February ’13 Highlights (Photo Blog)

    This month Finish the Wall completed the construction of the Bread of Life Bakery & Cafe Training School (pictured below left). We have been SO abundantly blessed by their work on this project!! Finish the Wall sent four teams for one week each and completed the entire project. It has been amazing to watch the transformation take place! We will be starting a training school in three areas: baking, cooking, and sales & service. Training will be six months of schooling focusing on identity in Christ, business training, financial planning, and one of the three courses of study. Once the students have completed their six months of study, they will begin working in the morning and the second round of training school will begin with new students in the afternoon. This incredible blessing will help to spread health in our area and will provide jobs for families who are currently without employment. We want to empower local Nicaraguans to provide for their families and to take better care of their health and the heatlh of their families. We want to teach about the connections between nutrition and health and introduce people to healthier foods. We want to see Nicaraguan men and women embracing good health- body, soul, and spirit- and spreading health to their own community. (To see a video of the transformation that has taken place this month, check out our Bread of Life video.)

      It's that time of year again… back to school time! Every February we give out school supplies to our Sunday school kids here in Candelaria and school uniforms and shoes to all of our sponsored kids. Preparation for this event has been consuming my life for at least a month, but all of the hard work and chaos are worth it when we get to see our kids smiling from ear to ear as they open their backpack and see their new uniform. (Three of our sponsored students- Auxiliadora, Rebecca, and Maria- pictured right) I love to see so many of our children now sponsored and the doors to consistent education opened to them! If you would like to sponsor a child for $25/month, check our our sponsorship website.

   This month has been filled with bike riding adventures! As my work with our student sponsorship program grows and as our house has been a construction zone, there have been numerous opportunities to bike all around Chichigalpa and the surrounding villages (pictured left- biking through Chichigalpa). I have loved getting so much exercise biking around town!
   Since Finish the Wall has been doing construction in the mission house, we have been biking into Chichigalpa to eat lunch every afternoon. Usually after lunch I take advantage of the fact that I'm already halfway to the city center and go ahead and bike to all of my errands (grocery store, market, bank, bakery, etc.). Also, I have been biking to Nuevo Amanecer, La Isla, and Santa Matilde to visit with our sponsored children in those villages and to gather information from them before we bought the uniforms and supplies for this new year. I just love biking all around town!

    As I said, I have been visiting in all of our outreach villages this month, meeting with sponsored students, doing new home visits, and delivering backpacks and uniforms for the start of the new school year. I just love spending time in our outreach villages! (Pictured right- sweet moments with Esling, on of our sponsored kids, in Nuevo Amanecer). Each village is so beautiful in it's own unique way. I just adore my little loves in each of our villages!! I love getting to be a part of their lives to walk with them through difficult times and rejoice with them in their victories! Through these visits my heart has begun to dream and to plan for new ideas that I want to implement or see implemented in this new school year.  I feel so blessed to live this life!!

   This month I've done initial home visits for several new children in Santa Matilde and La Isla. I always love getting into homes and meeting new little loves. It's often heartbreaking to see the conditions in which these sweet kiddos are living and the hardships that their families are facing, but I love to have my heart broken for them. (One of our families in Santa Matilde in living in this home that is literally made out of sticks and blankets like the forts I used to build in my basement- pictured left) I love to be invited into their lives, to hear their dreams, and then to be able to introduce them to people who have hearts to help empower them to rise above their poverty.

   In January and February I have had the unique priviledge to take many new sponsors to visit and meet their sponsored children. We had several teams here over the last few months who decided to make a lasting impact in Nicaragua by sponsoring one of our sweet children. I spent several days walking through the dirt roads of Candelaria taking new sponsors to meet their children and allow them to see the children's home life and connect with them and their families in a more personal way (Pictured right- Ivette talking about God with her sponsored child, Karla, and her family during her home visit). I LOVED getting to do this! It was such a privilege to see hearts impacted through these personal relationships!

    This month has been filled with precious little infants (like precious Gleysi- pictured left). It seems everytime I turn around someone is handing me a baby to hold. Of course, this makes my heart just overflow with JOY! I have met so many adorable new babies as I have been out in the outreach villages and spent so much time holding these precious little ones and praying over them as I sit in families yards and complete home visit data of the school-aged children. There have been new babies coming to my small group and to Sunday school with their older siblings. One day I was sitting in the back of a mototaxi and a woman hands me her baby and asks if I can hold her because she has to climb up front with the driver and there is no room for the baby so I rode through town with 8 people in a mototaxi holding a precious little girl I had never seen before. Yes, it has been a month full of babies! 

