end of May. Now with that, you may be wondering where I am right now. I am in Grenada, Nicaragua working with REAP ministries. Now that I have been here for a while, I can share with confidence all that we are doing here. Everyday is different on both what we are doing and when we are doing it. But lets back up a bit and start from the beginning. We are staying on a 70 acre farm and living in nice concrete dorms similar to the DR. We also have another dorm buidling across the field, a kitchen and dining area attached, and a pavilion. We have a full time kitchen staff that cooks for us, which is so awesome. The food is athentic Nicaraguan food and it is really good. (Basically rice and beans three meals a day plus whatever else they make with it). We have encountered something here that I haven’t seen anywhere else on our trip. Every morning at 5AM we wake up and head over to the pavilion where we pray together until 6. Plus, we have to sign up for at least 4 hour long prayer slots through out the week so that there is at least someone always praying 24/7. This is a prayer focused ministy. I have loved this. It has been so great to wake up and the first thing I do is pray. It is so cool. Ministry changes daily, but we have done a lot of it. Minstry is broken up into two parts, morning and afternoon (before and after lunch). But it could look like prayer walking, where we walk around with a translator and go out into different communities around the farm and go out and talk to people and their families and pray for them. Or it could look like farm work, which as you can imagine is work on the farm. We have made vegtable gardens and helped out in the yuka fields. It could also look like going to the hospital and praying for the patients there. There is also dump ministry where we have a church service at the dump where the people who live and work there and come to a church and get fed. (We bring them meals). The guys are blessed with the opurtunity to go to the prison and teach there. We will prepare a message and teach them from outside the cell block. We will also bring them coffee and a snack. Ministry can also take the form of several other things such as childcare and bagging beans and rice. Some addtional details on some of these ministries. Hospital ministry is extremely difficult for the light hearted. The only thing that the hospital provides for its patients are a bed and treatment. Everything else must be provided by their families including sheets, blankets and food. This can make going and seeing these people even more difficult. I personally don’t like doing hospital ministry because it makes my heart heavy and hurt for these people. But God has them. The dump is uniquely interesting. Many people used to live at the dump before the government told them they no longer could. But they can live nearby. The dump workers there are less like garbagemen and more like salvagers. They look for metal and glass that they can trade in for cash. Entire families work there, men and women. (They used to employ children but the goverment said that they had to be 18 in order to work there. However, even 16 year olds can be employ, nobody reallys pays too much attention.) Work there is even genenerational. There are families of garbage pickers. There is even a hierarchy system in place. Those who have worked there longer get first pick and those who are new get whats left over. Nicaragua is our last stop on our world tour. Only a few weeks left before we go home. I can not wait. A huge thank you again to all of you who have supported me through this journey whether financially or prayerfully, it means the world. See you all soon!