Nicaragua:: Day 8

It's hard to believe but the time is nearing an end for the construction team and I think it has finally hit them (I'm staying for another 10 days with the camp team!) I can't tell you how much fun it was to have both teams together last night. We had a great time sharing experiences and praying for each other.

Today the construction team went back to Los Cedros one last time for the dedication of Maujore's home. She was in tears before she even made it up the hill to see her home. I had the privilege to pray with her and her family as we dedicated her house to the Lord. We gathered around and shared many hugs and she also expressed her gratitude. It was definitely hard to say goodbye. Although, the camp team is going to be able to go back after camp and pour the floor so hopefully we will see her again!

After leaving, we headed over to Collegio Christiano to say goodbye to the preschool students and to see the final masterpiece on the walls. The whole school (students and teachers) gathered to thank our team for the painting and begged us to return to paint all the other rooms! It was hard to say goodbye to the Los Cedros community today, but we are prayerful that we will return next year!

After Los Cedros we headed down the road to the beach! It was a much-deserved break for the construction team who has put in some long days, hard work and lots of love into our projects. It was a first for some in the Pacific and we all had fun in the sun!

We capped off our day with a special team dinner. It was a night on the town for us and despite being raining, we had a great time. We ate at Dona Haydee Restaurant and had some great Nicaraguan food!

The camp team got organized at the compound this morning and loaded up the bus to head down to Campo Allegria after lunch. This will give them some time to get prepared for the campers arrival tomorrow. I'll be saying goodbye to the construction team tonight and joining the bus of campers to meet up with the camp team for the remainder of the mission.

Please pray for safe travels for our construction team (they have to be up at 4am and fly out at 7am) and pray for the upcoming mission of the camp team!

Nicaragua:: Day 7

I will just say from the outset that this is going to be a hard day to put into words. Our construction team started our morning off with a visit to La Trudecca (the city dump) which houses an estimated 1200 people with the majority being children. The Buzbees run Collegio de Esperanza (the school of hope) in the dump.

The dump is an emotionally overwhelming experience. It is hard to drive through the sights, smells and see the conditions without being affected. I am always overwhelmed with the thought of, but for the grace of God, I could have been born there. There is also some amazing spiritual symbolism of a country of such beauty and a place of such trash, brokenness, sin and depravity. I often imagine that our sin must look much like the dump to our Heavenly Father. He created such beauty and yet we trade beauty time and time again for the trash piles of sin.

After the dump we visited Sister Ruby. Ruby is a prophetess who has given her life to have a ministry in La Trudecca. She is a prayer warrior and we always have a powerful time of ministry with her. Today was no exception. God met us in that room as she prayed for us. God convicted, challenged, called and worked mightily in all of our lives. Most of us are still processing what happened even after our team time tonight.

I had to breakaway from our construction team this afternoon to pick up our camp team from the airport. Praise God they made it safely and on time! It was great to see them and after dropping off their luggage we made the journey out to Los Cedros so they could see the construction team and the work on the house and school.

I was amazed when we arrived to see the painting completed and the house almost finished! I can't believe what God was able to accomplish with some willing hands this mission. All that remains on the house is the installation of the roof, windows, door and to pour the floor.

We are going to return tomorrow to dedicate the house. The camp team will spend the morning preparing to depart for Campo Allegria. The camp team arrived excited and ready to go, but I know the construction team is feeling the sadness of an impending departure. Please pray for their last day and the work ahead for the camp team!

Nicaragua:: Day 6

We are starting to see a house! The completion is almost in sight. We were able to completely finish one side wall and the rear wall. We also got the dirt level to pour the foundation and the posts set for the porch and roof. It was a 'regular' work day for us, but we were all somewhat dragging after our long day yesterday.

I was able to work in a special treat for the team. Instead of the regular PB&J's for lunch, we went over to Louisa's house. She lives in Los Cedros (right next to the church) and as a ministry and to earn some income will cook a meal for the work teams. Let me just say that the lunch was amazing! It was an awesome experience to eat a Nicaraguan meal and also to sit down in a chair and have a warm lunch. Praise God!

