Hello everyone out there. If you are reading this I want to say thank you. Because I am never sure if anyone does so it is sometimes hard to muster up motivation to write to a vacant audience. Last time I left you I was on the verge of launching into a very hectic and stressful week. There was a lot of work to do with preparing for the marathon for Vida Joven. I helped to write 1000 numbers, make posters, and get donations. The marathon went really well and although we had to wake up early and it felt like the most chaotic day ever!! I am not sure how much money was made but I know that we did well. Last week was my final week of full ministry which meant party time :)! In our childrens ministry we had a big party that was one of the best and also chaotic programs we have had. When you tell kids that there is going to be an piñata you suddenly find your self with tripple the amount you had all year. Who knew! Ha ha. We had singing, water balloon games, snacks, and prizes. At the end we prayed over the families and the kids and thanked them for letting us be a part of their community. I was close to crying but it is not the time yet we still have a few more days to see them. Some of the kids came running out of their homes with pictures for us. It about tore my heart out when they tried to give me precious photographs of them as babys. I had to give some of them back because I knew how gracious the mothers were being in giving them and that once the pictures were gone they were gone forever. It made me feel selfish to realize that I have the ability to print of hundreds of copies of pictures and I am not sure I would be so willing to give up originals. Then at the feeding program we had a little party for the ladies with picos, orange juice, and we made them some cards. I have been pretty sick since Friday so if you could please be praying for my health this week. This morning I went to feeding program and the ladies made us lunch! It was so tear jerking and the food was wonderful. We had old indian soup yummy! Then they gave us these little gifts and we prayed for them. When we finally left them they had tears in their eyes and again I felt like crying but there is so much pent up emotion that I am afraid once the tears come out I will become a blubbering mess and it will become completely pathetic. This Wednesday the 6th we are leaving for debrief in Costa Rica which should be a lot of fun. We are coming back on the 10th and will be here for 2 days and then leave for Atlanta and have more debrief and then I fly home on the morning of the 15th! It is so mind blowing that the trip is coming to an end but like I said it is bittersweet. Tomorrow I have my last day which is yet another party at Corazon Contento. This shall not be my last entry. I will update you after debrief. Take care and see you soon.
Lately God has really been working on refining me. As we slip into the final weeks of ministry it has been easy to slip into a state of absolute lethargy. My mind wanders to thoughts of summer and future plans and BAM the Devil has tricked me into believing that my work here is done and we are no longer useful. However I believe that the best is saved for last and God will be working in me for a lifetime to come. A missions program of this nature is not about doing a stint of good volunteering deeds and then morphing back back into regular life. Being here has (wrecked me for the ordinary) and it is my responsibility to take what I have learned here and keep moving forward. I personally struggle with change and transitional times and have sensed in myself a defense mechanism that is creeping in. I am slowly withdrawing and hardening up my heart so that when the end comes and I suffer the blow of finality I will have had a clean break. But perhaps pain is not all bad and God has been revealing to me that this is not the end but the beginning! Please be praying for a spirit of strength and focus in these last weeks so that I may leave with and open heart and no regrets.
On the ministry frong there is much to tell. Last week was Holy Week or Semana Santa in Spanish. All of the schools were shut down and that meant that most of our ministries shut down as well. You would think that for a town with 15 or so cathedrals there would have been more religous activity or something going on. However aside from a few parades and altars I saw little going on throughout the week. Most people pack up and go to the beach with an excuse to party and get drunk. It strikes me as odd though because during Christmas there were massive festivities for the Virgin Mary that started almost a month before Christmas! Sometimes I am baffled by the catholic church.
