Nicaragua- 2017

Our home for a week- Casa Cepino.  It was an authentic Nicaraguan living experience.  

Nicaraguans loves sensory bins too!  We had a community event on Saturday where 53 people dedicated or rededicated their lives to Jesus!  Whoop!  I was in charge of the children's activities. :)  Shocker. 

This cute nugget and I had fun together.  It's amazing that even though we can't communicate, I can still make kids fall in love with me and I with them.  

After the games and fun, we had a worship service.  I shared my testimony with the crowd.  I felt pressure to make sure I was articulating my story clearly!  

After a long hot day at the community event, we enjoyed a relaxing night of walking around downtown Managua.  They have gigantic Arbor de Luz!  Light Trees! 

The main occupation in Acahualinca is to recycle the trash from the dump.  These guys were searching for computer parts.  He had a whole pile of hard drives.  He was giggling at Andy's singing and jumping over some football team he liked. 

We prayed for families in each of the three churches.  Adrianna (in the floral shirt) translated our prayers and questions.  Andy (in the blue) shared a psalm with each family.  We all took turns praying at the houses for the families. 

The families were very open to us coming in to their front room.  They were very hospitable and made sure we had a place to sit if they had a chair for us.  Most of the families are mainly women as the men are often addicted to snuffing glue or alcohol. The women are the true backbone of the country right now. 

We had a fun day with the families of all three pastors.  We went to a beach house in a near by town and enjoyed breakfast and lunch together.  We swam in the ocean and went to an open air fish market!  It was a beautiful day of trying our best to communicate with the few words we knew of each language.  These are truly beautiful people. 

Genesis.  What a gem!  She and I were able to get to know each other better on this fun beach day. I'm thankful for her in my life.  She lives with her grandparents who are the pastors at one of the churches we are friends with.  I'm working hard to learn more Spanish so I can communicate with her more successfully. 

I enjoyed this little one so much.  She is Pastor Henry's granddaughter.  She and I hung out on the beach day and had a fun time together at the community event as well.  

Pastor Henry and his wife made amazing meals for us all week long!  I definitely gained weight.  He has already committed to cooking the food at my wedding. :)  

This is one of the families we prayed for.  They have a thriving business of cleaning out oil jugs and selling them to stores to use for other things.  They are doing very well for themselves and are committed to serving the Lord. 

This is Pastor Oscar's family.  They are sweet people who are working to help their community.   Their members are very poor as they live in a section of Acahualinca that was created due to the lake flooding.  Many of their members have dirt floors. 

Pastor Antonio's sweet family.  His wife and granddaughter are two of my favorite people in this world.

My trip to Nicaragua was beautiful.   I went with these wonderful people below.  God solidified my purpose in this world as a woman who is living to encourage other women to grow closer to God.  My purpose is to focus on helping women realize they were made on purpose, for a purpose.  I loved being in Nicaragua and I am looking forward to returning next year.