PRAISES:
- Got a car and have been able to use it much to help locals, other missionaries, and visiting teams.
- Over the last 2 months have seen 7 individuals pray to receive Jesus as Savior
- Bible Study with one woman
- Two different teams of young people from the USA came down on short-term missions trips.
PRAYER REQUESTS
- For the church people in SJdS = facing many challenges right now and some people have left. God to provide the right man to be the next pastor.
- The ongoing process of learning Spanish
- Health
- Strength and wisdom for the heavy schedule of my final 2 months in SJdS before I transition to the capitol.
- Ongoing guidance for long term plans
The last two months have been filled with back-to-back events and activities. Time is truly flying by. Already I have been in Nicaragua 10 months!
We are now in Nicaragua’s “winter” (i.e. the Rainy Season). It rains some almost every day and sometimes it truly pours. While it makes for messy walks/rides on the dirt roads, it does mean the temperatures have dropped from the high 90s to the mid-to-high 80s, which is a welcome change.
God provided a car the last day of May and it came at the perfect time, as it has gotten a lot of use including driving cancer patients to appointments, transporting supplies for church events, and for the last 3 weeks I’ve been driving teams from the USA to many parts of Nicaragua. Driving here is interesting: slower speeds but many different things share the road with cars such as: goats, chickens, children, bicycles, and motos. Cars can fit through openings in traffic I never previously thought possible. Over the last 2 months I’ve seen how God protects and provides. He has protected my car from theft (the only thing taken was my windshield wipers, but that happens in the US too). I’ve been stopped at numerous police checkpoints but other than look at my paperwork and search the car, they have never taken any more serious measures. Last week I got a flat tire, but even that happened at the right place at the right time and God took care of everything. (See my Facebook story about this)
On the day I bought the car (Toyota Sion xb 2008), I took a final bus ride to the capital to meet with the mechanic who helped find the car. During that ride I met a young Nicaraguan woman named Connie. She was bi-lingual. We talked for over an hour about many different things but suddenly toward the end she unexpectedly broke down crying and said how empty she felt. During the last 10 minutes of the ride, she prayed to receive Jesus as Savior. Pray for her.
In June, we said goodbye to our interns. They are awesome people and did so much with the young people in our town. They are/will be greatly missed. Pray for them as they head off into the next phases of life. Pray for me as I take on leading music, Sunday School, and Youth Group each week. Pray for more workers here in SJdS. Pray for Nicaraguan believers to get involved.
There have been a lot of challenging situations going on in the church here. Pray for God to work in hearts to bring about changed lives, repentant hearts, reconciliation, and growth. Pray for wisdom for the Larges for each situation and for guidance for the future of the church. We are praying for God to bring a Nicaraguan pastor to step into the work here, so that the church can be fully nationalized.
A team of Spanish-speaking teens from Miami & Massachusetts came down for two weeks at the end of June. These delightful young people gave mime presentations (wordless music/drama performances) all over town as well as in many other parts of Nicaragua. It was awesome to have them with us. They planted a garden for a children’s home on Ometepe Island and also gave performances on the island, on the ferry ride, on the beach in our town and in neighboring barrios. One of the days they performed in a roofless community building in the pouring rain. But because of their selfless service several people came to Jesus that day, including a woman with a lame leg named Carina who I had the joy of speaking with.
This past week I helped my missionary friend Carmen with a team of young people who came to do Vacation Bible Schools (VBS) in more northern parts of Nicaragua. It was great to be part of a VBS here in Nicaragua in the towns of Matagalpa and Sébaco. We served in very poor, rural parts of these communities. Saw how God is working in the lives of people in these areas. What a joy to share the good news with the children and show them the love of Jesus. On the last day 4 little girls prayed to receive Jesus along with some older children.
As I mentioned in my last update, God is leading me into long term missions. I’ll be in SJdS until the end of September. Then I’ll be moving to the capital city prior to a short trip to Florida in October for a couple of weeks (Missions conference for all Central American/Caribbean missionaries, then a family reunion). From the end of October – February I’ll be exploring future ministry opportunities in Managua and in points further north in Nicaragua. In March I’ll move back to the USA for long-term missionary training and then be busy for how ever long it takes to raise funds again. Pray for God’s step-by-step guidance for all these transitions. Still praying about where God wants me in the future and what Spanish-speaking opportunities He has for me.
Right now I’m in Managua to rest and pray and will be heading back to SJdS at the end of the week.
“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed” 2 Corinthians 9:8