Splashing Around the Love

Every night this week, we have taken some time as a group to gather in the backyard and sing worship to God. It's been a great way to relax, refresh, remember who God is and give our love to him. The first night while we were singing, I saw a picture of a map of Central America, and the six of us sitting in a circle in Nicaragua with our faces turned up to God expectantly. Then, from God's perspective, I saw him take an enormous bucket of water and dump it on us while laughing hysterically. It was pretty funny and made me think of how it poured rain here last week. The next night, I saw the same picture right as the song lyric said something about God pouring his love out on us. The night after that I saw the same thing except this time, we had buckets too. As the water drenched us, we caught some of it in buckets and splashed it on the Nicaraguan kids.

I really liked this analogy of our time in Nicaragua. We were together waiting for God's water, and he poured out more than we could ask with abundant joy. It was his water that we also were able to collect and transfer to the kids in playful love.

The next day after our morning activities, I was feeling pretty exhausted, so I stayed in the house while the others went out to the Villa for the afternoon. When they came back, they told me that their job had been to throw water on some of the newly worked on houses, and that they had ended up getting in a water fight with some of the kids who were out there. They told me that they had had buckets and threw the water in them on the kids (and vice versa) to everyone's delight. It was really neat to see how the picture of us throwing water on the kids had come out in reality the next day. Jason in particular had a great time "loving" another guy by chasing him all over the village with a water bottle ;)

I Will Not Leave You As Orphans

This morning we all went to the handicap orphanage in Chinandega that Amigos helps support. We got to sit and laugh with the kids and play music for them. I went last week with the high school group as well. It was pretty shocking the first time because almost all of them have clubbed feet and shriveled legs and arms.

I found myself wondering what God thought of their situation and what he wanted for them. The more time we spent with them, I was able to see their spirits. It was quite a sight. I realized that though all they seemed to be able to do was lay on mats, smile, and grunt, their lives were glorifying God. As I was sitting there with one of the girls, I picture came to my mind of what it would be like for her to finally be able to dance for her king when all things are made new. Also quite a sight.

When we got back to the house from the orphanage last week, I was reading John 14 and my eyes jumped down the page and fell on a verse that said, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you."  It was really neat to remember that we are all orphans until we are adopted as God's children, and that we're not actually much different than the kids at the orphanage - just more mobile. God cares for them well and can redeem their lives as surely as he can redeem ours.

New Arrivals

Just so you all know, Erin, Jason, and Jeff arrived here on Sunday safe and sound. They walked through the door and we threw them into the mix. They hadn't even been here for an hour before they were at Vida Joven (Spanish for YoungLife) doing bible study with them. Jason walked in and started to sweep out the church with a giant palm branch, which was pretty funny, especially to the Nicaraguans. Somehow, they were able to engage and discuss with the teens here in Spanish on only a few hours of sleep. I was really excited to finally see them again. At Vida Joven, we talked about the parable of the sower. The kids' take on it was really interesting because they actually live in a rural area and see seeds planted, eaten, etc. more than we do. Studying the bible with people from another culture in a different language also gave the story and discussion new depth.


At the end, we gave everyone who came to the Vida Joven bible study some of the bibles that Core donated. None of them had their own, so they were really grateful. Here is the group picture.

Monday and Tuesday we spent in the Villa and they got to meet the children. They jumped right into playing, reading, drawing, and running with them. Some incredibly cute pictures of the last few days follow...

"Love My Children"

My favorite part of time in the Villa is playing with the children. It's amazing how universal the language of play is. All I have to do is look at a kid a certain way to communicate, "I'm gonna get you!" Then they shake their head to say, "Oh no you won't!" And we're off playing chase around the schoolyard.

The kids really love it when we come and play with them. I don't think there's much of a culture of parents playing with their kids. At least I haven't seen any of them doing it yet. They play together a lot, but the parents have to spend most of their time providing for them by working or cooking and cleaning, etc.  So they love having us there to talk to them a little and play with them a lot. It's really neat how the kids just light up when we pay attention to them.

Most the ways we figured out to play with them didn't involve much verbal communication. I played with a five year old boy named Junior for hours. He reminded me a lot of some of the boys I babysit back in the States. It was so weird how he loved the same things they do even though they live worlds apart. He especially enjoyed playing chase and what we named "caballo," Spanish for horse, which was a piggy back or shoulder ride. Here his is to the right...

