August Mission Trip Pictures - Updated

Apparently the first blog post was missing the link to the pictures. Let's try this again.

I went online to view one of the pictures from my August trip and found I had never posted them. Not sure how I missed that one but I did and now I have added them for you to see.

I mentioned in a previous post all the great things our team (Logan, Kylie, Mattison, Steve, David and I) got to do while were were there but I'll give you a quick overview.

1. We gathered all the kids and took their updated pictures for Operation Education 2015. During that time we blessed them with new toys and candy of course. We also had a movie night with them and of course had icecream. (12 gallons of it)

2. We blessed the boys of the community with soccer shirts donated by Castanea Presbyterian Church. Kids from 5 to adults received them and loved them. Thanks Lisa..

3. We blessed the teen boys with cologne and sunglasses and all of them were excited to receive that because cologne there is very expensive and not something they would ever buy themselves.

4. We blessed the soccer team and baseball team with water bottles and new bats and balls.

5. We blessed the woman and teen girls with fingernail polish and head bands for their hair.

6. We blessed the 60 families with 20lbs of rice and 10lbs of beans. Enough food to last them over a month.

7. We had a great church service, many were prayed for and encouraged. At the end they song a birthday blessing song to me and all 150+ people gave me a hug. Here's a link to a video of it. The white stuff they are putting in my hair is talcum powder. It represents health and wisdom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWkhn6187TQ

8. We visited the orphange and played with the kids. One of our team members blessed the orphanage director with a good study book by Andrew Wommack. He also blessed a young girl in the community with a new (very nice) bible.

9. At the end of the week we stopped by the ocean to see a glimpse of God's beauty. A sunset over the ocean.

It was a short trip because I had been there 8 days already but the time we had was powerful and many people were blessed. Thanks to all who blessed me on this trip so that I could be a blessing to others.

Here's the link to the pictures. (Some of them were not very good, sorry) If you sent a gift for your sponsored child there will be a picture of them receiving it.

* First email the link did not publish. Here it is again.

http://www.thepowerofoneministry.org/?page_id=3769

Enjoy,

God Bless,

Angie

September Newsletter

Since I returned from Nicaragua in August things have been very busy in my personal life and quite in my communities life. The country of Nicaragua is still in a severe drought and I am working with Pastor Arturo to determine when is the best time to help them with food. I have been blessed by sponsors with additional funds to send him for food. Please continue to pray for these families who have lost all or almost all of their corn crops. Many people are out of work and beans are still very expensive. Not having beans in their diet means there is no protein. Eating only rice is good because they have food but not good for their strength. The men in the community that do have jobs work hard labor jobs so I can't imagine how tired they must feel at the end of the day.

Operation Education 2015 is starting off slow. I still have over 30 students who need sponsors. Would you be willing to share this program with your friends?  I have over 100 kids and thanks to the repeat sponsors I only have the remaining 32 to find sponsors for. The deadline is October 15th.  It will be here before we know it so any help you can give me to find sponsors would be greatly appreciated.

The cost to sponsor is only $35. This provides a full uniform including pants/skirts, shirt, socks, shoes, backpack and school supplies.

Do you attend a Sunday school class, prayer group or homeschool group? This is a great opportunity to get others involved in Missions.

To sponsor a child all you need to do is;

1. Select your child from the website. http://www.thepowerofoneministry.org/?page_id=149

2. Either pay online using your credit card or send me a check.  (If sending a check please email me with the name of the child as soon as possible so I can mark them sponsored)

God always provides and I know He has sponsors for these kids. Please lift them up in prayer as well as all the families in the community.

God Bless each of you,

Angie

Operation Education 2015

The school year is over half way finished and I have returned from Nicaragua with new school pictures of kids that need sponsors. If you are new to my mail list let me explain what Operation Education is and how it works.

For the past 5 years I have been blessed to help over 100 kids each year attend school through wonderful sponsors who invest in the lives of my community kids.

The cost is $35 a year which covers a full uniform (pants/skirt, shirt & socks), a new pair of shoes, cool backpack and school supplies.

One out of every 3 kids in Nicaragua do not attend school simply because they can't afford these same items. The parents in my community only make around $40 a month so to send a child to school for $35 would be impossible especially if they have more than one child.

Throughout the school year you will have an opportunity to communicate with your sponsored child via letters to them. I visit them in March, August and December. Each trip I go I will give you the opportunity to bless the kids by sending them a package, or money for food. This is optional, however, it does help me a great deal when people send money for food. I always buy each family a bag of food regardless if the sponsor of that child sent money so the money that sponsors give me help offset that cost. It takes around $1000 to $1200 every trip.  God is so good to me and has helped me raise this money every trip. I stand in awe at the blessings He sends me each trip.

The next school year will start around Valentine's Day and end the first week of December but we need to start now in order to buy the uniforms at a good price. By November prices double in Nicaragua so I need to purchase everything by mid-October.

