Operation Education Sponsorship's Available

Happy Easter to you. This is a special time of the year for me. Growing up Easter was all about the candy and the bunny but now it's about my salvation and the opportunity to tell others that they too can have eternal life.

One way of getting the opportunity to share God's love and his free gift of eternal life is through Operation Education.

These kids have the same dreams our kids have. They want to be the next doctor, nurse, lawyer and even mechanics so that they can help their community. It's so great to hear what they want to do with their lives, to hear their dreams and desires to be better themselves and those around them. I'm so blessed to be a part of it.

I am blessed to have many of you as sponsors already and if it was not for you the 120 kids that are attending school would not be.

I currently have 4 kids that have been added to my list and they need a sponsor for this year.

I leave for Nicaragua on Friday March 25th and I would love to share with them who their sponsor is for this year.

If you feel led to bless these kids, please reply to this message as soon as possible.

Here are the kids, I have two sets of siblings:

Angie & her little sister

Alberson & his big brother Maycol

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thanks in advance for blessing these kids.

Angie

2016 January Newsletter

I pray that the start of the new year has brought great blessings to each of you. 2015 was an awesome year for this ministry and for our family. I can't wait to see what God has in store for 2016. Every year He does more and more than the year before. I stand in awe at the things He has allowed me to be a part of these past years and I look forward to the new opportunities and doors that he will open for us. My trip to Nicaragua this past December was a great trip as usual. We had planned for Terry and I and another friend to go but at the last minute my friend got sick and was not able to attend. Terry and I were able to bless a lot of people along with our team in Nicaragua.

I am planning my spring trip during the week of Easter, March 25-April 2nd. If you are interested in going with us please let me know as soon as possible. I would love to share my families with you.

Here are the different things we covered this trip. Click on the Read more to see the pictures and read about all we got to experience.

2016 Operation Education School Uniform Distribution 

It is always great to see the smiles on my kids faces when they know that they have a sponsor for the new school year and will be blessed with their school uniforms, shoes, backpacks and school supplies. Unfortunately, you won't see those smiles in these pictures. Put a camera in front of them and they rarely smile. I promise you before they can take a step away they are smiling. Crazy kids!!!! Read more here

A Special Bed

Can you imagine 3 adults and 1 child sleeping in a full size bed together every night? I would never get any sleep like that. I have got to have sufficient room to get comfortable. I am so blessed and spoiled.. Read more here

Helping The Sick

In addition to our scheduled items that had to take place we were able to fit in time to visit several homes and bless several families with different items that they were needing. Read more here

My Little Pulperias

Pulperia means little store. Kind of like a small little store you would find on a boardwalk or at a park.

Last year one of the families ask me if I would help them open a store in the community. The nearest store is quite a ways away for the community. We planned to start out with simple things like snacks, chips and soda with the goal to add on new items as the store grew. Read more here

It's Promotion Time

The schools in Nicaragua have graduations just like we do. They call them "Promotions", meaning the child will be promoted to the next level of school, kindergarten to elementary, middle school to high school and high school to college.

This year we had 14 kids all together that were promoted. I was blessed to attend the middle school promotion and saw two of the kids go through the graduation process. The preschool promotion happened before we arrived and the high school one was after we left. Read more here

Playing BINGO!!!

I am always looking for something I can do to get everyone involved and I have found the answer. Its playing BINGO. Read more here

Feeding the lest of these..

The bible tells us in in Matthew 25 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'. These words bring me great comfort every time I visit my community and we bless them with food and other much needed items. Read more here

Every trip I take I see growth in the hearts of the community. I see people who use to never share with others give up precious rice for a family who has none. I can't put words to all the changes I have seen in this community. Those changes are the very reason I keep going back.

I can't thank each of the partners who have sowed into this ministry this past year. I promise I have used every penny as wisely as possible and to the glory of God. With your support many things have been accomplished this past year, I can not say thank you enough.

Many blessings to each of you,

Angie

Ps. Let me know if you would like to go with me in March..

2 Students Are College Bound

I am happy to say that Francisca will be attending college this coming year and additionally another student that I didn't list will also be attending college this coming year in addition to Francisca because of the blessings from two of my Operation Education sponsors. This is a huge answer to prayer for the entire community and myself. I personally know how these students feel because my family could not pay for me to go to college and I worked two jobs to make it through it along with days after days of great struggles. I would have been elated to have had support like they are going to receive.

Out of 72 families the current students and the upcoming students are the only individuals who have ever attended college. They are the first of their families generations to have this privilege and the first of all the families who have ever lived in this community. It is a huge encouragement to all the families who live there. Everyone is very proud of the students and encourage them often. They are all in awe of God's blessing on these students and the families they represent.

