May ’13 Highlights (Photo Blog)

    The biggest highlight for me this month is that I am FINALLY officially a Nicaraguan resident!!! After nearly 10 months of work and countless trips to immigration in Managua, I have my cedula (pictured right in front of the immigration office in Managua with my Nicaraguan residency card). I came out of the office and literally squealed, jumped up in the air, and then ran over and hugged my friend Cadence who went with me that day to pick it up. Having my residency will give me the ability to continue moving forward with the dream of the Abide foster home. 

     One of my favorite ministry moments from this month was being able to host a clinic health day for some of our neediest children (who still remain unsponsored) in Santa Matilde. We had so many kids who had been suffering from health issues and a couple who we wanted to look into possible abuse situations. It was so sweet to spend the entire day with these beautiful kiddos (pictured left with a few of these little loves). We had one of our nursing students offer health teachings, one of the dentist taught the kids about proper dental care (pictured right), and had health and dental evaluations for each of the children. We were able to give them some medicines that they needed from donated medicine from our pharmacy. This was such a huge blessing for the children and their families and I am so thankful that we were able to organize it all. If you would like to sponsor one of our beautiful children, please visit our sponsorship website: www.educatenica.org. If you would like to specifically sponsor one of these needy children in Santa Matilde, please choose Allan Reyes, Estrella Aguirre, Jeyson Reyes, Darwin Reyes, or Fani Artiaga.

     I have been doing so many home visits this month, especially in Santa Matilde. I find myself falling more and more in love with the beautiful kiddos in this village. I have been visiting new families collecting information in order to add these new students to our program. I have also been touching base with my sponsored kids to see how they are doing in classes and setting up weekly tutoring sessions for some of the kids that have struggled this first grading period of the new school year. I have also been doing follow-up visits with some of our kids that needed medical attention. It's been wonderful being able to split the work with Cadence. When I am not spread between four different villages, then I am able to spend more time with my students in each of the villages and able to give those kids more of the individual attention that they need. I think that it's going to make a big difference for our kids in the program.

    We had a talent show this month with our youth. The youth have been working hard all month doing several activities as fundraisers for a mother's day program that they wanted to plan for all of the mothers in our church. My favorite part of the talent show was seeing Ariel and Teresa sing a worship song while Kenia danced to it. I just loved it!! I love that these three have really been committed to building a worship team and I love to see their hearts just growing in worship! They have been leading worship consistently in church over the last several months and I just love to see how the Lord continues to grow their passion and capacity for worship. And I know there is still so much more to come!

    May 30th is Mother's Day in Nicaragua. We had a big celebration at the church on the 29th celebrating all the beautiful mommas in our midst. It was such a sweet time for me because I got to spend the evening with the two beautiful treasures that the Lord has given me as the daughters of my heart (pictured right with Jessica and Juanita). The Lord has blessed my life so much through these two beauties in the last 8 months and I am so thankful to be able to carry a momma role in their lives (although I wish that I could do that in an even more real way). I am so thankful that the Lord placed these girls in my life and that I have the opportunity to love them and speak into their lives. I spend the entire evening just cuddling with my girls, speaking love and life over them, and praying together with them. Sweetest moment of my day was when the pastor announced that they were going to pray over all the mothers and my two girls turned to me and said, "Mama I'm going to pray for you." I'm so thankful for these lovely gifts in my life!!

    I wanted to spend some time with Jayson's family, especially on mother's day to see how his sweet mama, Carolina, was doing that day. This family just has such a special place in my heart! I love spending sweet afternoons at their house chatting with the moms and playing with the kiddos (playing with Griselda, Jayson's baby sister- pictured right). It was really precious being able to spend some of mother's day with them and see so much love for the mothers within this multi-generational family. I was able to see adult moms honoring their precious mom who lives with them and helps care for their children (pictured left), to stand with moms who have lost children, to see young moms receive sweet affection from their young babies, and to rejoice with moms who are expecting new babies this mother's day and all with a family that I just adore. Such a precious way to close out the month! I am so thankful for the families that the Lord has so deeply connected my heart with in these past three years in Candelaria! 

     We have been really focusing on spending a lot more time together as a family to really build community together as a family. Lunches together, nights out for dinner and cards, and family weekends some Monday-Tuesdays. It's been great to build more community together! One of our new favorite things is to play Jungle Speed together. It's become one of our favorite family past times, even though it gets SUPER intense and competitive sometimes. Our first night we knocked over the chairs at the restaurant twice in the midst of our game (pictured above left)! Intentionally spending more time together as a community has also inspired a lot of good conversation, heart-to-heart sharing, and prayer time over one another. I just love our little family!

     We finally got moved into our new staff house!!! This home was donated to the mission last summer and was set aside to be used as a staff home so that the base house could become mission offices. I have been really excited about this move!! Over the last year it has becoming increasingly more difficult to live in a bedroom that also serves as my office, counseling room, and sponsorship bodega. I have been thrilled to move into the new house and have a little separation between work and home (my new bedroom pictured right). It's been a lot of transition this month as we have been moving, settling in to our new commute and community living, and creating office space. However, I'm glad to have my own little space that I now call home. My heart feels so at rest here. Now, this next month, I need to focus on getting the new sponsorship office set-up.