So I know I haven´t written anything in awhile, but it has been a crazy
last two weeks. We´ve been so busy as we´ve built more relationships
with the people and gotten deeper in the ones we´ve had. We´ve all been quickly learning that ministry is more about simply loving
people rather than doing activities for them. With that, here´s two
stories just from this week:
Monday we went to our weekly lunch
with the Modesto family, the family my group met what seems like years
ago now and we talk to all the time. This was the third or fourth week
we´ve had lunch with them on Monday. I actually missed last time and
hadn´t been in awhile and when I walked in Marguaritta, the
great-grandmother who has been bed-ridden for five years, said ¨You
brought my beard back!¨ (For those that don´t know I have not shaved
this trip, so I´m working on about 7 weeks right now.) So we all ate
lunch together of rice and beans and a spaghetti type pasta. They are
so generous everytime we go it is amazing. But after lunch they put in
music and a dance party started. The little kids went crazy and danced
for an hour, the teens danced for a while, and the grandmother even got
in one dance. All of us had to get up and dance at one point or another
and the house (all women minus a 5 year old boy) errupted when I got up
and showed off my best moves! But it has been so great to get so close
with this family and see how God has worked in their lives and show
them what He´s doing in us here as well.
Last night we went to
our friend Kevin´s house. He is 26, speaks some English he learned in
school, a baker, and had a baby boy about a week ago. We brought him
baby clothes the day before and when we got there he proudly showed off
his son in the new clothes. Although he is a baker, he has never made
pizza before and Zach worked in a pizza place one summer, so Zach,
Joshua, and I helped him make two pizzas. They were delicious!! And it
was soo cool to make a pizza from scratch, starting with flour and
everything, in Nicaragua. We ended up staying around 4 hours just
talking and sharing jokes and tounge-twisters in our various languages.
The other day we shared with him how much God loves him, even more than
he loves his new son because God is the perfect Father and His love is
perfect. He knows Christianity but thinks it´s all about rules so we
continued the conversation some about God´s love and grace and it was
really starting to click for Kevin. He even said he would never forget
that night we first shared with him. It truly is amazing what happens when you simply love on people.