The little girls especially also enjoyed just being hugged, held, or walking around holding our hands. They're super cute. They also really liked swinging, except they always wanted to swing on our laps. I was a little worried the swing sets would break with us on them, but they never did :) The high school guys also taught the boys to play American football, which was pretty funny.




Below are some videos I took of the high schoolers playing with the kids. Most are only a few seconds. The last one of the dance off is a bit long (like 3 min) but it's really hilarious, so if you have the time...

Nicaraguans learn to "Jump On It"


The Jump-Off-The-Back-Of-The-Bus Game


The hand slap game


The beginnings of football


And the dance off

Zechariah 10:1

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Originally uploaded by MollyInNica

I read Zechariah at the Spirit's leading a few weeks ago and got a ton of things out of it. One of the things I remembered was:

"Ask the LORD for rain in the springtime;
       it is the LORD who makes the storm clouds.
       He gives showers of rain to men,
       and plants of the field to everyone."-Zech 10:1

It has been rediculously hot here. The first few days I thought I might faint just from the heat. I was telling Jesus about how this was taking a lot out of me and my ability to love when we were in the village. As sort of a passing thought, I said something like, "I know it's the dry season, but if it would cool it down some, would you send us rain here?" A few hours later, it was pouring rain, thundering, and flashing lightning. I was stunned. Katie was too, and her surprise is caught on video here :)

After this video, the power went out (as Katie says it often does for a couple hours when it rains hard). I played in the rain a little bit, but then realized this power outage was gonna make things with a house full of 40+ people a little hard. So I prayed, "God, could we have the power back on?" Literally, right as I prayed that, the power came back on. I could barely believe it and sprinted back in the house to tell Katie what had just happened.

On reflection, it taught me / reminded me of several things. First, God likes us, knows what's hard for us, and wants to help us. Also, he knows what we need before we ask, and we don't have to "pray really hard" if we want something miraculous. It's not the strength of our prayers that sends rain, but the strength of our God. When I am weak, he is strong.

It also made me think metaphorically about how the earth here is "scorched," and that what scorched earth needs is rain. Situations here and the culturally/politically embedded injustice seems so impossible. I don't have any water for this land. But God can send a rainstorm, even if it's the dry season. This little gift from God made me realize just how mighty to save this city, country, and world he is.

Villa Housing Projects

The high school group that is down here is helping to build the houses that are currently under construction in the Villa. When Katie and I weren't doing classes or visiting people, we went out there and helped them build. We have been laying the rock foundations for several of them, which involves shoveling rocks from huge piles into buckets and carrying them into the houses and dumping them. Super fun. But seriously, after seeing so much, it's great to be able to use our arms and backs to do something tangible to help people.

Here's one of the rows of houses under construction with the volcano in the background.

One of our piles of rocks.

The houses are about this big.

Taking a break. It is sooooo hot and dusty.

Like, really dusty. This is my leg after working. You can see the line above and below my sock :)

Teatro Catalina

On Tuesday, Katie teaches theater classes in the morning and afternoon. She got some of the high school students to come too and we played theater games with the Nicaraguan teens that didn't involve talking. It was really funny to see all of us clapping, dancing, and staring at each other.

Here they are playing the staring game in the library. They have to look each other in the eye, and whoever laughs first loses. The audience gets to say whatever to try to get them to laugh. It was really funny.

Teatro Catalina cont.

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Originally uploaded by MollyInNica

Here is a video of the afternoon class playing "Ya!" together. It was also quite hilarious.

Villa Catalina

We spent Monday afternoon and Tuesday in Villa Catalina. It was amazing to see the difference in the way people lived and acted there from the dump. There was color, life, and laughter. The Villa is far from perfect, but there is hope and growth.

One of the first things Katie, Stephen, and I did was visit the newborn baby of one of her friends in the Villa. The woman welcomed me and Stephen in to her small brick house though she had never met us, and we all got to admire, hold, and take pictures of her baby.

Then we walked around and visited a few more of Katie's friends there. I met the four year old boy that she's known since he was only a few days old, and his sisters who also know Katie really well. One of the other mothers we visited went and got bananas, came back and fried them, and served them to us with cheese and juice since we hadn't had lunch yet. It was incredibly delicious. After Katie left to go start teaching her afterschool English class, I stayed and played MarioKart with the kids there (yes, they had a little TV with an X-Box). It was pretty sweet to bond with kids over one of my favorite games, especially since it involved little talking - my Spanish isn't exactly superb.

Here are a few more pictures of what the Villa looks like. It is so different than the dump. All of the little houses have gorgeous plants in front. There's clean water because Amigos drilled a well there. They have a health center with free health care, a school, other after school programs, and many families have started their own businesses.

Water tower and basketball court

Health Center

Kids and an American high school student in front of the library (biblioteca)

They sell bracelets

A road and houses

Let Us Love

Our theme song this week with the high school group.

An Earth That Is Scorched

Monday morning, we took a trip to the see where people who live in the village Amigos has built were before they moved there. In 1998, Hurricane Mitch hit Nicaragua and wiped out a lot of people and houses. The government set up the refugees in tents in the dump of Chinandega, the city we're now in. They said they would move the people out again, but just never did. Amigos came along and built some houses elsewhere for the people to live in, which has now grown into a village, Villa Catalina.

So we went to that dump. The thing is, there are still a lot of people living there. There are rows and rows of dwellings put together out of old cardboard and cloth. They showed us the lake and river where all the Chinandega sewage and waste goes. We could see needles sticking up out of the water from the hospital's garbage. The people who live in the dump survive by spending their days searching through the heaps for useful things, and then sell them to a middle man who sells it back in town. Because this is how they get money and food, they even scuba dive in these same waters to find things to sell.

When they finish searching a pile in the dump and there's nothing else they can use, they burn it so they don't have to search through it again. So, as we walked across the trash, which covers the whole section of land, it was often either burnt or still burning. When God told us in the song for our trip that the earth was scorched, I didn't expect it to be literal. I didn't expect that walking where these people do would require walking on burning trash. It struck me that this is truly part of the "ends of the earth." Even this dump village needs to know the message of Jesus. I would venture to say that it especially needs to know. And for that to happen, someone must go. Someone must be willing to breath the dust and smoke, stand in the heat, and engage with people who's hearts are more obviously slain than any I have ever seen.

While we were walking, a young man came up to us and one of the staff people talked to him. He was sniffing a spray can he had found and was pretty clearly high. She asked him how old he was, and he said he was 18. She asked him if he went to school or had a job, and he said that his job was to find and sell stuff from the dump. He went on to say that today he found this can, so today, that was his pay. She asked him if he wanted something different, and he replied, "Sure I want something different, but I don't know how to get it."

So many other people we saw there seemed so hopeless. The children didn't laugh or run much, like they do in the Villa. The people would not really make eye contact or acknowledge us. It was so sad to see such waste and despair. At one point while we were walking, a flock of pure white birds took off from the ground in a quite startling way. Their presence was such a stark contrast to the landscape of brown and gray trash. You may know that birds remind me of the presence of God, and I realized that this place was not hopeless, not for God. Though he is truly the only one who would be able to redeem it.

I don't have any pictures of the dump because Amigos is working very hard to build good relationship and trust with the people. So, we went in with nothing - no water bottles, cameras, or anything. Their relationship with the people is so important because the people who are still there are there because they do not want to leave - they are too afraid. Where they live, they have something they know will feed their children for the day. As one of the staff people was saying though, it's not exactly a healthy place to live. People were not made to live in dumps. We were made for life, growth, adventure, beauty. There is none of that there. So Amigos staff are working on building trust so that they can help.

So that's something you all can definitely be praying for. Amigos is in the process of building 50 more houses in the Villa (of which stories and pictures are coming). I would love to see more people  able to fill those houses, get involved in the community, and come alive.

Could We Get a Breeze?

After church on Sunday, we went and climbed Cerro Negro, Nicaragua's most active volcano, with the high school group that is here. After we had gone a little ways, several people were having a rough time since we were very tired from travelling and people were nauseous and such. I was a little dizzy and dehydrated, so I asked Katie to pray for me.

She then asked Kelly, the group leader, to gather everyone to pray. Kelly asked God for healing, strength, and encouragement for the group. It was rediculously hot and humid, so at one point she prayed, "Would you please help us know you are here, like, could we get a breeze?" Literally, right as she said that, a strong wind blew over us, and kept getting stronger as she wrapped up the prayer. It was neat to see that God wanted us to know he was with us and willing to offer us a bit of comfort. The breeze lasted the rest of the hike.

