Mission Nicaragua: Day 12

Today was our first full day of camp and we are thankful that God gave us the strength to make it considering the campers woke us up around 5:00 am when the sun is just coming up. Needless to say, no matter how much we "prepare" for this reality, it never hits you until it happens. Some of our teamies have the gift of being able to sleep through it... and probably a small tornado since that is what morning around the cabins sounds like!

I can't tell you how awesome it is for me as a pastor to see the body of Christ at work. After breakfast and our time of worship, our students started leading their respected areas (art/craft, Bible, sports and music). God has gifted our students and given them great abilities that come together to make a really fun camp. At times it is difficult to keep the Nica kids engaged, but between the zip line for sports and tye dying t-shirts they were having a blast. But they definitely look forward to their time down on the beach swimming in the lake. I don't think any of us have carried, thrown or been attacked in the water by more kids than we have here!

It would appear that we're starting to wear some of the Nica kids out (no comment about us yet). We were coloring after swim time only to look up and see Oscar asleep on the paper he started coloring. After dinner we do worship and teaching and then a movie where we lost a few more Nica kids to exhaustion.

So far so good - camp is off to a great start! God seems to be knitting our hearts together with the kids and for that we are grateful. So not only are they making friends, but hopefully they are seeing and hearing the Gospel from us. I had the opportunity to preach tonight and lay out the Gospel and they are also getting more during their Bible station. So please join us in praying that God's Word would land on fertile soil and take good root!

Mission Nicaragua: Day 11

Our last relaxing morning where we could sleep in a bit is gone and will be replaced by the sound of children stirring around 5:30am. So while we could, we had some time to simply enjoy the beauty of God's creation here at camp and have some time alone in His Word... just desiring to hear from Him.

But shortly after... camp officially began! In the distance we heard the sound of the bus coming down the dirt road so we jumped up to form our welcoming line. We have 49 children that have joined us from the Los Cedros community. We put on a camp two years ago and we immediately saw a few familiar faces, but the good majority have never been to Campo Alegria before. We have Abran, Mahaila & Louie with us from a home we built in Los Cedros five years ago. It was awesome for me personally, to get to see them (even though we go see them every year) and have them at camp with us.

Camp went well for our first day as we got some of our activities underway, did our first evening session, had swim time, free time and just great chances to start interacting with the kids and learning their names. They seem to be a good group of kids and are incredibly excited to be here at camp. We're already bonding with them and communicating the universal language of love through physical touch. All of these kids long to be held, played with or to tackle you during swim time. Everywhere we go, we have little shadows.

It's such a amazing reminder that Jesus said that the Kingdom was for the little ones and that entry would be through the faith of a child. So following Jesus model, we are striving to love the kids and point them to Christ.

We were able to sneak away during our evening movie to grab some team time together. Camp is pretty fast paced and you are on duty 24/7, so having some time together or even individual time with the Lord can be a challenge. But God is already meeting us here in our time and we are seeing Him at work among us and the camp in general. Thanks for continuing to stand with us in prayer!

Mission Nicaragua: Day 10

Well the transition has taken place and the handoff has been made from our construction team to our camp team. We sent our construction team off bright and early to the airport, despite the girls sleeping through their alarm and having to move very quickly to get moving!

The camp team was able to get a good night's rest and transition to Nica time. We had a good team time together as we opened the Word and accepted the challenge to "set our minds and hearts on things above" for this mission. Our prayer is that God would meet us here - in our time together and our time alone in the Word.

We loaded up the bus and left the Buzbees around mid-morning for camp. It's a bit over a two hour ride to camp, but we pass through many unique towns and get a beautiful view of Nica as we travel up in elevation. We arrived at Campo Alegria and had our lunch and some down time before getting unloaded and preparing for the kids arrival in the morning. We had great weather and the camp is located on Lake Nicaragua which is one of the largest freshwater lakes and also has Volcan Concepcion in the middle. The only drawback to the beauty is some of God's little creatures that are swarming, crawling and pretty much everywhere so most are having to get beyond their bug-phobias pretty quickly!

Our camp staff prepared an amazing traditional Nica dinner of nacatamales, rice, plantains, fruit and rice pudding for our dinner which was a great way for us to start camp together! After dinner we had our team time and took a look into God's Word before moving into our small groups for discussion and prayer. We hope to get one more good night of rest before the Nica kids arrive tomorrow and our sleep schedules change drastically!

I am just praising God for how He moved in our construction team and the work that we were able to accomplish and now we are praying with expectation for God to again meet us here and move through this camp team as well. We are looking forward to getting camp going and bringing the hope of the Gospel and the love of Christ to these kids. We appreciate you joining us in prayer!

Mission Nicaragua: Day 9

Today really couldn't have been a better day for the construction team. We started with our annual visit to the dump (La Chureca) which is home to an estimated 1200 residents with around 800 being children. It is such an eye-opening and heart wrenching place to visit. There are many spiritual analogies that can be seen to our own lives and our faith journey. Then after the dump we all gathered a Sister Ruby's for a time of prayer and worship. Ruby was an amazing evangelist and prophetess who passed away earlier this year, but God continues to use her legacy and home as a powerful place of ministry. God definitely showed up and spoke into our lives. But we also celebrate the new life that came to our translators!

No visit to Ruby's is complete without stopping by our friend Damaris' home. We did construction on her home three years ago. She is a single mother of six and has a hard life, but is a dear sister in Christ. She welcomed us into her home and we enjoyed a few moments catching up with her and praying for her.

After Ruby's the team headed out to the market in hunt of good deals and in support of the local economy! Then it was off to the team excursion time. This year the team chose a zip line tour over the canopy and a crater lake. A great time was had by all... well almost all... the ones brave enough (or well enough) to participate!

