After two weeks here in Nicaragua, the most valuable lesson I have learned is that every aspect of Christian life is a ministry. For some reason I was under the impression that our "ministry time" was from 12-5, after our morning teaching and
before dinner. God has much more impromptu timing than this. Here are some encounters of God's spontaneous !--
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-->use of his servants.
On Thursday afternoon our team went to El Puente, the AIM base here in Granada. It is about a 10 minute walk from our house and we go there often for our morning teachings. Thursday afternoon we went to El Puente solely to do yard work. