Does God simply give you what you ask for in your prayers? I would have to answer no to that question. He doesn´t just provide for his children with the things we ask for..He likes to remind us of who he is and go above and beyond what our little minds can imagine. Since we´ve been living in the youth center, we haven´t had running water. Our contacts provide drinking water, but rain water has been our friend for taking bucket showers, flushing toilets, and doing laundry every day. We have been depending on the skies to open for daily needs, which is something I can say doesn´t happen in...

So the other day someone told me we´ve been here two and a half weeks and I was amazed then i remembered i´ve only blogged once and i need to get on that. Ha ha soooo here i am. There´s just way too much to write about so i´m going to write about my experiences in the barrios, which is spanish for neighborhood. First is Manuel. I don´t know why he´s so cool he just is. He´s 7 and loves to try on random sunglasses, laugh at my spanglish, and play baseball. I´m getting to know his family and his brother as well. I was praying before this trip that God would break my heart for what breaks...

I´m learning about how God answers prayer: He´s burdened my heart for teen ministry during our time here and we hadn´t come across too many opportunities yet but….. During a pickup game of soccer the other day, i met a seventeen year old girl named Maricella. She asked if i liked to play volleyball….me, well yesss of course. Our conversation about volleyball turned to planning a day for her to bring her school team to come play with a group of us at the center. From there, a few of my teammates and i sat down and chatted for over an hour with Maricella and three of her...

¨….and now we are going to share testimonies. who wants to go first?¨ this is the question asked at typically every gathering here in nicaragua, whether it´s on sunday morning, the drug rehab center, a bible study, or in someones home. sharing your testimony, a story about your life, a word from the Lord is a very big and vital part of community and church down here. giving my testimony is not something completely foreign to me,l but is defiantly not something i´ve done a whole lot. it defiantly is not something that i´ve just whipped out of my back pocket. it´s always been...

About twice a week Josh and I play soccer-sorry, futbol. He played soccer for years and is a really great player. We play in the heart of the college section of Jinotepe, so we are playing with 22 year olds, all guys. I am white, a girl, and the youngest one on the court (we play on a basketball court with a semi flat ball with the basketball poll as the goal… not an easy target) Needless to say, I stick out like a sore thumb. Unbelievably enough, Josh and I definitely hold our own out there. By the grace of God, I still have some talent left in me and can show up some of these boys...

My prayer is that my life will never be the same. Everyday, we walk the streets of Jinotepe with honking horns, absurd smells, whistling men and dirty children.   Katie, Ashley and I have made friends with a precious little family. This family consists Socurro (the grandmother), Eveling (the daughter), Jose Luiz (2anos), and the baby whose name I can´t spell. We visit their store often. Yesterday, they invited us to their home the size of my kitchen. They greeted us with besos and we sat down. Socurro asked if she could excuse herself because she needed to take a shower. We said of...