Our girls are continuing the painting of the preschool building and it is really coming along. They completed the alphabet and the colors and got alot of the mural done. It is neat to see them serving and using their gifts in a way that we didn't even plan for on this mission. The children have been amazed and excited watching them.

Tomorrow we have a little different schedule. We are starting our day by going to see Sister Ruby. Sister Ruby is basically a missionary that resides right outside of La Trudecca (the city dump). God has given her a powerful ministry of prayer for the residents and teams that come in. God always does a good work in our hearts when we go to see Ruby... and seeing the dump is likewise a very powerful and emotional time.

I appreciate all of you that are praying for us... please continue to pray for this team, but also our camp team that arrives tomorrow!

Nicaragua:: Day 5

Wow... we had our longest day of work today so far. God granted us with another beautiful day - He provided the cloud cover when we needed it and even a breeze at other times. Building a home in just over a week is a huge undertaking and we have all been nervous as to whether we will finish or not. But today we were able to make really good progress - the walls are up to the mid-level to where we lay another trough of concrete. I would guess a few more rows of block until we reach roof level!

The girls helped in a major way with some painting of the steel beams for the porch and roof joists before heading over to the school to work on their "specialty" painting in the preschool building. They worked a long day as well and are making great progress there.

It has also been a real treat for us to interact with the residents (especially the kids) of Los Cedros. We bring treats & trinkets for them everyday and it is a blessing to just be able to give and bring a smile to such a place of poverty. But God is showing me how blessed they really are in their "lacking." I'm finding that having less distractions, responsibilities and the trappings of the way of life I'm accustomed to may actually make life more difficult in ways that it seems would be easier. Just like with God's kingdom - it tends to work in reverse of how we think.

At our team time tonight we all were able to reflect on what God is teaching us and how the mission is going so far. God is uniting our hearts and we are really working together as a team. It is hard to believe we are in the home stretch of the mission already.

We are looking forward to another big day of work tomorrow before our next team (camp team) arrives on Wednesday. Praise God for what He is doing in and through us so far this mission!

Nicaragua:: Day 4

What a great Lord's day we all shared together today. We started our morning with some time alone with God before heading to worship at Verbo Church in Managua. Verbo is very much like Wildwood, with contemporary worship (we even knew some of the songs in English), air conditioning, powerpoint, lighting and a celebratory feel to the service. We were fortunate to have Elizabeth Buzbee translating the sermon for us so we could understand what was being preached!

God really moved in my life in a powerful way by revealing the awesome truth that at the moment we were worshipping in another country, in another language, we were joining with millions of believers around the world - every tribe, tongue and nation - in worship of the King! It was an awesome image God brought to my mind and experience for me to worship Him in another language. My Spanish is pretty poor, but on a slow song, I can actually read and sing along. We sang a song that was a beautiful song of adoration to the glory of God that said:

Solo a ti sea la gloria Senor
la alabanza y adoracion
toda ordilla se doble ante el
unico rey y Dios

Solo a ti sea la gloria Senior
la alabanza y adoracion
que toda lengua confiese que
tu eres el Senor

It translates something like this:
Alone to you be the glory God
the praise and adoration
itself double before the King and God

Alone to you it be the glory God
the praise and adoration that
tongue be trusted that you are God

After Verbo all the teams had lunch together and just enjoyed a day of Sabbath rest. At night we went to Pastor Manuel's church in Los Cedros. But before church, I took the team around the corner to see a home we built for Maurisio's family 3 years ago. It was neat to see the family and see the home that God allowed us to build.

Church in Los Cedros is very different. It is a very small, but community oriented congregation that worships in a tiny block building with no air conditioning, powerpoint or all the "frills" we are used to. We worshipping in song for nearly an hour before we sat down for the message. The people in Los Cedros worship God with passion and it was exciting for us to be a part of it. We had to do without translation, but the Spirit of God was in that place! We coined the phrase that, "If you're not sweating, your not worshipping" not only because of the warmth of the church but the people as well!