It will be these types of blessings that open the doors for me to share God's love with these families. This is a miracle in their eyes. It would be to us like winning the lottery. It is truly a life changing event for them.

I am so blessed to be a part of this.

Thanks so much for being a blessing to these students who are truly the future of this community. Please pray for them as they start this new journey.

Many blessings to each of you.

Angie

A Great Testimony and an Opportunity to Bless

If you are the type of person who wants to be a blessing to others then I am certain that God places those opportunities in front of you from time to time. Do you take them? Do you wish you could take them and don't? There are many times in my life that I just could not take advantage of the opportunities God sent my way, at least I thought I couldn't. That was the devils plan to convenience me I couldn't  but I look back now and believe that if I had just stepped out in faith and took the opportunity to be a blessings I too would have been blessed in return and made the devil a liar just as he is.

I want to tell you a story about a opportunity that one of my Operation Education sponsors took last year.

Let me introduce you to Keling.

0018

In March of 2014 during my trip to Ceibita I found Keling in a distraught state of mind. A few days before I arrived her dad (the man in the above picture) left his family for another woman. He left them with no income and no food. Keling's heart was broken into many pieces and for a 16 year old girl the thoughts of her dad living were too much for her to handle so he decided she was going to commit suicide. She had tried the day before I arrived and failed (PTL). I was able to sit with her and encourage her with the word and give her a hope she could not find at the time. A hope in the fact that God was her father and he loved her very much and would take care of her even if her earthly father would not. She had a great deal of hate in her heart for her dad and was extremely bitter toward him for some time after.

In August 2014 one of my sponsors who went on the trip with me met her and felt led to help her attend college. She was beyond overwhelmed that a total stranger would go out of his way to do this for her yet her father would not even provide food or basic needs for her. This opened a door for the relationship between God and Keiling to grow even more than it was. She started focusing on her life, her relationship with God and her studies.

I am proud to say that this week is her last week of her 1st year of college and she is an A student. This is a great testimony of how God can take all bad and make it into good if you let him.

The picture above with Keling and her dad is the second testimony of this story. God healed her heart toward her dad and she allowed him in December 2014 to walk with her on her graduation day. Since then God is restoring that relationship little by little.

I am so proud of Keling and I reminded her yesterday that God is her father and his love for her will never fail. The enemy wanted her life but God had other plans for her. I'm excited to see what he has in store for her future.

I have a great opportunity for one or more of you to be able to bless another student like Keling.

Let me introduce Francisca to you.

IMG_5124

Francisca is graduating this December from high school and she wants to become a teacher. She is determined in her heart that God has great plans for her life and that she will be a teacher one day. I know this because she confesses it to me several times a year for the past couple of years.

Her parents are very poor and it is unrealistic that they make enough money to pay for her to go to college. Their average monthly income is $30.

Francisca wants to go to a college in Somotillo which is local to her. She has been awarded a full scholarship  to attend but will need money for transportation, materials and food during the day. She will leave her home very early in the morning and return very late at night.

I am looking for a sponsor or sponsors who would be committed to blessing her with $30 a month to make this happen. It can be one person or 3 people paying $10 each or even 6 people paying $5 a month.  This money will pay for her to get back and forth to school, supplies she will need each month, food during the school day and maybe from time to time access to the internet for school projects. If you don't feel led to help her financially you can pray for her as she takes a new journey in her life, you can also bless her with things like a backpack, school supplies, school clothes, shoes or anything else God may lay on your heart.

What a great testimony of God's love to be able to bless this young lady and give her the desires of her heart. She is walking by faith and believing God has work out a way for her. I am standing with her and believing that someone reading this God has already prepared your heart to bless her.

I currently have 4 students attending college from this community and 1 more will be added this coming year not including Francisca. This is a huge accomplishment for these kids. It's a huge sacrifice for them as well. The odds of these students every being able to attend college without help is slim to none. I am so honored that God has put them in my life so I can share their hearts desires with others so together we can help change the outcome of their future.

If you feel led to help send her to college (Yes I'm talking $360 a year to go to college) please let me know as soon as possible and I will give you more details. You do not have to commit for a the whole 4 years of college she will attend. I know that if God can bless her this year he will take care of her next year.

I will need to know if you are interested by the end of this month. First payment will be due in March. If you would like to help with the other school items let me know also as soon as possible. I would need them also by the end of the month.

Thanks in advance for allowing God to use you to be a blessing to Francisca.