During Holy Week I spent a lot of time working on making jewelry and collecting seeds despite having spent most of the week sick and dehydrated. I got the chance on Wednesday to visit a town called Jinotepe and go to an orphanage there that both Tana and Seth had spent time at during the World Race. We spent the night at a hotel owned by the missionaries that own and run the orphanage called La Quinta. All of the kids were middle school age and up which is not what I had expected. They were all learning English and were eager to practice with us. On Easter Sunday we had a team breakfeast of chocolote chip pancakes that were a real treat and we even got maple syrup! Then we were split up into four groups and sent on a scavenger hunt around the city. Our final destination was the pirate fort where Tana and Becca hid Easter baskets for us which was a lot of fun!! Later that afternoon we had a family day at El Puente where people in the community came and we had singing, a short message, barbeque (think pork, tortilla, and ensalada not hamburgers) and a piñata for the kids. It was a joyus time that allowed us to just celebrate Christ with others in the community. This week there was no Corazon Contento on Monday or Friday. I spent more time working on making magazine beads and made my first bracelet which turned out amazingly! I also sold that bracelet to Caleb Spitlers mom who was down here visiting. (Thank you Mrs. Spitler!) I find so much joy in getting to experiment with making the jewlery and yesterday Sarah Kaye and I had a date where we just worked together. On Wednesday I went to Leon to find a jewelry story we had heard rumors about that had tons of supplies. Well like most thing here in Nicaragua you have to prepare your expectations to be ready for a let down. We found a store called Kaman which was most likely what people had talked about and it had some wire, some string, and pre-drilled seeds, and already made jewlery. I was expecting to find wire cutters, hooks, and a store with craft supplies similar to Micheals or craft warehouse. This Sunday we are going out to a farm owned by John Mark for a lamb and pork cookout and I am really excited. John Mark is the contractor who built our house at El Puente. Also we have a lot of pets roaming around the grounds of El Puente these days including two Parots, tons of chickens, and a little kitten named Jerry. Please be continue to be praying for me! I hope God blesses you in your week.
Greetings everyone! I am so lucky to be able to have this blog to reach all of my supporters at home. I do not have enough time to reach each of you individually although I wish I could. I apologize for not writing in a month but things have been very busy! From the 7th of March to the 14th we had a spring break which was very needed! I was really blessed and was able to have my Dad come down to Granada and visit me for the week. We spent part of our time in Granada and four days in San Juan del Sur. San Juan was windier and the water was colder than I expected but it was beautiful. We did a zipline tour and just lounged around by the pool. I have been back from break for about 2 weeks now and just working hard in my ministries. It is unnerving when I realize that I only have 2 months remaining in this trip. I am just working hard and trying to stay focused on what I am doing here and not on the future but sometimes it is hard. Corazon Contento is still going well this week I taught a craft on Friday and it was a test for my patience! We made caterpillars from egg cartons and while I was leading the craft all of the teachers had a meeting so Jessica and I were left alone with the students. We did not realize that the teachers were leaving us alone with the students, at first they were quiet and doing there work but after about 45 minutes they went wild. It was stressful but I think the teachers were thankful for a break and a chance to have their meeting. The feeding program has been a lot of fun as always. The vegatables they make smell and taste wonderful, they boil everything in a big pot with broth and sometimes it takes a lot of will power to keep from munching! The ladies who run the program have been working there for about a year, the four of us who go on Wednesdays (Becca, Caleb, Jenn, and I) decided that we want to throw them a little party with some cake and drinks next week. They always serve us coffee during the down time and we thought it would be fun to have the chance to serve them. My jewlery ministry is going well I am working on creating Jicaro candles and bracelets, also I am collecting seeds and making templates so that when I leave and the classes begin they will have materials and patterns to follow! It has been good for me to just keep myself busy and a lot of fun as well. Another project I have going is for Joe Carters 5k race, he has asked that I help to design posters to be posted around the city and to design a t-shirt for the race. I am really excited and have been praying for some creative guidance and inspiration! Well that is all that has been going on lately! If you could just continue to pray for focus, strength, patience, and guidance in these last months I would be so grateful. As we draw nearer to the end I am feeling that awful burden of anxiety and excitement and I want to be able to keep strong till the end! I hope God blesses you this week and thank you for always reading!
"And we know in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose"
-Romans 8:28
The words of the Lord are so powerful! When my open my bible I feel as if God sent down a letter with me in mind. Scripture is a weapon that I often forget to wield in the face of Satan. Reading through James has shown me the filth of my mouth.
"With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who have been made in his likeness."
