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.

Mission Nicaragua: Day 4

I wanted to start by simply saying what an amazing privilege it is to take these teams down to Nicaragua each year. This team has hit the ground running in so many different ways and it is such a joy to be able to labor together for the Kingdom. And even more rewarding is seeing God work in and through each and everyone on our team as their God given gifts, abilities and personalities are used for His glory.

We are making good progress on the two exterior walls at the church that we are building from the ground up. Once the process gets going, it seems to move a bit quicker each day. Today, we poured the forms for the columns and center rebar, so we are over halfway there on these two walls.

Today the FSU med team was serving at the same church in Los Cedros. This gave us the opportunity to see them in action, but also brought alot more people to the church that we could interact with and more kids to play with in our down time. We also took some time this afternoon to travel a few streets over to a home we build two years ago in Los Cedros. This was the home of Mauroje, a widow who is a member of the church. She lives at the base of a small mountain that after we spent some time with her and her family and prayed for them, we all decided to climb to get a view of all of Los Cedros. It was an exciting adventure to say the least and we all had a very challenging climb up a rock face to make it to the top.

We came back tonight and in the midst of God's fireworks show (lightning all around) we sang praises and opened up his Word up on the 3rd floor for our team time tonight. We looked at passages in Isaiah that show God's majesty and our necessary response and it seemed very fitting as He displayed His majesty all around us!

God is doing a good work. We appreciate and cover your prayers each day as we hope to see Christ formed in us and work through us. We're off to more brick laying tomorrow at the church and hopefully an afternoon of painting over at the Christian school where we have served before on two other trips.

Mission Nicaragua: Day 3

Another hot but beautiful day working in Los Cedros at the church. We are really making good progress as we get a bit more handy at making the rebar, mixing the concrete, moving the block and making the mortar. God has definitely put together a great team as we all enjoy working together and serving each other. It is so awesome for me as a pastor to see the body of Christ at work and to be a part of it.

A special part of our time here in Nica each year is going back and seeing our previous team projects and families. Today we want back to a home that we built 5 years ago. No one other than myself was on that team, but we have seen this family each year. It was such a blessing to reconnect and hear how they are doing and their 5 children and to pray for them.

Today we hit a few slow spots which gave us some awesome opportunities to play with the local kids after they get out of school. I always come down loaded with trinkets, stickers, candy and more. We simply were sharing the love of Christ through the universal language of "playing" today and giving of gifts. Many of the kids just love hanging out at the worksite and even pitched in to help us move block today.

During another slower portion of our day, a segment of our team broke away to go on a prayer walk through Los Cedros. Many had never prayer walked before and came back very excited with stories of neighbors they met and prayed with. They were also able to give out a good many of the Spanish Bibles we brought with some of our team's testimonies that had been translated to Spanish inside. God's Spirit was moving ahead of this team and gave them many ministry opportunities as they walked the streets. Everyone is very community oriented and open to having someone approach their home and even pray with them. It is definitely a change from the way things are in the States.

Tonight after dinner we had our annual 'unpack all the donated clothes fashion show and dance party' in the Rancho. Many thanks to those of you who gave clothes to the ministry down here and also for our temporary enjoyment tonight. It's always a huge undertaking, but somehow the fashion show and dance party makes the tedious work go by a bit faster. The clothes are such a blessing to those down here who will receive them and have so little.

Our day tomorrow will bring us a bit closer to the completion of the back room at the church and we'll also get to see the FSU med team in action as they will be doing a clinic inside the church in Los Cedros while we are working outside. We might also be able to start our painting project at the Christian school in Los Cedros tomorrow as well. Thanks for your continued prayer support!

Mission Nicaragua: Day 2

We have our first official day here in Nica under our belt. It was a hot, sunny day but I guess God showed us his favor with some rain that cooled us off... other than the rain later turned into a torrential downpour! But in true Nica fashion - the work continued! Today we worked at Pastor Manuel's church in Los Cedros. Pastor has become a dear friend to our teams as we have spend much time in Los Cedros. We've hosted med clinics, built homes, worked at the church, worshipped at the church, taken kids to camp and built and worked at the Christian school there. So being in Los Cedros definitely feels like home for us. We even got to see some familiar faces already.

We spent today building rebar, mixing concrete and painting some support beams for the roof. Our primary project at the church is adding a children's "wing" to the back of the church. There is already an existing small room that we are going to expand to the wall height and then build out new walls, while taking down the dividing wall. This will be a huge blessing for the church to give their children and young people a place to gather and be taught the Word.

The bus ride back from Los Cedros is always exciting, but more after we made our pit stop at the grocery store and some of our guys decided to have a hot sauce chugging challenge. Just thinking the the bus with limited water wasn't the best choice, but who actually thinks those things through ahead of time right?!

Our team time is always a highlight of our time together at night where we open the Word and open our hearts before the Lord and each other. We covet your prayer support!