We capped off the day with our team dinner out and had a great time together. We brought our translators and Santos (who is the Buzbees construction foreman) and his wife and two boys with us. It was fun to enjoy some of the local food and spend this last night together as a team.

Our camp team arrived safely and were pretty exhausted. I'm looking forward to jumping in with them as we will travel down to Lake Nicaragua tomorrow to prepare for the Nica kids arrival on Friday. Our construction team has to be up and moving at 4:30a to catch their first flight. So please keep them in your prayers as they travel and our camp team as we hit the ground running tomorrow!

Mission Nicaragua: Day 8

It is always a bittersweet day when it is our last on the worksite. We were excited to complete the construction of the walls and begin the process of having the interior ready for a concrete floor. The only thing lacking is to put on the roof, which is a bit beyond our skill set! We also completed the painting project at the school and it looks great. The tough part of the day, however, is saying goodbye. So many kids would come by everyday to simply hang out with us and play with us during our breaks - and we had a blast building relationships with them. It's always hard to say goodbye.

Last night after dinner we had a very special celebration... a surprise birthday party for Debbie. Unfortunately, I don't have any pics because I went down pretty hard after the workday with some sort of sickness. I'm not sure what it is yet, but it wasn't fun for sure... but I am incredibly grateful to Dr. Rob Campbell of the FSU med team and his care and medication. While I was resting, our team had their group time of worship and prayer and I hear God's Spirit moved in a powerful way. Our times at night have been really powerful this year.

Tomorrow is our last day and looks to be a busy one! We will start the day with a visit to the dump and then prayer time at Sister Ruby's house. Then the team choose a zip line excursion for their afternoon fun time (after our annual visit to the market). We'll finish it all up with our team dinner out at a restaurant. Then we will be awaiting the arrival of our camp team later tonight. As always, we appreciate your continued prayer support.

Mission Nicaragua: Day 7

After having a great morning of time alone with God and breakfast we were off and running in the van (which made for a crowded, bumpy ride) to Los Cedros. Today we divided to conquer our two projects. The patient type went over to paint at the school - finishing up the trim and working on a second coat in places on the preschool building. Painting is always more fun with school kids running around you and trying to help you paint! Actually, it was fun to be out and see many familiar faces from working in Los Cedros so many years and taking their kids down to camp.

Our hardcore construction crew really got to go at it today as the interior wall had to be demolished. Nothing like serving Jesus with a sledgehammer! We also got to most of the rear wall up to height and the side wall up to height as well. The final step today was removing some of the existing roof to prepare for the new roof to go up on the addition. It's definitely exciting to see both projects nearing completion.

And again, nothing helps the work go by faster than having some regular breaks to hang with the neighborhood kids. Most days we've had kids stopping by on their way to school and then hanging out with us after school. Some will even jump right in with a shovel and help mix concrete or move blocks. Of course, besides the help, we do love running around or playing some soccer with them as well.

Today we also returned to Rosa's home and then Aurela's home. We met these sweet ladies out prayer walking and had the med team come by and check them out. We also assessed some of their needs and were able to go to the grocery store and stock them up with some food which we delivered today. They were so grateful to receive it and we were honored to have another chance to pray and spend time with them.

Despite the rain, no day is complete without a guys' game of animal ball in the pool. We've introduced our translators to this game and they've paid the price for joining us!

God continues to show up and speak through His word in our team time and small group time each night. Tonight we looked at the reality that we are temples of the Lord and the implications on our lives. Then a few verses later in 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about being found faithful in the end and we made that our prayer not only for this mission, but our lives! We so appreciate your prayer support as we are in the homestretch of our mission here in Nica!

Mission Nicaragua: Day 6

What a blessing to be able to join with the nations in worship of Almighty God today. For whatever reason, being outside the States helps give us a better picture of the reality that the nations are lifting up their voices of praise to God and we got to be a part of that celebration.

We went to Verbo Church in the morning, where the Buzbees attend. This church has a very international feel to it and is very familiar to what we would experience. And it is always cool to think that while we are worshipping in Nicaragua in Spanish, Wildwood is worshipping the same God hundreds of miles away in English. Verbo has a full praise band, screens and an translator for the many teams that join with the Nicas in worship there. We recognized a few of the songs and we able to join in English. The sermon was delivered by a guest speaker and gave the teams alot to talk about based on some of the Scriptures used and theology. But I was encouraged by our students discernment in listening.

After morning worship we just enjoyed our Sabbath by hanging out here at the Buzbee farm. It was a great chance to relax, read some and enjoy fellowship with each other before heading off to Los Cedros for evening worship.

Pastor Manuel's church in Los Cedros is quite a different experience. Thankfully God provided a nice breeze and the ceiling fans helped. This church is quite a bit smaller, but just a passionate in worship from the youngest to the oldest. Everyone in the church puts on their best and walks to church. Rain or shine and no matter how hot it is outside and inside the people gather with joyful spirits and spent a good hour in worship through singing. There are no screens, few instruments and a meager sound system, yet it seems none of that matters.

I had the opportunity to preach and was grateful to have Carlos translating for me. Carlos was a translator for our med team in April and an awesome young man of God. Oftentimes, the worship service in Los Cedros can last for 2-3 hours, so I'm sure it was a relief for our team to see me get called up to preach and then Pastor Manuel not preaching after I had finished! At the end of the service the whole team stood up front in a line and was personally greeted by nearly every member in attendance. They are so warm and welcoming and it is so great to grow the relationships we've built with that community of faith for the last 5 years.

Tomorrow we are back to work as we only have a few more days to finish the addition and the painting project at the school. We're grateful to God for the strength He is giving us and look forward to how He continues to work in us and through us. Keep praying!