-James 3:9
I feel so blessed that God would even allow me to speak to him and that he would send such encouragement from his lips such as the verse in Romans. I pray that the Lord would anoint my lips and that only pure words would flow from my mouth. Lately I have been feeling discouraged about my ministries but I realized that God IS working for my good, I was called for his purpose and his plans will be done through me. But I must listen to him and the truth that he has for me. I have been feeling discouraged in my ministries. The weeks have been going so quickly but I don't feel successful in my ministry. Although it was brought to my attention that God has already done so many great things in my life and maybe I am not giving Him or myself enough credit! He provided me with supporters and support, an amazing family of believers in Nicaragua, opportunities to serve him and so much more. The jewelry ministry has been my main area of weakness and Satan has really been pressing into that and trying to get me down. After realizing that I may never see fruit from this ministry I think that mentally I deemed it to have failed already! JD and I were talking in the kitchen the other day and he told me that I couldn't say that I didn't do anything because I am a link in the chain and when the ministry does become fruitful someday I will receive my same reward in heaven and will have played a role of equal importance. That was really encouraging! My service to Young Life (Vida Joven) is to start up a program that could potentially turn into a source of income for them. I am at peace with that realization and I think that God is telling me that it isn't about bringing glory and success to Melissa but to him. We are almost to the halfway point in this semester of the trip and I have learned so much about who God wants me to be and I am excited to keep growing into that person :). Praise God for so many people in my life and spiritual role models that will continue to guide me in my walk with Christ. Ah life is good isn't it. I cannot even begin to imagine how perfect heaven will be and absolute pleasure of being in Gods presence for ETERNITY. If that isn't the ultimate reward then I can't imagine what is!
Corazon Contento was a lot of fun his week on Monday we did math worksheets for 3 hours and then we glued Popsicle sticks together for awhile. It can be tedious to sit in one place for too long, especially with kids who have attention spans of 10 minutes and less (most likely less!) I was really praying for patience because I was working with a student named Douglas who I am guessing is in his mid thirties and a girl named Anita. Douglas wouldn't focus and he got upset and stared into space and wasn't responsive for 3 hours and Anita started crying because someone stole her snot rag (ew!!) which I had to save from the clutches of a little girl named Melisa who shoved it down her pants. GERM FEST. I have to just pray for love and grace because I tend to get grossed out and lose motivation to help them. On Friday we cut out shapes like triangles, circles, squares, stars, octagons, and others and then painted them. When we were painting we had a few primary colors and green, white, and black. I was surprised to find out that no one at the school including the teachers knew how to make colors like pink, green, purple, etc. They had never been taught about primary and secondary colors, so Jessica made them a color wheel and explained it. I was caught of guard because that concept seems so elementary but guess I forget sometimes that I was given a more privileged education than most kids can get here. On Wednesday I had the feeding program in the morning which was slower than usual. When we got to Santa Rosa (the location of the house) the ladies had already peeled the plantains that take the longest to peel so all we had left was oranges, peppers, onions and then they did the tomatoes. After that we had a few hours of sitting and talking to the women and they are such a hoot they just love to tease Caleb Austin and they are so sweet. We ran out of liver near the end of serving the kids and the whole time we were serving I was praying that God would just make it stretch and that the kids who needed it the most would get some. It reminded me of the story of the woman with the oil and flour and how because of her faith she always had enough and a little left over. In the afternoon I had the children's program in the soccer field by our house. This week we decided that we would change our program and half of us would stay at the campo (field) and the other half would go into the barrios and collect more kids, play soccer, and read some bible stories. I stayed behind and played with Orlando, Luis, and Celeste. I love the group of little kids that we have gotten to know. The other half of the group ended up rounding up quite a few kids and brought them back to the campo because there wasn't enough room on the street in the barrio. It was encouraging to see everyone having such a great time. This week if you could spend some time praying into my ministries I would really appreciate it. There is so much potential in all of them and I just need encouragement and strength. There are so many amazing people whose lives are just waiting to be touched and I am so glad that I have gotten the chance to get to know some of them! Well thank you for all of you who pray for me and write encouraging notes and emails.
Oh also I found a picture of our home at El Puente from last semester when our home was overgrown rubble and I happen to have a picture from the same spot as it looks now! So here they are!!
