Is it really August? How did I miss the July newsletter? There has been so much going on that I didn't even realize that I have not updated you since Pastor Arturo's prayer request so this will be a two month update.
In July I spent most of the month getting ready to go to Nicaragua. Making plans and preparing our team to go. I had another two part mission trip. August 1st - 8th I worked with my bosses ministry with a team of 32. We ministered to 1,000's of people that week and had an amazing time as usual. On the 8th when the team left myself and 5 others left for Somotillo for another 5 days. Here's the highlights of that trip.
Upon arriving to Somotillo we found that our hotel's pump was broken and they had been fixing it for two days with no luck. Somotillo is a small town and there is only one "Hotel", the rest are places that have rooms. It was also a holiday and lots of party's and fireworks were going on so finding a place and finding one without noise going on all night was quite a task.
The first night the place we found was right in the middle of the party's and fireworks. Around 2am I thought we were being fired upon. Needless to say the next morning we moved to another place. The new place unfortunately was 25 minutes away up a mountain but it was very nice other than the mountain cold water we had for the shower. Overall we managed and the Lord provided.
Our ministry time was awesome, regardless of the lack of sleep and the cold cold water.
Friday night we showed the Transformers 4 movie and gave out over 250 bowls of ice cream. 12 Gallons!!! The kids and families loved it. The movie was a little long for them but all of them enjoyed it and were just excited to hang out with all of us.
Saturday we started the registration process for the new school year. We took each child's picture, got there updated sizes and blessed them with a new age appropriate toy/gift. We gave out new shirts to all the girls and bracelets, hair bands and fingernail polish to the teenagers.
Sunday was the fun day. We played games with the kids and the adults and gave out prizes. We even had a little contest of musical chairs among us. It was a lot of fun and the kids laughed and laughed..
After playing with the kids we were able to bless the entire community with various things. The women received jewelry or fingernail polish, the men received hats and cologne and at the end every family received 20 lbs of rice and 10 lbs of beans along with a liter of oil.
Sunday night was beyond special to me. We had a great church service. Steve Natelborg, one of my sponsors, gave the Word to the community and afterwards we prayed over many to receive their healing. It was an awesome night. When church was over the entire community song a traditional song for my birthday that's coming up in September. This song talks about many blessings for someone and in the song they put leaves on my head and cover my head with Talc powder. I aged 50 years in 10 minutes that night. Video to come. :)
Monday we traveled to visit my friend Darling. She was very happy to see us. I took her a large container of items that she loved. We blessed her socks off with household items, flashlights that don't use batteries and many other items. We also blessed the family with new shoes. Darling shared with us things that I can't get out of my mind. One of the items I took her was shampoo. She said they had not had any in over 6 months. Her little girl was very excited to know she would get to wash her long hair. How blessed we are here in the US right?
The one thing that she said that repeats itself over and over again in my head was when we blessed her with a bag of food. She said that they had not eat in several days and that she didn't think she could make it through another night hearing her kids cry from being so hungry. She kept calling us her angels. God is always on time. I am so glad we were able to bless their family. She was so desperate.
Please be in prayer for this part of the country. Currently Nicaragua is in a drought season. This is the first one they have seen in many many years. My community is in a critical situation. Several of the families had not eaten in a few days. Crops are all burnt up from the hot sun. One family lost a bull and one family lost 3 acres of corn. Several others lost almost as much. Many of the families are what they call "Machete Men". Those are the guys who work in the fields cutting weeds down with a machete, however, because there has been little rain the lands are not luscious and green with lots to cut but yellow and dry and require no maintenance forcing many out of work. This drought has also caused prices to rise. Typically I pay .30 cents for a pound of beans and this time the cost was $1.10 per pound.
Please pray for the families of this area. Many don't have support from outside sources and with no government help people have no very little options.
I hope to have lots of pictures posted soon and the Operation Education kids pictures also. If you want to re-sponsor your kid(s) from this year please reply to this email by August 30th. If I have not heard from you I will assume you are not interested and I will post your child's pictures online for sponsorship. This year I have a new way I will be posting the pictures. Look for more details soon.
As always thanks again for your continued support and prayers. The community of Ceibita and I are grateful.
Keep your eyes open for more updates soon.
Angie