Ministry in Nicaragua- Week One!!

Wow. This week has been everything. I was told over and over to walk into the race with zero expectations (shoutout Drew McKinney) but I never fully knew how to do that or what that would look like. I think I get it now.

This past week has been so fulfilling and eye opening. We’re doing ministry with the organization REAP Granada for our two months in Nicaragua and through them we do farm work, prayer walks (aka house visits), hospital ministry, as well as dump ministry.

Yesterday we did house visits and farm work. We had devotions with Scott (our ministry host) so only got to visit one family. At that house, we got the opportunity to talk to this sweet lady. Usually when we’re getting to know the people we’re talking to, we try to establish where they are in their faith journey. This lady told us how she knows who Jesus is and there wasn’t any question about it. She knew he was the son of God, but she shared that she hadn’t fully accepted him as her savior. She told us that she just wasn’t ready for that step yet. She wasn’t ready to have to change her lifestyle (the examples she shared were the way she spoke or the clothes she wore) and give that all up. It just seemed like a big step for her.

Honestly, that hit me right in the heart. I know exactly where she is. For such a long time I didn’t want to “fully” commit to God, I was so content with finding my comfort in worldly things, and the thought of having to give them up just scared me. And it makes sense, I mean we tell ourselves that it’s (our worldly comforts) bringing us joy or that it’s okay just because culture says it is. And in reality, I don’t really know that much but I do know that since being here and having to give up most of my comforts and switch the way I’ve been living, I have seen a whole different side of life. There is real joy found in life walking with Christ and it truly doesn’t compare to what little happiness I was living with.

It’s so easy to think that we’re too far away from God to come back to him, or that we’re too unclean for him; that we have to come to him clean and pure. But that is so far from the truth. God wants a relationship with all of us and he meets us in our brokenness. (Read 1 John 1:7-9) He meets us where we’re at. Every. Single. Time.

We can never be fully clean without him because he is what cleanses us. As we explained this to the lady, I just was overwhelmed with sympathy, because I’ve worn those shoes before and it’s such a heavy thought to bore. However, it’s just a thought that the enemy is trying to put in our heads to separate us from the father. But that’s all it is- a thought. It only has any power over us if we allow it to.

It continues to shock and amaze me how I live opposite lives, thousands of miles apart from the people we get to talk to, yet our struggles are so similar. We’re all broken and needing God’s mercy, no matter what part of the world we live on or how we live.