We will be back on our regular work schedule tomorrow with the construction of the house and also the painting in the school. Please continue to lift our team up in your prayers!

Nicaragua:: Day 3

Today was an exciting day for us in many ways as we journeyed back to work, instead of taking our Saturday off. We divided our team by gender (or maybe by creativity) and our girls went with Karen over to Collegio Cristiano de Los Cedros (the Christian school of Los Cedros) to paint murals in the preschool building. This wasn't at all planned, but the opportunity, skill set, supplies and timing all fell into place. So our girls had a very productive day painting while the guys remained at the work site to continue building.

The guys surprise of the day was not having to move nearly as much dirt out for the foundation as we had thought! In fact, we actually got to move some dirt back in to bring the level up - that is much easier! We mixed a huge load of concrete today as well as a good few batches of mortar as our walls are going up.

One of the many things we take for granted besides electricity and plumbing is running water. It takes a lot of water to do what we are doing and today we learned where it was coming from. Maujore (not sure of the spelling) and her friend walked across to the neighbor's house and started carry 5 gallon buckets full of water back and forth. We mobilized a team into action to take this responsibility for ourselves. The well was easily 50+ feet deep and it took many buckets to fill our barrels with the water for today.

It has truly been eye opening to see, that through all the poverty and lack of "comforts of home" how truly happy these people of Los Cedros are. Sure problems exist, but I honestly believe their 'lacking' is desirable to our constant 'wanting'.
We are praying as a team that God would continue to reveal Himself to us and that we would find Him in the experiences, relationships, work and beauty of our days here.

Tonight was a very special night for our team. We were invited earlier to a baptism celebration at the Buzbees' pool and in talking about it with our team - we had 2 team members express a desire to be baptized. Neither Jon nor Taylor had been baptized, so tonight, upon their profession of faith, I had the opportunity and privilege to baptize my brothers in Christ! It was a very special time of celebration.

Tomorrow we are looking forward to a day worship of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We know it will be different and even probably somewhat difficult with the language barrier, but the truth is - God is worthy to be praised all over the world!

Nicaragua:: Day 2

Well we have made it through our second full day of work and again we praise God for a beautiful (although sometimes hot and very sunny) day today. It was amazing to see God present in our lives and in our midst throughout the day today. I challenge our students to be aware of God and where He is showing up and it keeps us more focused on His presence throughout the day... even in simple, but much appreciated ways like a cool breeze when we are hard at work.

We also saw God on the smiles of the children's faces today when we had some down time and we were playing duck duck goose, futbol (soccer) or even jumping rope. The children were out of school today so we had a good crowd around the work site. We see God in the enjoyment they get in just playing - even though we know they have so little and could be playing with so much "more."

God encouraged our hearts by allowing us to see some "progress" on the house. Extreme Home Makeover: Nicaragua Edition doesn't quite work like the show! We spent all day yesterday digging and then filling the holes we dug with concrete. Today we actually dug more, poured more concrete, but actually got to see some of the walls going up. We are going to continue work tomorrow before we break on Sunday.

So far everyone is doing well, although you can pray for Austin W. who fell a little nauseous under all the heat. Luckily we have a med team down here serving and they think it was a little heat stress. But our team is adjusting to the food, sleep and hard work!

Tonight after dinner we celebrated the 17th birthday of Taylor G. We had the cooks bake a cake and he got a birthday celebration Nicaragua style.

Our team time at night has been really encouraging to me. Tonight we looked at Jesus' attitude and mission (Philippians 2 and Luke 4). We were all challenged to think about our lives and the mission Jesus is calling us to - not only while we are here 'on mission' in Nicaragua, but when we return to our own mission field in Tallahassee.

We appreciate and covet your prayer support that God's name and glory would go forth to the nations!

Nicaragua:: Day 1

What an amazing first full day (and first work day) we had here in Nicaragua. God gave us beautiful weather with a great view and plenty of sun... maybe even too much sun for most!