Hello! I envy the temperatures at home right now because I am sweating profusely as I am writing this blog. I remember someone telling me here that it would get cooler, and that February is the windy month. As far as I can tell it hardly got any cooler except maybe at night, and as for the day it is like walking onto the street and into a human oven. A lot of the women carry umbrellas to protect them from the sun and I am starting to think that isn't a bad idea. The weeks have actually been flying by and I am really beginning to enjoy my ministries. I still haven't begun the jewelry ministry but hopefully that is going to get up soon. At Corazon Contento (the special edu. Center) I had a lot of fun with the kids this week. On Monday we made bracelets again and I taught them to make a fun one. I am with the more advanced kids so I am having more patience and I think it is a better fit for me. On Friday we made Valentine cards and put them in a giant cardboard box. Then we had a big Valentines Day party. The kids had never had a Valentines party and it was a blast. We had dancing, food, a piñata, musical chairs, and cards to open! I took a ton of pictures and it was just so wonderful to see how much joy it was bringing to them. On Wednesday I went to the feeding program in the morning and we brought a soccer ball this time and in our downtime played with some of the kids in the area. In the afternoon we had our Children's program and we didn't have very many kids come but it was still fun. That was my week on Saturday Valentines Day the boys cooked us a goat for lunch in which they killed themselves. I was skeptical about the goat in the beginning but I was surprised by how good the meat was, a bit chewy but otherwise decent.
Well to tag on with the children's program update this week I have a story. We invited some little girls further down in the barrio last week and they came but were pretty shy. This week when we were done with the main part of the program the girls showed up and hung back a little watching us play with a soccer ball. Two girls that live nearby named Cynthia and Fernanda have become really attached to us, but most of the time they are sassy and have raging tempers. When I tried to play with the other little girls they kept tugging on my arms and telling me not to. When I asked why they gave me disgusted looks Cynthia told me that they had lice and they were disgusting. I looked her in the eye and told her that I didn't care. But every time I tried to walk over and play with them I was restrained by two 10 year old girls. I finally got stern and realized that this was a teaching moment. I told them that Jesus didn't care about spending time with the sick, ugly, dirty, and poor and so we shouldn't either. They finally got very put out with me and I while I played with the girls they hurled insults and looks that could kill towards me. I called another one of my friends Alberto over to play with us and Cynthia and Fernanda warned him not to play with us, and despite his moment of hesitation he chose us over his peers. He played games with us and after our game I kneeled down by him and told him how proud of him I was and that I knew Jesus was smiling at us and that he loved each of us very much even the girls with lice. He looked uncomfortable by my display of affection but I made sure he knew that what he did was good and that Jesus was proud of him too. I see Jesus moving in Alberto's life even at such a young age. If he hasn't already accepted Jesus as his Savior he is close to it, he is only 9 or 10 and yet he just radiates joy and I hope to see him become a light to his friends. Alberto reading the bible to Celeste and one of the girls who was rumored to have lice.
Hello! Hope that everyone's weeks have been blessed and full of encouragement. I know that I have had a very encouraging week myself and thank everyone for their constant prayer. I am beginning to understand the benefits of regular and in depth prayer. Investing in time with God brings more blessings than is even fathomable!! This week I got launched into doing ministry and I felt satisfied in have my time filled and just spending time in the word. My ministry schedule is set up but not entirely up and running. My ministries are working at a disabilities center twice a week Mondays and Tuesdays. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays I will be running a jewelry program for youth in the community. Wednesdays I am doing a feeding program in the barrio; I went for the first time this week and had a very enjoyable time with the women who run the program. They were so loving and patient even when the job I was doing was taking twice as long as it would take them. Then Wednesday afternoons I have a children's program with kids that we met through our trash pick up the last semester. The jewelry ministry is taking the longest to get started because I am in the process of getting a proposal approved by Opportunity International. Right now I am planning to have two classes one being jewelry made with recyclable materials and the other would be from natural materials such as seeds. The youth in the program would be creating jewelry to be sold through Opportunity International to raise money for Young Life. For each piece of jewelry sold 1/3 of the profit would go to the person who made it and 2/3 to Young Life. It is an exciting adventure and I am anxious to get it up and running. Although I may never be able to see the fruits of the program it will be an interesting experience setting it up! I will give more details on these ministries as I begin to spend more time in them! Thank you for always reading my blogs and I just continually ask for your prayer because Satan is not a fan of the work we do here and as we are pushing the darkness out of Granada Satan is pushing right back at us! Please pray for strength, unity and wisdom as we live out God's plans and expand His kingdom.
