Mission Nicaragua :: Day 7

Wow... day 7.  That's hard for all of us to believe.  This mission has moved at a pretty rapid pace so far.  Today, though, was a much needed day of rest.  We awoke on this Lord's Day ready to meet with Him.  We traveled in to Managua to Verbo Church - where the Buzbees attend.  It's a very international church with other Americans worshipping there, however, it is all in Spanish.

It seems to hit me every year just how amazing it is that around the world - worship rises to heaven from every tribe, tongue and nation.  While we were here worshipping in Spanish, our faith family back at Wildwood was worshipping in English and others from around the world are joining in the praise.  It was a real vision of heaven that God graced me with today and what an amazing day that will be when every knee will bow and tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.  It is awesome to think that we are practicing today what we will enjoy for an eternity!

We are enjoying our meal times here at the compound.  The team from North Carolina returned home while we were at camp.  The FSU med team has arrived and so has another college team led by Katie P.  It's always fun to share this experience with others and have an opportunity to get to know other teams.

After lunch we headed down to the Market.  This has become a staple on our trips and it is quite an experience.  There aren't too many places where you can shop for cheap souvenirs made in China (with "Nicaragua" on them), cow eyeballs (and other unmentionable parts), raw meat, pinatas, shoes, clothing and even get a haircut all under one roof.  But our students love going so I take one for the team each year.

We returned to the compound to have a bit of down time this afternoon.  Some enjoyed swimming and just relaxing.  We had hoped to make it to Los Cedros for evening church, but weren't able to fit it in the schedule unfortunately.  We love the Los Cedros community and have served there for many years, so we hope to plan a visit at some point this week.

God is really moving in a powerful way during our team time each night as we continue on this journey to better understand what it means to be a disciple who takes seriously the call to follow Jesus.  We are seeing that more and more Scripture calls us to lay down our heart, mind, will and desires to have them transformed and renewed by Christ for His glory and His mission.

Tomorrow we start our construction work in the Las Parecelas community.  We've got some big projects ahead of us but are excited to be able to see the children, their families and serve their community.  Thanks, as always, for supporting this mission in prayer!

Mission Nicaragua :: Day 6

There's nothing quite like trying to explain to Nica kids what polar bears are... and even more difficult explaining what a Polar Bear swim is.  However, we had a blast doing one - at 6:30am no less!  This is how our last day of camp started, a bit chilly, but an awesome memory and our last time to swim in Lake Nicaragua.  

From there we finished up our remaining classes and had our closing chapel time.  We put together a slideshow of camp memories and the kids really enjoyed seeing themselves on the screen.  Their adult leaders did to.  There is no doubt we created some lasting memories.  Probably most meaningful in chapel was walking back through the Gospel one last time with them.  We could visibly see the impact that camp had on their lives, but we were also able to see how the Gospel impacted their lives.  Only heaven will reveal what this camp meant in regards to their newfound life in Christ or continued growth in Him.  Either way, we are continuing to pray for good soil - so the seeds would be able to grow deep roots that would grow lasting fruit.

It was an emotional last chapel.  I was moved just standing before them and looking them in the eye conveying our love and saying our temporary goodbyes.  After the final session, we were able to present them with their backpacks - complete with their art projects from the week, school supplies, toothbrush and toothpaste.  Then thanks to our friends at Craft Hope, we were able to allow each camper to personally choose two brand new pairs of decorated flip flops.  The smiles on their faces said it all, but they also conveyed their love through many, many hugs.  

After our traditional chasing the bus down the camp road, we headed back to camp to clean up, pack up and get on our way.  We took time on the bus ride out to just pray and praise God for the awesome time at camp He gave all of us and how He worked in all of our lives.

Since we weren't too far away, we took a bit of a detour to the city of Grenada.  This colonial town is one of the oldest in Nicaragua.  It has remained untouched by the many volcanoes and earthquakes and even war.  It is a beautiful, historic city and we enjoyed walking around and taking it all in.  It was great to have some time just as a team, since the last four days have been surrounding by 50 kids non-stop!

We arrived back to the Buzbees for dinner and our team time.  We are getting settled back in to our living quarters here and excited about sleeping sans bugs (at least the same volume of them) and also sleeping past 5 am!  

Thanks for praying with us!  We aren't done yet and we know God isn't either!

Mission Nicaragua :: Day 5

It will be no surprise that we were up early again to start our day at Campo.  Thankfully, we are mainly getting enough sleep at night, however some on our team are feeling a bit under the weather (mainly cold symptoms).  We are praying nothing will spread as we still have a good bit of mission ahead of us. 

We were again on our full camp schedule that starts with our morning chapel time followed by our classes.  I’ve had some of our students sharing their stories as a part of this time.  We prepare to be able to share the Gospel during our mission training, but for many, this is the first time they will have shared in public, much less having to share through a translator. 