We started our day early with our team devotional time and then some individual time alone with God. We then loaded the bus and headed up the road about 30 minutes to the Los Cedros community. We've worked in this community on previous missions, building a home and working on the school. We had a little trek up to our work site that sits on a hillside.

Our team is building a home from literally the ground up... and we worked the ground pretty hard today! Since it is on a hillside we had to cut in to get level for the foundation. We also had to dig about 10 2-4 foot holes in what we are calling the honey dirt - because it is so sticky and compact. It was a tiring day, but we got a lot accomplished: footers dug, rebar built, foundation prepped, concrete mixed and poured.

The woman we are building the home for is a 45-year old widow with 4 boys. The youngest is 16 and still lives with her. She has never had a house before. She is currently living near Pastora Manuel and the church and her boys take care of her. Her dream was to one day own a home. She was given a tract of land and the supplies were delivered on Monday. When she walked up the hill today she was overwhelmed. I introduced myself and navigated my way through about 3 sentences of Spanish and then called for some translating help! She proceeded to share her story, her faith and how she couldn't believe she was actually going to have a home of her own. She was overcome with emotion and I was too just listening.

After a full day of work, we did enjoy some down time at the pool and had a great dinner and then team time together tonight. We invite you to pray for us and the work and ministry God has in store for us; but also pray that He would do a good work in our hearts as well!

Nicaragua:: we made it!

Just a quick post to let you know that our construction team has arrived and without incident. Praise God for good weather, a safe flight and all our baggage arriving intact! We have be debriefed and settled into the rooms and are ready to eat dinner. We hit the ground running first thing in the morning at the worksite!

Kulaqua :: Day 4

It was somewhat of a bittersweet day today knowing that it was our last full day of camp. This has really been a special camp for our middle school students personally, but also for us as a middle school ministry. We've had some bumps along the way this week, but God has definitely been present and moving here at camp.

We had a faced paced morning today in order to get us fed and ready to go down the river. Despite threats of bad weather, we had an absolutely beautiful, sunny day on the river. We ended with the same number we started with and that is always a plus. Most overcame their fear of "seaweed" and the "monsters of the deep" and enjoyed the trip down the chilly river.

Our evening chapel time was a great ending to the nightly sessions. Wayne and the band led in a sweet time of worship and Mario did a good job wrapping up this concept of pain, suffering and how we as Christians should respond. He pointed out that our response comes from where our faith is founded. A deep faith in the unchanging nature and love of God will weather the storms we will face in this life.

To end the night, we celebrated Jonathan's birthday and then we had the whole camp in the gym for a huge inflatable, dodgeball, basketball, guitar hero, rock band and some hang time with Wayne and the band. It was loud and crazy - with over 500 ms students running around, but a fun time.

We probably aren't really looking forward to heading back tomorrow, but we know we must. We are all very grateful that God met us here and we ask ou to pray for a safe ride home. Remember, I'll update the hotline with our exact arrival time.

Kulaqua :: Day 3

It is hard to believe that we are halfway through camp already. The time is really flying by and we are having a great week. Today was a pretty typical day for us, even down to the time the thunderstorms roll in during free time.

I have been really encouraged by this group of students and their interaction with each other this week. We have had a few minor setbacks, but for the most part they seem to be enjoying each other and even reaching out to make new friends.

This afternoon I took 10 of our boys with me on the snorkeling excursion to Ginnie Springs. It is easily 10-15 degrees colder than the spring here at Kulaqua. Needless to say, these guys don't have much insulation so they were freezing. It was a little better when we ventured into the Santa Fe River, but still a cold journey. We had a first this year... in all my years here I've never seen a gator, but that changed today. Luckily we had already gotten out of the water, but we looked across from one of the springs to see a nice 5-footer sunning on a log. We were all pretty glad we didn't see him in the water.

We capped the day off with a powerful time of worship and the Word! Mario did a great job explaining the big picture of the Bible - God's plan and purpose for our lives and the story of the Gospel. Many of our students were challenged and were asking great questions about faith and being assured of their salvation during small group time.

