I led my first official START Ministries trip a week ago. It was awesome! I had been planning for months and coresponding with the missionaries in Nicaragua just as long. Finally the day arrived for me to step on the plane in Detroit and step off into a different culture to proclaim God's good news.5 team members flew out of Detroit and we were meeting up with the other 4 in Houston. Once the team was complete, I felt like we gelled very quickly!
The plan was to fly into Managua, Nicaragua, spend the night and leave early the next morning to catch an "in-country" flight to Bluefields. Our ministry was to take place in Bluefields.
If you are not familiar with Nicaragua, it is compareable to the size of New York with about 5 million+ people living in the country. Managua is on the west coast and Bluefields is on the east coast. Bluefields is known as a "black water city". The city received it's nickname due to the allowance of outhouses and bathrooms being placed directly over the water. You can only imagine the pollution and smell. As I sat on the balcony porch of our motel the first night and looked out at the water it made me so sad. What could have been an absolutely breathtaking view of the ocean was the view of a disgusting, murky, brown ocean. As I continued to reflect on this, the thought occured to me that this is how our hearts are before we know Jesus. Even if we are incapeable of changing the water in the city, we are not incapeable of sharing the love of Christ. Each murky heart can be cleansed with the blood of Christ. That gave me hope for the week!
The plan of action was kid's camp. We had three days of supplies and lessons prepared. We held two camps a day in two different locations. The morning camp was held at Verbo Church and the afternoon camp was held at Verbo school. The school was next to the dump so the kids were more underpriveleged who came. The camp consisted of singing songs in Spanish, acting out a Bible story, teaching a Bible verse, making a craft, eating a snack and playing games. The first day we had a total of about 100 kids. That was really good, but we were praying that God would double our numbers. So don't be surprised when I tell you that on Tuesday we had 200 kids! And then of course our prayers continued to be answered when on Wednesday we had over 400 kids!
On Thursday we purchased food for 15 families who lived in the dump. There is a young lady in the Verbo church who is ministering to these families on a consistent basis. Our team wanted to support her ministry and be an encouragement to her. We provided flour, salt, sugar, beans, rice, milk, 2 boxes of matches and oatmeal for each family. When the women of the families came to receive the food one of our team members presented the gospel to them.
Several of the children who were listening to the gospel message gave their lives to Christ that day! Praise the Lord!
I found out later that day that our team was the first group to support this young girls ministry. When I spoke with her after the food was distributed and she was given extra supplies for the upcoming weeks, she was in tears. She couldn't believe that someone would care so much about such a small ministry. I told her that no ministry is small in God's eyes. I continue to pray that God will supply her needs as well as the needs of her new ministry.
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