Mission Nicaragua: Day 5

It is pretty hard to believe that we are about halfway through our mission. This team has been hard at work on the church extension (and it has helped that we have some great brick masons helping us) so the back wall is almost complete! But today, we only worked a half day at the church and then went over to Collegio Christiano Havilah to do some painting.

Before we left to go paint, we had the opportunity to go around to some church members in the community to do some visits with Pastor Manuel. We met a sweet lady today who has some sickness and pain that limits her mobility and she, like most in Los Cedros, barely has enough money to feed herself or her children. Elizabeth (RN) came with us to see her and make a diagnosis. We brought her medicine back to her and spent some time praying with her and getting to know her story. We will also make a run to the store to try to stock her up on some food.

Over the past missions we have done multiple projects at the school. One year we laid nearly 450 concrete stones to make sidewalks, we've done the foundation for the preschool building, painted a mural in the preschool building and even taken some children from the school down to camp. The school is run by Pastor Manuel and his wife who love the community and especially the children.

Working at the school is always a blessing - especially engaging with the kids, but they were out of school today... which actually made the painting go by faster. We were able to get the exterior first coat done and will be back on Monday to do a second coat and also the trim.

Tonight during our team time we took a look at our responsibility and privilege to be a laborer for Christ. Matthew 9 tells us that the fields are ready for harvest, but the laborers are few. And I believe that it has always been the case that there are more loiterers than laborers! Our prayer tonight was that God would strip us of our excuses and rid us of our fear and by His grace and the power of His Holy Spirit would allow us to be faithful to tell those who haven't heard. And we realize that this is not just in NIcaragua, but in our families, friendships, places of work and even school campuses.

It can seem overwhelming to think that an estimated 4 billion people in the world do not know Christ and even an estimated 1.5 billion of those have never heard or don't have access to the Gospel. We prayed that we would have the "beautiful feet" that Romans 10 tells us "brings the good news of the Gospel."

God is doing a good work in our hearts individually and corporately. We praise Him for what He is teaching us, showing us and working through us. As always, we covet your prayers.