If you are new and want to sponsor a child please go to this page on my website and select your child. Click the Sponsor Child button under the child's picture you want to sponsor and you will be taken to the "Checkout" page where you can pay online or you can click the Sponsor Child button again to add another child to your chart. If you do not want to pay online you can email me the name of the child and I will take them off the website and you can send me a check.

For those of you who are sponsoring your child/children again this year there is a big Red box that you need to select to  RE-SPONSOR. Once you click on it and are taken to the Checkout page you can change the quantity if you are paying for more than one child.

This is a new website process so if there are any problems you run into just let me know.

Remember if you want to pay by check you can still do that just email me the name of the child. For those paying to re-sponsor just email me and let me know you are sending a check, no need for the names, those I have already. I can't post the re-sponsor pictures because I don't want someone else selecting those kids but I will email pictures to everyone.

Every year I trust God to find sponsors to my kids and this year is not different. Please feel free to share with others this need. Let's watch God do a great thing and get these kids all sponsored.

Deadline is October 15th to sponsor a child and to pay if you are re-sponsoring your existing child/children.

God Bless each of you.

Angie

Here's the link again: http://www.thepowerofoneministry.org/?page_id=149

July & August Newsletter

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

2013 - An Amazing Year

2013 was an amazing year in the mission field. I can't begin to tell you all that God did in my life and the lives of those in Nicaragua that I work with. My December trip was probably one of the best I have ever had for several reasons. I will try to share all that happen and not write a book.

The kids of Operation Education, all 109 of them, pass their grades. This is a huge accomplishment. Most kids miss a lot of school during the year and most don't put a lot of effort into studying but not our kids. All of them take school very serious and it shows.

During my trip I blessed all of them with their new uniforms, backpacks, shoes and school supplies. I have more school supplies that I am taking to them in March. They will be well prepared for the new school year that starts in February.

My friend Sara and I were also able to bless the entire community with Christmas gifts. The women received jewelry and hygiene bags, the men received new hats and bracelets and the teenagers received jewelry also. All the kids in the community received a toy gift bag and each family received a food bag. The bag was the biggest one I have ever purchased. It contained 13lbs of beans and rice and 5 lbs of sugar, 80 bags of coffee (two cups to each bag), a liter of oil and a bag of cookies. The bag weighed so much that the women had to have help to carry it.

We also had the opportunity to bless the kids from the orphanage. There are 25 kids there and they are the joy of my life. I truly love each of them and this trip we had a special treat planned for them. A beach trip!!!!. They actually live very close to the ocean and from time to time they get to go so what better time than when I'm visiting them right? We had a lot of fun and it will be one of my greatest memories. On the night before we also took my translator and his family out to dinner. It was his birthday and we were blessed to eat at a very nice restaurant, probably the best I have ever eat at in Nicaragua.

All of these things mean a lot to me but not near as much as what happen during my first night service in our church. We just recently got electricity ran to the church giving the families and opportunity to come at night when it's much cooler. The Pastor of the church asked me to attend the service and speak to the people but as you all know I am not a preacher. I don't even like speaking in front of people other than teaching so needless to say I was not to excited but didn't want to be disrespectful.

About 30 minutes before it was time God still had not given me anything I thought he wanted me to talk about. I kept praying and reading the Word and NOTHING... By the time I reached the church I knew something was up. I was very emotional and overwhelmed yet I didn't understand why. I started praying and just ask God to use me and use me he did.

Since the Pastor told everyone I was going to be there many people attended and a lot of them were the men I have been working on for a while. All the women and children were under the church roof but all the men except for 2 were sitting farther away from the rest. I couldn't even see how many.

I started the church off with music. I thought the church needed to see how we worship here in the US. Hillsong and Kari Jobe was my selections and then some old classics like Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord. It was awesome to hear some of them singing that song.

As I began to speak to them I still didn't have a word in my heart but God surely showed up. I just started talking about my life and my testimony and how God sent someone when I was in the 10th grade to let me know how much He loved me. I told them that I am just like my friend. God has sent me there to show them how much He loves them.

I don't even know what all I said but in the end during the alter call 17 teen boys and men came forward to accept the Lord as their savior. Pastor Arturo and I could hardly contain the tears. We have both worked so hard to pierce the hearts of these men. It was took 5 long years but it was completely worth every minute of it for just this day.

Since my visit the men and many others are attending church regularly. I am so excited for their new change in life. Please pray for them as this is very new to them and this is very hard for them. Pastor Arturo is teaching them each week. I can't wait to see the ripple effect that comes from their decision.

This past year was amazing. There are so many amazing things that happen.

For Christmas my husband redesigned my website and I have posted all the pictures from the trip. I am in the process of updating it and don't have all of it done but have lots pictures for you. My blog has changed also. From now on you will get an email letting you know I have updated it and the link to see it. Anytime you are on my site you can see the most up-to-date information by reading the blog.

Check out the site and let me know how you like it. It's not completely finished but it's getting there.

As always thanks so much for supporting me. God has opened so many doors this past year I can't wait to see what happens in 2014.

God Bless,

Angie

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