I apologize for not writing a blog last week, however I am not sorry. These past two weeks were spiritually impacting and one of my lowest and highest points of this trip. Mentally I didn't really have the energy or desire to write a blog about how I let Satan take me down. Yes... I LET HIM. I have the destructive tendency to drown myself in stress and anxiety, and to make matters worse the enemy has had me in a chokehold for months, years, and maybe my whole life? Everyone has their low points but this time was different, even though I knew the thoughts running in my mind were lies I consciously gave myself over, I chose to believe the lies. Maybe that was the last thing you wanted to hear from someone who gave up a year of her life to serve God. But here it is, hey SATAN are you listening now? You have no power over my life and I won't live in the shame of your lies any longer. Satan feeds on sin and shame. He thrives in that darkness and by smothering struggles in secrecy he gains power and control. Truthfully Satan has no power over me except that which I give to him. In my last blog I shared with you my apprehensions in choosing a ministry, this week those fears went on steroids and I couldn't deal with the pressure. Satan told me that I could never bring anyone to Christ and that my ministries would never further the kingdom of God. But it isn't important what the lies were as much as the part where I bought into them. I can say without a doubt when I accepted those lies I felt immense despair, emptiness, and separation that I had ever felt in my spiritual walk. I will spare you the details of my emotions but hours later I was pulled out by several teammates and a week later I can say that for the first time in my life I am TRULY fighting against the lies. In 2 Corinthians 10:5 it says "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought making it obedient to Christ" with this authority I am protecting my mind. Satan tried to tell me that I would fail again, but this time I saw that I had never truly fought. Through prayer and truth from the word I am seeing the beginnings of great things to come. Finally feeling the fruit and freedom that Christ bestowed to me I realized I had these things through him all along. I am finally figuring out my ministries and I anticipate many blessings through them. When I have nailed down my schedule I will share with you what my plans are for this semester. Please be praying for my strength and for the Holy Spirit to guide me through the obstacles to come. I know that in believing the truth that Christ instilled in me has placed a target on my back, but luckily I have brothers and sisters all over the world who are putting on their armor of God and equipping themselves conquer. I will continue to pray but I ask that you too would join in asserting our strength and driving him out from the darkest corners of our lives. There is nothing too big or small for God. So why are we so afraid to let him control our minds?
Since returning to Nicaragua I have felt a tremendous amount of anxiety and self doubt. Many questions have disturbed my day to day activity. Was God really calling me to be here? Where am I going to school next year? Am I going to have a successful ministry? Do I even have a desire to do ministry? Do I have a desire to do anything? It took me until a few days ago to recognize the questions as spiritual warfare. Although I still have some nagging thoughts floating in my head I am combating them with prayer from others and truth from God. A verse that has really pulled me through this week is Jeremiah 29:11. Sunday our team went on a boat tour of the Isletas (Islands) in Lake Nicaragua and we saw some mischievous monkeys climb aboard tourist boats in order to get a snack. I wonder how they are not fat little monkeys with all the traffic that passes by. Sunday night I went to Torre Fuerte and found it difficult to keep myself focused on the message, and during worship I wasn't familiar with any of the songs. Monday was somewhat slow and after the previous night of lethargy in church I was feeling defeated spiritually, physically, and mentally. In the morning I painted chairs with Joann. In the afternoon we had one on ones and I spent time getting to know Caleb Austin over some coffee at Cafe Latino. In the evening we had some worship and the words were coming from my mouth, not my heart. Tuesday our new leader Seth Barnes arrived and we welcomed him in and tried not to overwhelm him with our often times crazy team dynamic. He seems like a knowledgeable, wise, man with impeccable manners that are going to challenge the boys to step up their level of gentility. Seth if you are reading this yes the girls LOVE how polite you are. Some of the group went out to lunch with Seth and I went to lunch with Tana for some discipleship. Then others from our group showed Seth around town while a few of us did ATL. I was paired up with Joe and we went around town and ended up in a cathedral just overlooking the city and spending some time in prayer. Tuesday was a real turnaround from earlier in the week. I just spent