Nicaragua 2010

I am going to be stepping away from Mackenzie's life and focus on the missions trip that Travis and I took in July. As most of you know Travis went on the missions trip last year and I being close to my due date had to stay home =(. This year we still struggled with what to do knowing that going on this trip would take us away from Mackenzie for 10 days. On top of that it was to another country. We prayed about it a lot and felt that God was leading us to go and we were able to have some friends of ours keep her. She did well and had a great time. I have always had a strong passion for missions and I believe Travis does as well. On top of that Travis was able to take and use his talent and what he is passionate about and work on locksmithing while he was there. He took two of the men that worked on the compound and worked side by side with them showing them how to open cars, re key buildings and unlock them, also replace locks. It was amazing to me to see how God works in situations like this. Neither person could speak any english and Travis spoke very little spanish and yet they still accomplished everything that they wanted too. On top of that Travis will continue to work with them and take trips there to help them start up a business there as well.
I had a lot of opportunities to help in different areas throughout the week. The different things that we wanted to accomplish while we were there was the following
Build homes
Have vbs (vacation bible school)
Baseball clinics along with a tournament at the end of the week
Pastor's conference
different speaking opportunities at the local schools
When we go there we usually stay in the compound which is a gated besides going back and forth from church. Our ministry time focused on the orphans in the compound.
Our typical day went something like this
7:30 breakfast
8 am porch time our focus was on Philippians
9 u had three different options construction, go out to the schools and the pastors conference
11:30 -12:30 clean up
12:30 lunch
after lunch til about 2:30 you prepared for your afternoon activities
2:30-you either did vbs or baseball clinic
4-6 free time with orphans
6 dinner
7 porch time ( we gave our testimonies) it was a great experience getting to know my brothers and sisters in Christ
The evening time was usually free but some nights we had church and friday night we had a party with the kids. We had to learn to be flexible because this is considered the rainy seasons and I think it rained everyday but one. A couple of days it rained 30 mins and it was done. The other days it rained all morning and we had to change our plans. You could def. feel Gods presence and Satan was certainly busy as well. In the 5 yrs that our church has gone no one has ever gotten sick. We had two people that really got sick and had to go to the local clinic. God was the healer and Satan was defeated. We also had about a half full of people that got sick I think there stomach just didn't adjust to the changes so well.

This year we had the awesome opportunity to minister to the local community. I feel very honored that the pastor that we work with trust us with that responsibility. We are the first and only group that has ever done this. With the vbs we did that for 3 days in the afternoon and had around 80 to 100 kids each day. For the baseball clinics they had 75-120 kids show up between the 3 days and on the day of the tournament there was a 100 kids just in the age of 9-12. The gospel was presented at the end. When I think back on the trip I am so amazed and touch by the lives of those that dedicate there lives everyday to win these people for Christ. The sacrifices that they make are unbelievable and yet they are happier than most people are who have "everything". I will never forget those kids. I pray that God gives me more opportunities to go back. I feel like I could say so much more. Thank you for all of your prayers and support.