Mission Nicaragua: Day 1

Well it seems of late that my posting is only happening while on the mission field. I sincerely wish that weren't the case, but setting aside the time to blog has been on the back burner, but it a shame - not so much for my readers - but for me personally. It is always a great practice for me and an encouragement in my walk with Christ to be able to online journal what He is up to in my life and ministry.


I find myself here again in Nicaragua, this time down with two great teams of high school, college students and adults. The first team and I arrived safely tonight and are excited about what God has in store for us this week. It would appear that we have a few construction projects already lined up working in the community of Los Cedros where we have served for many years now.

Please be praying for us - that God's Spirit would move in a powerful way in and through our teams. Our desire is to be faithful to minister the Gospel in word and deed as we make new relationships and build on existing relationships here in Nicaragua. Don't forget you can follow us on twitter.com/wwoutreach as well.

Med Mission Nica: Day 7

It's was a bittersweet day on our full last day here in Nicaragua. What a blessing to be able to make our annual visit to La Chureca (the city dump) even though it is a heart breaking experience. Over 1000 people call the dump home with many young children making their home there. The Buzbees have multiple ministries going on in the dump - from medical and re-nutrition to education with the Christian School. We were able to drive through this morning and then stop and the school and see the kids. After a visit at the school we walked around the dump to see some of the residents that Elizabeth ministers to.

From there we headed over to Sister Ruby's house. Ruby was a dear friend and awesome evangelist and prophetess who ministered right outside the dump in a neighboring community. Our teams have always visited for a time of prayer and this team was no exception. And even though it was different since Ruby's home-going, it was still a powerful time of prayer as a team. The Holy Spirit moved in a mighty way, speaking and challenging our hearts.

This afternoon we had our team tour day where we travelled down to Grenada - one of the only cities that survived the war with it's colonial style buildings intact. We took a boat tour around Lake Nicaragua which was a fun experience until one of the island monkeys visited our boat. After Grenada we headed up to a little area called Catalina which offered a change in elevation that gave us cool breezes and a spectacular view of a crater turned lake and some places to shop.

We returned for our last team dinner and Maria pulled out all the stops with a traditional Nicaraguan meal. Our time has truly been amazing down here. I know God has worked through us, but more importantly in us. Please pray for our travels tomorrow, but also pray that God would continue the work He has started in all of us!

Med Mission Nica: Day 6

Well, I believe if we are able to be sad and glad that are clinics are over... I would think that is the case. On one hand, having a break from the near 100 degree temperature and long days will be welcomed, but then you realize that is why we came and we have had some great interactions and have built relationships with the patients, pastors and neighbors in these communities we are serving.

Today we travelled into Managua for our first "non-rural" clinic day. The people had greater access to healthcare but still faced the problem of not being able to afford the prescribed medicine. We set up shop today in a pretty tiny, but amazingly welcoming church called Iglesia Josue 1:9. The morning started a bit slow, but ended up being one of our more challenging days - in the sheer number of patients and some unexpected circumstances. It was around lunch time when we were thanking God for the fans in the church (at least air that is moving at 96 degrees feels better than stagnant air at 96 degrees!) and then the power went out. The pastor and his "staff" worked tirelessly to rig a small generator to the circuit breaker just to get our fans back going. But it was sporadic at best.

The neighbor across the street was incredibly generous to allow us to move our doctor's stations to the front of her house under a shade tree. So our doctors got a bit of shade and light breeze, but still had alot of heat to contend with and a growing line of patients. Our pharmacy and consult team had to endure the heat inside but thankfully had a few fans going. But it was amazing reflecting on the day. God continues to show us His power and plan and that He is in control. We can't even control the power in a church building! So we learned yet again that His purposes prevail and we are at best empty vessels that can only hope to be available and obedient.

On our way out, we got called upon to make a house call to an elderly woman who couldn't come to the clinic. She had been seen by a doctor recently and given meds - some good and some bad. It is always eye opening to go into the homes in Nicaragua and see how they live. It was a very tiny home with dirt floors, multiple family members and the elderly woman out on a cot in the covered backyard area. They thought nothing of welcoming our med team into their home and asking for help. We did have an opportunity to pray with her and treat her problems with limited resources.

God continues to show up - not that He isn't always present, we're just learning to recognize Him better - in great ways. This team truly has been unified in purpose and passion and it has showed this week! Praise God! We are excited about what He has in store for us tomorrow. In the morning we will visit the dump and school. We'll then go to Sister Ruby's house for our team prayer time. This will be my first visit since her death and I'm sure will be an emotional experience. But this time is always so valuable for our teams as God continues to speak into our lives.

After our prayer time, we'll have our tour day and get to relax for an afternoon before we have to pack to head back home. So far this has been an amazing trip, so I can only imagine what God has in store for us tomorrow. Thank you for your continued prayer support.