A Month in Nicaragua, pt. 1

Been a while since I’ve last blogged. When I first wrote “A Lot Can Happen In Two Weeks”, I was in Atlanta Airport in Georgia so let’s begin the story there. We were in Atlanta Airport from 3pm to 5am; I was too hyped up on music and coffee to sleep, but slept on the plane to Miami. When we finally arrived in Granada, Nicaragua, the heat was like being back home in Florida. The ministry which has become my home for a month now is on a farm surrounded by trees and a mountain in the distance. Waking up every morning at 5am to spend time in prayer and bible study, God blessed us every morning with a beautiful sunrise. Our first day official day there, our host decided to spoil us by a beach trip. That was our first Sunday trip, Monday was when we started to get to work. Every week day we would go into the town and enter people’s homes and pray over them and talk to them about Jesus. Everyone here is so welcoming and loving with one another; I came to know this one family fairly well. It was a grandmother who lived with her daughter and grandchildren. Her name is Guadeloupe, she is currently fighting an infection in her eyes and her leg is so badly damaged and infected that the doctors said they would need to amputate it, but Guadeloupe said no; so she lives with her foot decaying. Despite her conditions though, she still keeps her eyes on God and stays grateful every day. Her grandkids have come to know my name because the little girl loves the tv show “Sofia the First” and they all came to know me so much that they allowed me to hold their youngest grandchild who is just a baby.
While they were many uplifting points in this trip that is not to say there wasn’t any testing moments. The hospital was the hardest part- especially the first time. I was getting to pray over sick children and it was truly heartbreaking. While the healthcare here is free, the service is not so good. The doctors do the best that they can. There was this little girl who was fighting infections all over her body and she required surgery; I remember the doctor having to come in and take some of her blood and the little girl-only ten years old maybe- started crying and looked over to me for comfort, all I could do was tell her it was going to be okay. There was a little boy who was fighting a kidney infection and his grandmother mentioned that they were catholic, knowing much about Catholicism from my background- I decided to give him my Saint Michael necklace that has comforted me for years. The smile on his face was worth giving it up. Then we went to pray over the babies who were sick and truthfully, I had reached my point and had to step outside the room to take a moment to breathe. Yet, every time we asked these people what they would like for us to pray for, they would always ask us to pray for others. Imagine having such care for others in your own suffering.
Another thing that we would do as part of the ministry is visit micro churches. These would be small gatherings at houses. My first night I talked about forgiveness. I talked about my testimony and how I came to forgive my rapist. Afterwards three women decided to forgive each other- our translator told me that that was considered a miracle.
Speaking of our translators, gotta give props to Gustavo who was by far our most hilarious translator. I always won in hot hands against him.
That’s all for right now.
Catch up with you later.