Most of my month has been consumed with Lydia’s health issues. If you want to hear more about her story, you can read my latest blog post: Diagnosis and Hope. Cadence, Emily and I have been making several trips to Leon this month checking in on Lydia and seeing how she is doing. We’ve actually had a lot of fun in the hospital room with her playing with puppets, coloring, and teaching her to write her letters and words. Please keep praying for this sweet girl and her complete healing.
We have continued to work with our youth through Wednesday night discipleship. I have loved developing deeper relationships with these teenagers and to see them grow. Right now they have such a hunger for the Lord and absolutely LOVE coming to youth (in fact, contrary to the norm in Nicaraguan culture, our kids generally show up an hour BEFORE we were supposed to start). I long to see them walk in the fullness that the Lord has for them and to become cycle breakers in their communities. To read more, read: My Precious Punks
I’m continuing to work each week with my wonderful 1st and 2nd graders in Santa Matilde (First grader, Maria, pictured above). I’m really proud of them and how much they have grown academically. I love seeing their growth throughout the year in both reading skills and math. This past month, it's been a huge blessing to have an Adventures Passport team working with us on Thursday afternoons and allowing us to work with our tutoring kids in even smaller groups.
Our Sunday school program has been growing so much as we have begun our children’s feeding program. I love to see more and more little cuties coming to Sunday school each week. We love to see them come to know more about the Lord and to pour out God’s love upon them. I feel so honored to now serve 200 kids through our Sunday school program each week.
This month we've gotten into several of the schools to check-in on our sponsored kids and meet with their teachers about their progress (visiting Genesis and Kevin in their 1st grade class at Santa Fe pictured above). I love connecting with the teachers and hearing how we can best support our students in their classes. And it's always wonderful when we get good reports about how much they are growing academically!
This month we were able to spend a lot of time together as a New Song family (dinner with some of the New Song family pictured above) through dinners out, beach weekends, and getaways to Matagalpa. I'm so thankful to be a part of such an incredible family!
I was so excited this month when these sweet girls showed up to visit! The Velasquez family is one of my precious families from Santa Matilde. I loved them so much! A few months ago, they were forced off of their land and had to move to another city. I haven't seen them in several months. This month Yulissa, Alexander, and baby William moved back to a village near Candelaria with their mom. The rest of their family now comes to visit every couple of weeks. I can now spend time pouring into these sweet girls again whenever they come to Candelaria (pictured above with Juanita and Yulissa).
One of my favorite parts of my job is getting to tell families that we have found sponsors for their children. It's amazing to see the way that this speaks hope and the Lord's love over families. This month we had the blessing of telling this family that their youngest and oldest sons had been sponsored. The mom had been talking about what a difficult time they've been having providing for their sons education. When we told them that we found sponsors for two of their boys, tears filled her eyes and she just kept saying, "God has heard me. He has heard my cries for help." And then when you add in the joy that little Jose Angel displayed when he saw his new backpack and school supplies, it was just a beautiful day where more than anything, the family knew that the Lord loved them and saw them. Definitely one of my favorite things about my job.