The children have really enjoyed the classes and as much as we are teaching them, they are teaching us too.  We are learning more about their personalities, culture and faith journeys in our time with them.  They are continuing to open up with us and allow us into their lives.  It’s always amazing to me how we can come and do our best through the language barrier, have some help from translators, but really speak through the language of love.  It’s a continual reminder to me that the Gospel is best shared through word and deed.  And these kids are watching… all the time.  They are watching not only how we are interacting with them, but also each other as a team.

Since the “treasure hunt” was such a big hit with the groups, we decided to do another competition that we called “the great competition”… sometimes the more simple ideas translate better.   But this was a survivor-style series of challenges from the three-legged race, tug of war, to a buried dig, dizzy bat race and more!  They had so much fun competing that we’ve decided to make this a staple of camp each year.

Our meals have been awesome and dinner was no exception.  We not only serve the food, but deliver the plates to the kids.  It’s a honor to serve them and allow them to get as much food as they want – and some of them take advantage of seconds.  This would definitely be a foreign concept to them at home. 

At evening chapel, I had the opportunity to share out of Matthew about the wise and foolish builder and ask them what kind of a foundation they were building their life upon.  This led to a great opportunity to present the Gospel to them and invite them to respond to Jesus Lordship over their lives.  We are praying that those who responded to the Gospel – the seeds would grow in good soil in their lives. 

During our team time, we looked at the cost of following Jesus as a disciple.  We talked about the danger of  “deciding to make Jesus our personal, Lord and Savior.”  Not that Jesus isn’t a personal God, because He most certainly is, but He is also not definable by our desires, but rather revealed to us in God’s Word.  I fear many of us make Jesus more palatable by picking and choosing what we want to believe from God’s Word – we don’t want a Savior that challenges our desires, leads us down a difficult path of discipleship, convicts our desire to have more (materialism) and calls us to die to our own dreams and plans and embrace His mission.  These times being shaped by God’s Word and our conversation in small groups have been powerful.

Pray for our day tomorrow as it is our last one at camp.  It’s usually an emotional time all around.  This has been a great camp so far and we are praying for it to end in a way that directs everyone’s attention to God to give Him the glory for the great work He has done!

Mission Nicaragua :: Day 4

Day 4

Today was our first full day of Camp.  It started earlier than everyone on our team hoped as most kids started to wake up around 5 am.  This is common since they follow more of the sun rising/setting for their day, but also, many have responsibilities and chores to do before they go to school.  Needless to say, for those of us who are light sleepers, hearing the kids stirring at 5 am was not too enjoyable.  But then, we are reminded that we aren’t here serving for our comfort or sleep! 

God gave us a beautiful day – enjoying the sun, an awesome breeze coming off the lake and a nice view of the volcano.  I wish I could get some pictures uploaded for you all to see, but I’m doing good at this point just to get a blog post up or some tweets out (twitter.com/wildwoodstudent or Twitter from the App Store then follow @wildwoodstudent)

After breakfast, we started right into our class schedule.  This is such a joy for me to watch – a true picture of the body of Christ at work – our students leading each of their respected areas: music, arts/crafts, Bible, English and sports.  They all did well adjusting to a lack of supplies and realizing that a 35-minute lesson is a long time to fill. 

But praise God all of our bags arrived last night and cleared customs and a big thanks to Mike Buzbee for driving them all the way down here to us at Campo.  This allowed us to quickly build the swim rope and have all the inflatable rings in time for swim time, which took place after lunch.  Having our bags also meant having sunscreen (some wish we had that a day earlier)!

Many of these kids have never seen and swam in open water like Lake Nicaragua before.  So despite fighting some big waves and currents at times, swimming was a blast!  The joy on their faces really says it all.  Something as simple as swimming is reminding me that God has given us all so much to enjoy that we so often take for granted.

The kids are responding well to our leadership and friendship.  It really is a great group of kids.  We are building on some established relationships with many – like Virginia – who we were privileged to build a home for last year. 

After dinner, during evening chapel we looked at how God has written on our hearts the ability to know right from wrong, but because of original sin – we never choose the right.  We are planting Gospel seeds by continuing to share that only through a relationship with Jesus can we be made right with God and then enabled to make wise choices.

Our team time and small groups at night continue to be a real Spirit-filled, challenging, encouraging, relationship building, convicting and learning time all rolled in to one.  God is doing some heart renovations on us for sure.  

Looking forward to all God has in store for tomorrow!

Mission Nicaragua :: Day 3

The Spirit is definitely at work here at Campo.  Today we had the morning to set-up camp (with our limited supplies) to prepare for the children’s arrival.  Our team was busy preparing the different areas and finalizing or improvising the lesson plans to be ready for camp to begin.