Our late night activity was a church hang nite, so I reserved the gym and let them go wild playing dodgeball. They were excited and are looking forward to the dodgeball tournament tomorrow. We also have our tubing excursion tomorrow down the Itchmetouchme (not quite spelled or pronounced that way) River. It will be a big day and our last full day at camp, so keep praying for our safety and that God continue the work He has started!

Kulaqua :: Day 2

We have made it through our first full day of camp and it has been a long, but great day. We started early as usual and had a jam packed day full of excitement - from dodging thunderstorms, to a late night game of manhunt, and even a surprise birthday celebration!

After our morning chapel we had some time created for the students to get alone with God out on the beautiful Kulaqua campus. We realize that most ms students aren't probably don't have many quiet moments with God on a regular basis, but that is a neat element here at camp that we hope will grow into an important part of their walk with Christ.

After lunch we had free time for all the activities around camp, although the kickball tourney was literally washed out by a big thunderstorm that rolled through. I got to spend a good amount of time down at the blob skyrocketing ms students that are quite a bit lighter than me (that was saying it nicely) into the air.

We had a great night chapel tonight in worship with Wayne and the band and then Mario continued expanding the reality of pain and suffering in the life of a Christian, but with the promise of Romans 8:28 that God is working for the good and conforming us to His image. It gave us alot to talk about in small group time.

We did celebrate Bailey's birthday tonight and finished with a great game of manhunt. Tomorrow we have our snorkeling excursion for those going down to Ginnie Springs. Keep praying for us!

Kulaqua :: Day 1

Well, we had a good bus ride over and stopped in Lake City for lunch. We made it here safely (around 2pm) to Kulaqua and had a great day today. We were fortunate to have good weather during the free time when we got here and the rain held off while we were in chapel tonight.

The students have already explored camp and were all over the place enjoying the waterpark and spring today. I missed out on alot of the fun due to my duties as a Southland director, but I heard all about it.

Tonight we had our first chapel time with Wayne Kerr and the band and Mario our speaker. It was a high energy time of worship and Mario did a good job as he is going to be answering the question of why God allows pain, suffering and bad things to happen.

We had our church huddle time after chapel and our small groups where we were able to go more in depth with the topic tonight and also hear what the students are excited or expecting out of camp this week. After huddles we had our night time party at the River Ranch waterpark where the students could do the lazy river, slide, wavepool and volleyball.

We our packed into the mini-lodges with kids on mattresses and in bunks everywhere, but we did get everyone a place to sleep! We are looking forward to our first full day of camp tomorrow. Be praying for all of our leaders and students - that God would move in a powerful way this week!

Elevate :: Day 6

I am writing this post from home... which is a weird place that I won't see much over the next month! How do I summarize our week at HS Camp? This is going to be difficult!

As most of you know, we had an eventful final day - mainly due to our bus breakdown in Atlanta, but before we even loaded the bus we had our final chapel session on the overlook. It was a beautiful morning with a cool breeze and some morning fog hanging on the mountain. We joined in some acoustic worship with Wayne and then Tim wrapped up the week with a great parallel from Henry VIII to Christ and His Kingdom. He engaged us in a little reenactment that was really moving. It is awesome to think of Christ as our King who desires our allegiance as we see His Kingdom come.

Our delay in Atlanta was really a blessing from God, in that the air pressure leak happened right when we were exiting in Buckhead for lunch. Praise God it wasn't on the side of 75 in downtown!

HS camp was a powerful time in my life and I pray for our students as well. I was able to personally see the evidence of the Spirit calling students, changing students and challenging us all to surrender our allegiance and lives to our King! I am so grateful to serve a church that values students and provides us opportunities to go to camp. There is something about getting away and getting out of the 'world' to a degree. The symbolism of being on the mountain - just like Jesus often withdrew to the mountain - was felt in all of our hearts as we had a great taste of His Kingdom and didn't want to leave. But we leave knowing that He is with us and that we can all personally withdrawal to the mountain to maintain a strong connection to our King.