some time telling people some of my doubts and anxieties and after prayer I felt at peace. On Wednesday we learned about possible ministry opportunities for these coming months. In the afternoon we spent an hour of solitude praying over the ministries and seeing where we felt called, then we wrote down our top five and gave them to Tana. I wrote down first the resource center for special needs kids second teaching girls how to make jewelry to sell to raise money for young life and make a dollar profit for themselves, third doing a little bible study with the kids that we have met in the community with the trash pick up, fourth feeding programs in the barrios, and fifth going into the prison and doing ministry. Thursday we visited the resource center and it looks like a ministry I am interested in. Yesterday I painted chairs with Sarah and had a chance to pray for someone. It was cool because he was at El Puente and God just put it in my head that I needed to pray for him so I did and then he just was so touched emotionally and asked me later how I knew that he was in need of encouragement. So yesterday was a good time spiritually and I am so glad that I was able to be used by God in that. If this week you could spend some time in prayer please just really asking him to strengthen me. Thanks for reading. Love, Melissa
Despite combating snow flurries, closed passes, rain, and turbulence I am here to deliver my blog. I am here once again in the land of mosquitoes. Indeed, the weather has proved to be the smaller of my battles because I have once again become a chew toy for bugs and my tolerance level for itching hasn't improved. I left my house one Sunday for Seattle because the weather report warned of extreme levels of snow, avalanche warnings, and pass closures for Monday. I spent the night in Seattle with some family and it ended up being a good decision because the pass was closed all of Monday and my flight went out on the 12 o'clock red eye. Although I had to lose a few days with family I enjoyed Monday wasting time around Seattle going to Pikes Place Market and REI. I got to Houston at about 5 and met up around 8 with Jennifer, Baker, Tana, Annie, JD, and Joann to fly to Managua. After a long day of travel we finally made it to our new home and settled into our new rooms. For the past few days we have been settling in and I painted some rocking chairs for our porch with Joann and everyone else helped to pick up trash, rocks, and sticks around El Puente. We are getting our new male leader Seth Barnes on Monday. This week my prayer request is that I would be protected against mosquitoes and that I would be able to get some rest as I begin this next part of my trip. Have a blessed week.
Well it has been an interesting week here in Granada. With Christmas just around the corner the city is alive with tourists and celebration. By celebration I mean fireworks at four in the morning and big parades at night!
On Sunday some of us went to Managua in the morning and stayed there at the mall and watched movies and then came back for church in the evening service at Torre Fuerte. IIT was a fun service. The children put on a skit as well as some of the youth did. Then Annie gave her testimony.
Monday and Tuesday we had class in the mornings like usual at El Puente. Our house has a roof on it and it is starting to look like a home! We will be living there after our Christmas break. Monday for our ministry we did an ATL. Tuesday we went and had another meeting at the Casa de Mujeres where we got some more information about the program. They invited us to come back in January to check out some of the things that they are doing the barrios currently.
Wednesday we had our last trash pick up and kids program. It was a lot of fun and I think that the kids really enjoyed it. When we are living at El Puente we will be a lot closer to these kids so we will still be able to minister to them which will be fun. I feel like now in the last week of doing this ministry that we have formed some really good relationships with the people in our new neighborhood and the street seems to be a lot cleaner than when we first started.
Thursday we went up to Managua and went to the mall there to get our visas renewed. It as somewhat of a stressful process because we were cramped in this little room for hours trying to hurridly fill out paper work and keep from dying of boredom! But in the end we got our visas and ate some lunch and it was a pretty good day.
Yesterday we wrapped up our women´s bible study on the book of Esther. Then for our ministry the boys came over and helped us clean up the house to get ready for when we leave this Tuesday for Omatepe. I got most of my stuff packed up and I am excited to get moving past all this anxiety. I think that the island will be fun working at the orphanage.
Well I probobly won´t write again until after Christmas but please be praying for me that I will stay focused in these next few weeks here and saftey in traveling! Have a good christmas.
Alberto reading the bible to Celeste and one of the girls who was rumored to have lice. 
Childrens Program :)