Just before noon the children and a few adults from the community of Las Parcelas arrived.  This is a very poor, rural, farming community where the Buzbees have land that is currently being developed as Ruby Ranch.  This will one day be the new camp facility our teams will use.  But we have invested in this community and the families for the last three years.  Last year our team built a home in the community and also hosted a day camp.

For many of these children, this is a first time experience to not only leave their community, but come to a place like Campo Alegria.  It is very similar to a child in the States going to Disney for the first time.  We don’t have roller coasters, here but it is a beautiful place with new sights to see, things to explore, a lake to swim in and a team of gringos hosting a camp for them!

They arrived and were greeted by our usual fanfare.  The big smiles and wide eyes said enough.  Camp has begun.  After some quick rules and introductions we divided into groups and they met their leader.  We got them moved into the dorms and then enjoyed a lunch together.  Post-lunch is always swimming time and we really wore them out.  So much that they finished early and we had to scramble for another activity… so we taught them what a “Scavenger Hunt” is.  I learned this doesn’t really have a translation, so we went with “Treasure Hunt”.   They had a blast and then it was time for dinner.

The food is delicious as always and it is always so humbling to be able to serve the children their food.  Many never have the opportunity to eat quite like this – 3 meals a day with seconds if desired! 

After dinner, we had our evening chapel and I’m teaching this week on what it looks like to make wise choices.  We’re looking at what the Bible calls being wise in opposition to being foolish.  I’m praying this will open doors good Gospel conversations. 

Before bed, we host our movie and cookie time.  However, the kids were so exhausted that they left before the movie was over for bed!  So this gave our team some extra time for our evening team time.  We are studying what Jesus meant when He said, “follow me” and the implications that has on our lives.  This along with our small groups is always the highlight of my time here with our team. 

Sorry we haven’t been able to upload or tweet out many pics.  The internet connection is sketchy at best and can’t handle the size of data being uploaded.  Hopefully we can catch up some when back at the Buzbees.

Thanks for your continued prayer support!

Mission Nicaragua :: Day 2

Today came early as our body clocks haven't adjusted to the sun coming up in the 5am range.  But having our first full day in Nicaragua as a semi-relaxing one was a good break from our normal (and upcoming pace).  We were able to start our day with some awesome time in God's Word both as a team and individually as we asked God to move among us and do a good work this week.  We are all enjoying disconnecting from the world and tuning in to God.

There were some errands to run to prep for camp and one important one was trying to get any bags that came down on today's flights.  We were told that 5 were coming in around noon and we got a bonus bringing our total to 6 bags (plus the two that made it originally for 8 of our 18).  God did answer some prayer in allowing 2 of our needed camp supplies bags to make it down so we can at least get camp started.  We are hoping and praying the remaining bags made it in tonight or will tomorrow and can get delivered to camp.

This afternoon we made the two and a half hour trek down to Campo Alegria on Lake Nicaragua.  It was a long bus ride, but it takes us up on top of some mountains and through some awesome scenery.  Some caught some rest on the way, while others took it all in.

For many on the team this is a first visit to Campo and so we spent some of the afternoon enjoying the beach and swimming in the lake.  God has given us some great weather to enjoy so far.  After a swim and dinner we started our team time tonight.  This is always a special time as we open God's Word together and then have some small group time.

God is really brining this group together and we are excited about starting camp tomorrow!  The kids should arrive around lunch time.  We'll be modifying a bit to use the supplies we have and will end up being a bit creative to get camp going.  But even at our team time tonight, we acknowledging that this is God's mission and this somehow is a part of His plan so we are responding in faith to His good plan and striving to rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us.

Please join us in praying for the children that are coming tomorrow.  Pray their hearts will be open to hear the Gospel and respond.  Pray that we form good, new relationships and build on the old ones.  Thanks for standing in the gap for us in prayer!

Mission Nicaragua :: Day 1

Well I wish we could say that today was an uneventful day, but for the most part it was. We were able to get out of Tallahassee on time. Had a long layover in Miami. And then boarded the plane to Nicaragua. On arrival in Nicaragua, we found that two of our 18 checked bags  had actually made it on our plane and arrived with us. This was a good reminder to us why we pack our personal items in carry-on bags. We are hopeful our bags will arrive tomorrow.

I'm really excited about what God has in store for this team. We do have a lot of first-timers on the team with us this year, which is really exciting. And our returners are already settling in to being back down here. God has really put together a great team and we are praying that He would continue to unify our hearts so that we can serve effectively on this mission.

We're looking forward to a good nights rest, and then we hit the ground running tomorrow in preparation for camp.  We will head down to Campo Alegria on Lake Nicaragua sometime tomorrow to begin the setup process.

Thank you for praying for us and we will do our best to keep everyone updated here, on Facebook and Twitter.