When we got to the top, we could see so much of the countryside and other hills and mountains. When I first heard we were going to go hiking, I was a little disappointed, thinking I didn't come down here to go on vacation. But it turned out to be a good way to get acclimated to the weather on our first day, get perspective on this new country, and know that God here too.


There was also a pretty sweet sunset at the end of the day.

Abre Mis Ojos

My first day in Nicaragua started with going to Katie and Iris' church with her and Stephen. When we walked in, a little girl ran strait up and hugged me. It was definitely a warm welcome to Nicaragua.

We sang, clapped, and discussed God's design for the family. I really enjoyed being able to worship God with people I've never met in a place I've never seen. I realized more of how big God is, what a big job the great commission was, but also how amazing it is. We even sang some songs I knew in Spanish from summer camp including Angus Dei and Open the Eyes of My Heart (Abre Mis Ojos). When we sang Abre Mis Ojos, it became a prayer for my time here - that God would open my eyes to see this week, especially in ways that are different than what we expect in the states.

Feed the Children

Here’s some of how God has led and provided for us as we prepared for the trip… Several weeks ago, Jason’s dad told him that he’d been having a reoccurring dream about our trip to Nicaragua with the message “feed the children.” So, Jason told us and encouraged us to ask God to help us understand what this meant. One afternoon when I had some time to ask God about it, I felt like playing guitar so I asked God if he’d speak to me through song. I started strumming and God inspired a new song that revealed more of his heart and intention behind the message. I’ll copy the lyrics at the end of this post for those of you who haven’t heard it yet. I relayed this to the rest of the group to get their thoughts since it wasn’t exactly specific instructions for what we should do. Katie (who lives full time with Amigos in Nicaragua) said that they don’t really do handouts of food, but that they don’t have bibles in Spanish and would love for the kids and families to be able to have some. So, we decided to try to take down as many bibles as we thought we could fit in our bags. We got Core involved in this so that they could invest in our trip in another way than praying for us. We took a collection at Nightlife (our large group meeting), asking people to donate a bible, which were $2 each. When we counted it afterward, the amount Core donated was exactly what we had spent on the bibles that we’d already had shipped so they would make it in time. I was in awe that God would provide so amazingly for what he had inspired us to do before we even left. In addition to the bibles, people also decided to donate children’s books in Spanish, musical toys for the kids, and additional money that we can use for whatever other needs God leads us to while we’re there.

In all of the preparation, it was quite encouraging to see that God is really with us in this trip, though it was largely born out of the desires of our hearts to see, encourage, and work with Katie and the people in Nicaragua.

Pray for:
The bibles to make it to us in time for Jason, Jeff, and Erin to bring them down
Wisdom in using the provision God has given us
Continued leading from the Spirit while we are there in all that we do

Feed the Children
Verse 1:
Feed the children
Love my children
Shine light into the dark of night
Care for the oppressed
Love the lonely one
Make my will done

Chorus 1:
On an earth that is scorched
And in hearts that are slain
Oh, they need to know
Know my name
Let my light be shown
Let my love be known
You must be my witness
To the ends of the earth

Verse 2:
Feed the children
They are my children
Do not neglect the apples of my eye
You must care
You must go
Or they will never know

Chorus 2:
For the earth it is scorched
And their hearts have been slain
Oh they must know
Must know my name
Let my light be shown
Let my love be known
You must bring my healing
To the ends of the earth

Bridge:
Don’t you know you are my children
Redeemed from the pit of death
Don’t you know that’s free
And free for all to see
Don’t you know I want to save
And that I am brilliant love
You’ve got to trust
That I am mighty to save

Chorus 3: An earth that is scorched
And hearts that are slain
Oh, they need to know
That I will save
Let my light be shown
Let my love be known
You must preach my word
To the ends of the earth

And I'm Off...

I am about to head off to Nicaragua, but thought I would get this started a little before I go. I'll be working with an organization called Amigos for Christ and with one of my best friends Katie. A video about Amigos is below. Hopefully that gives you a bit of an idea of where I'm going. I will update this more with the direction God has given us for the trip and with all of the happenings as I am able.




Pray for:
Safe travel for me as I fly and drive tonight/tomorrow.
Good preparation and anxiety free finals week for the other three who will join me in a week.
Preparation of mind, body, and heart for all of us for the work God's inviting us into.