“Only when we have come in touch with our own life experiences and have learned to listen to our inner cravings for liberation and new life can we realize that Jesus did not just speak, but that he reached out to us in our most personal needs. The Gospel doesn’t just contain ideas worth remembering. It is a message responding to our individual human condition. The Church is not an institution forcing us to follow its rules. It is a…
Our camp team has made it back home safely… after a long day of traveling that literally started with a ‘bang’ this morning. We had to be up by 4am to make the journey to the airport for the first leg of our flight back to the States. I would say that most of us have all returned with mixed emotions. I know for me after being in Nicaragua for the whole sixteen days I feel like I am back…
Today was our last full day here in Nicaragua so that always comes with mixed feelings. All of us have been so impacted by our time here that we want to stay, but we know we must return. We will definitely be building some mental ‘altars’ like they did in the OT to remember the work that God has done in us and through us. We started off our day by heading down to Los Cedros. For our camp last…
Our day got off to a great start after our team devo time with all of us being able to continue to pursue the Lord in time alone with Him in the mornings. Being in such a beautiful place that is free from our normal routine and distractions seems to give God much more space and stillness to speak to each of us through His Spirit and the Word. We knew today would be a challenging day, knowing we would…
I woke up thinking about the last images of the campers leaving Campo Alegria. It was such a powerful and emotional moment. The kids had their faces either pressed to the windows or had their heads sticking out of the windows with arms outstretched. I can only imagine what was being processed as they had to say goodbye. But we sent them out in true Nicaragua fashion as we chased the bus out of camp. But after the kids left…
The anticipated update is finally here. The internet at Campo Alegria wasn’t working so I’ll have to do a multi-day update tonight. I’m sure it will be lacking details as we are all running off very little sleep from an awesome time at camp. I departed on Friday to join our camp team while our construction team finished some construction/roofing/painting projects in Los Cedros. Then on their final day they were able to go back to Casa Robles and dedicate…
It was definitely an exciting morning today with our two teams sharing breakfast together. Our camp team finally made it despite airline delays and even a re-routing and got settled in here at the compound, but only for a brief time. They hit the ground running today by prepping for camp, unpacking and sorting all the donated clothes (nearly 1,000 lbs.), gathered fruit and then headed off for Campo Allegria after lunch. Last I heard they have made it and…
To be honest, I don’t think I will be able to totally put into words what our team experienced today. We put work aside for the morning hours and started our day with a visit to La Chureca (the city dump). I believe it is estimated that the dump has about 1000 residents, with the majority being children. They live in such extreme poverty it is hard to describe. They rummage for whatever they can find to sell or use….
Today we were challenged to think and live like a Christian during our morning devotional time which was good to think on as we worked today. This team has really been amazing in the group effort and teamwork it is taking to tackle this projects. But it is going amazingly well – with no complaining and continual offers to pick up some slack by giving someone else a break. We spent a full day painting at Casa Robles (the boys…
We managed to get right back to the massive painting project and put in a long day today but made great progress! In fact, we are calling it “done” at Sister Ruby’s as her nephew – who has been awesome in helping us – is going to finish the back part of the house. But we did manage to finish the exterior… complete with the ‘Complaints of God’ lettering by Karen, the upstairs interior, the stairwell and the bottom family…