Angie

The Power of One Ministry 198 Mellwood Drive Charlotte, NC  28214 704-236-5550

www.thepowerofoneministry.org

September/October/November Newsletter

I am finding that sending out a newsletter when needed or per quarter is a more manageable goal for me so if you thought I had disappeared I promise I haven't. I find that my email is full of things I don't have time to read so I wanted to make sure I don't add to that problem in your inbox and you will actually take time to read this if it only comes ever so often.

In August I was blessed to visit my community again and see all the families and kids. We had a great time and all the families were blessed by many things. It probably felt like it was their birthday and Christmas all rolled into one.

I am changing my format on the newsletters to be more specific so you can read only the parts you want to read easier.

Here are the topics for this months newsletter, click on the heading to view more information and view the pictures.

Operation Education 2016 - we now have over 120 kids in the program for this year. Each of them are finishing their current grade in less than a month and will be off until the week of Valentines Day. They will be receiving there new school clothes, shoes and backpacks in December. Check out the pictures and see if you can see your sponsored child. If you sponsored kids from the orphanage I was not able to post those photos.

Baseball Equipment Distribution - I was blessed with lots of baseball equipment that I gave the adult team I sponsor and the kids team. They were in heaven receiving the new Jerseys, hats, cleats, bats and pants.

Thanks so much Kelly for donating all the awesome things. Even the school that the kids attend receiving equipment for the kids to use during recess.

On my next trip the kids will receive soccer clothes and shorts donated by Castanea Presbyterian Church soccer organization (Thanks Lisa). They are going to have more "new to them" clothes this year than they have ever had. They love the jersey type shirts.

New Clothes for the Women and Teens - thanks to an awesome sponsor who sows into this ministry I was able to buy new shirts from Walmart for $1 each. Most of them were the Danskins which are excellent for the weather there. Each family received at least 3 shirts each. They love receiving new things.

It's Feeding Time - each time I go the Lord provides for me to help the families with bags of food. This food can last them up to a month depending on the family size. It's around $20. The cost of ordering pizza once or even a trip to McDonald's once feeds them every day for a month. If you would like to contribute toward this project, please do. I have 72 families to feed.

My Nica Kids - most of you know that I have been working at an orphanage since I started going to Nicaragua in 2004. I have stayed close to 5 of the kids from the original orphanage called the House of Rose that closed in 2008. Those kids are very close to my heart. I love them like my own and I am sad to say that in December during my trip I will have to say Goodbye to my kids. One of them left in August to live with an aunt and this caused a great deal of problems for everyone. These 5 kids are all cousins. A set of 3 sisters and another set of 2. Once the first sister left the orphanage to live with the aunt, the aunts sister who is the mom of the set of 2 sisters "all the sudden" decided she wanted her girls back also. These kids are 12 and 15 years old. They have lived in an an orphanage since they were little and they don't even know their mom. These families are not ready to handle the emotional problems that these kids bring. It will be overwhelming to everyone, especially the kids. I am not ready to lose the girls. For years we were told they would never leave so in my mind I have planned on them going to college and then getting married, not leaving to a place I may not be able to find them again so soon. Please pray for my emotional state. I don't want them to see me upset and I have tears flowing just writing this to you and thinking about them and what they are about to experience. My heart is broke. I just want the best for them and I am not sure this is the best. I know there is nothing I can do but trust God. I know that he is more than capable of taking care of the girls. It's the humans I am worried about, not Him.

These are pictures of us having a great time in August.

Headed down South - I will be leaving on December 6th with two other team members so I would like to ask for prayer to cover us while we are there and my family I will leave behind. I am blessed to have Terry go with me again this year so I should have nice pictures again.

I will be able to see the elementary kids graduate from kindergarten and middle school but I will miss the high school graduation. There are 3 high school students graduating, 5 middle school kids and 4 kindergarten kids. I hope to have a celebration for all of them of some kind. Probably ice cream or something.

Thanks so much for all that you do to support this ministry through your prayers and your financial support. I can't do anything without both of those.

Hope you enjoy the pictures and the update.

God Bless each of you.

For those who SPONSOR kids with Operation Education, please note that if you would like to send them a financial blessing to help with food or bless them for Christmas please send it to me no later than the last day of this month, NOVEMBER 30th with instructions on how to apply the money. If you can't help with buying food please at least send a note or a card or something to let them know you are praying for them. Getting a letter from you is the highlight of my visit. Each kids sits hoping their name will be called. I imagine it's the same when our military is away from home and they too can't wait to hear from family. Speaking of the military, Happy Veteran's Day. Thank you for your service.

Angie

The Power of One Ministry 198 Mellwood Drive Charlotte, NC  28214

* you can also contribute online at www.thepowerofoneministry.org/donations