    Of course, my two sweet hijas are always a highlight. There dad has been sick this month and preparing for a hurnea operation. Because of this, he has not been able to work as much as he usually does. He was worried about how to get them started in school. I was able to buy uniforms and shoes for my sweet girls so that they are able to go to school (My girls with their new uniforms- pictured right). They were so excited!! I love getting to take care of my girls and to see their faces light up in a huge smile to have their lovely new uniforms and shoes. They have also been so excited to come and tell me how well they are doing in classes. Jessica has been so proud that her teacher keeps telling her what a great job she's doing in her classes. I love to see her feeling so proud of herself!
     I also love how the Lord keeps binding our hearts closer together. I treasure all of my time together with these beautiful girls. One of my sweetest moments of the month was when both of my sweet girls fell asleep in my arms during one of our church service (Me and my girls- pictured left). I just love to see how the Lord is going to continue to move in their hearts! Please continue to pray for my beautiful girls that the Lord will heal their hearts and shower them with His love. Also, please pray for their father as he is preparing to undergo surgery next month. I just thank the Lord for crossing my path with Juanita and Jessica!  

    It was such a personal blessing to me to have my dear friend Anna visiting with me for a week (Anna and I pictured left). I met Anna here in Nicaragua this time last year. She and I instantly connected! Our hearts are so similar. After she left Nicaragua, Anna got in touch with me and told me that she knew that she was supposed to come and help me with my dream for a foster home. I was so excited that the Lord had placed it on Anna's heart to come and serve alongside me. This girl is just incredible!! She is one of the kindest people I have ever met! She is so in love with the Lord and longs to pour that love out on other people.
      I believe that she and I will make an incredible team in caring for abused, neglected, abandoned, and orphaned children here in Nicaragua. Anna understands what many of these children have been through, can shower them with compassion, and speak into their situations with wisdom. She is also a nurse (which is a specific helper that I had asked the Lord to send to help me in the Abide Home) and will be able to provide needed medical care for the children that the Lord sends to us. And then, as a bonus to me, Anna told me that her desire is to just cook all the time for everyone. Haha! Anyone who knows me knows that I really don't like to cook and have always dreamed of having someone to cook all my meals for me.
    Anna spent a week with me here in Candelaria. We went to the land to pray and dream together about our future foster home. We loved having time to dream into the Abide Home together. We also had a lot of time to just enjoy our friendship and visit with the children here in Candelaria. I am so thankful for her! Pray for Anna as she continues to prepare to come down to Nicaragua full-time.

    I have several exciting Abide Home updates this month: first of all, a HUGE PRAISE, my residency paperwork was finally accepted and my Nicaraguan residency card should be ready at the end of March. This is such a praise after working on this paperwork since July. I am so thrilled to have this step completed and to more officially be able to call Nicaragua my home. Also we have started construction on the wall that will surround the Abide land (the beginnings of our wall construction- pictured right). I have a wonderful crew of Nicaraguan workers who are building the wall right now. It should be completed by mid-March. I'm hoping to start fundraising for the house in April and build at the end of 2013 or early 2014. Also the Lord continues to just pour out His favor and blessings upon this dream. Donations are beginning to roll in for the project. Often people contact me about things that they would like to give before I even think to ask for that thing. It's just another way that the Lord is showing me that He has evrything about this dream ordered and in His loving hands. A friend of New Song contacted me about donating a water purification system to our home, a bag full of cloth diapers were given to me by a sister ministry here in the Chichigalpa area, and my New Song family helped pitch in so that I could fill my promotional card from the grocery store and buy my first dishes for the Abide home at an incredibly discounted rate (pictured left with my plates).

     I loved getting to spend a few sweet afternoons with Jasmina and Katalin at the Corner House. Katalin is growing so much and has begun to talk more and more each day. I love walking past their house and hearing Katalin's sweet little voice yelling, "Adio Lee-a" So precious!! I spent one afternoon just hanging out at their house while Jasmina painted my nails showing me the new designs that she was excited to just learn that week. She also asked if she could come and see my land so one morning we all biked up to the Abide land so that I could show her where my foster home would be. I just love getting to spend time with these two lovely girls!

    I just love my small group!! Each week we have a wonderful time of fellowship, worship, and sharing in the Word together (my small group pictured left). I look forward to this time each week. I missed most of our small group meetings in January because of my residency trips back and forth to Managua. It was really good to get back to small group this month. I particularly enjoyed our Valentine's day small group when we met at the Vega house and Pastor Bismark dove into the Word talking about the Lord's love and the way that He relentlessly pursues each of our hearts. Such a beautiful time in His love and presence! I'm so thankful for this beautiful group of folks! It's been wonderful to connect with so many of the adults from the church through our small group since my work usually keeps me with the youth and children.

   The last two weeks of February all four of us that are living at the mission base were in the country and we had no teams visiting. It was our only time all together with no one else during a several month period. We took advantage of this time to set aside some family time. We had a couple family dinner nights out and a beach weekend filled with good food, bananagrams, and lots of laughing and talking together. I love my New Song family SO much!! I am incredibly thankful to be doing life with this group of people; they are just amazing! The Lord has blessed us so much with a mission that really does feel like family.