I'm so honored to have the privilege to just love our hs students and have such a great staff team. Again, it was a powerful week and we praise God for revealing Himself and moving among all of us! Let me wrap up the week by sharing the lyrics of a song we sang this week...

INSIDE OUT

A thousand times I've failed
Still your mercy remains
And should I stumble again
Still I'm caught in your grace

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
In my heart, in my soul, Lord I give you control
Consume me from the inside out Lord
Let justice and praise become my embrace
To love You from the inside out

Your will above all else, my purpose remains
The art of losing myself in bringing you praise

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise
From the inside out Lord, my soul cries out

Elevate :: Day 5

We had an awesome morning today as we traveled to an awesome place called Foster Falls. It was a blue hole (spring) with a nice overlook and waterfall. It was chilly, but a great place to swim and hang out as a church. We had a few brave souls climb and jump off a ledge.

We returned to camp for some free time and to be able to spend a relaxing afternoon together made for a really great day.

Our last chapel and worship time together was really powerful as Tim continued to unpack this concept of Christ as King and living in His Kingdom. Over and over he has emphasized the work of Christ on our behalf and our inability to "be" a Christian. God continued to work in powerful way in all of our lives.

We shared a special huddle time after chapel where I allowed the students to simply share what God had done in their lives this week and any decisions or commitments they had made. It was a sweet time where God's Spirit was really evident and moving in our midst. God is uniting their hearts and my prayer is that this week is more than just a "camp high" but really the beginning of a personal and corporate dependency that will carry us through the year.

We wrapped up the evening with the dodgeball competition and our teams did great, but didn't bring it home this year. And to top the evening off (or actually early morning hours) I shared a special challenge with our upperclassmen.

This has been an awesome week for me personally. I love these hs students and count it a privilege to be here with them learning and growing alongside them. Be praying for our safe return!

Elevate :: Day 4

Well the exhaustion has officially set in for most, but we are still having a great time. We had a fairly "normal" day and schedule, but for our free time - we took the whole group to downtown Chattanooga for a little excursion. We walked around the waterfront, checked out the Aquarium, went across the foot bridge and ended up at the famous Clumpies Ice Cream. Good thing we walked alot, because that ice cream is awesome. We spent the rest of our time down at Coolidge Park throwing the frisbee, sunning, and re-introducing Chattanooga to the Wildwood game of Buck-Buck. It was a fun afternoon in the sun.

The highlight of the day had to have been tonight. God really showed up among our group and some life changing decisions were made in our church huddle time tonight. We had a few students surrender their lives to Christ tonight and others reaffirm their faith. Praise God! This is why I love camp!

We wrapped up the night with some inflatables, Singstar and a Rockband competition. Tomorrow we are taking our own excursion to a blue hole (spring) called Foster Falls. We are looking forward to some alone time with just our students and spending some time away from camp to relax and unwind a bit. Tomorrow is our last full day of camp, so please be praying that God continues to work powerfully in our lives!

Elevate :: Day 3

It's hard to believe that we hit the halfway point at camp already. God has been faithful to meet us here on this mountain and is doing an awesome work in the lives of our students already. Tonight was no exception as we took a look at our understanding of Christ as King and what it means to surrender our lives to Him as He relentlessly pursues us with His love.

But earlier we started our day enjoying beautiful weather and God's majestic creation with morning worship on the overlook. It was a great start to our day and set the tone for a cool day filled with His presence. I am always amazed at how much easier it is to hear God and respond to God when the distractions (TV, music, etc) are gone and we are here on this mountain.

Today we had our caving excursion and although they took some great pics, I forgot to get the memory card so I could upload them. They came back pretty muddy, but had an awesome experience. The rest of us hung around camp and participated in all kinds of activities.

We wrapped up the night with the volleyball and basketball tourneys. We didn't fair too well in basketball, but we had both of our volleyball teams advance almost to the point of playing each other in the semi's, but fell short. It doesn't look like this will be the year we bring home the trophies, but oh well.

Please continue to pray for us as we are asking God to do an extraordinary work in all of our lives. Pray that we would respond to the prompting of the Holy Spirit in our lives!