Pre-Trip Prayer Requests

I can’t believe it’s already Wednesday! These past couple of days have gone by so quickly, between traveling and house visits and touring the farm and construction, all of the days seem to have melted into one. I have loved being able to form relationships with the workers and translators here at Piñas de Paz, and I have been blessed with the opportunity for me to become better friends with my classmates who are here on the trip with me. My construction task is building a house for Carlos, who is one of the workers here. It has been a labor-intensive yet very fruitful experience. Today, my fellow construction workers - Jeremy, Mark, and Zach - and I carried lumber up the hill to Carlos’s house and helped to nail 2x4’s into the rest of the wooden frame that we had shaped throughout the past couple of days. After returning to the farm for lunch, our team prepared for a Vacation Bible School for the children who live in the Ticuantepe area near Managua. I was part of the Music group with Kaitie, Zach, and Jeremy, and we taught the kids Sunday School songs in both English and Spanish. The kids seemed to really enjoy singing some of my favorite songs from my childhood in Spanish, and learning some of their favorites in English. We had three other groups, Crafts, Bible Story, and Games, and this fun activity was a great way for the children living in this area to have fun and learn about the Bible in an atmosphere other than church. I was part of the 2015 and 2016 Colombia trips to Bogotá, and this trip is a great change of pace from what I had been doing the last two years, which was Vacation Bible School and traveling around to different ministries in the area and serving the kids there. This year, the work that we are doing is mainly construction and teaching English classes to Nicaraguans of all ages in the area, and I have loved being able to minister to different people in different ways and see God’s love for all of His people.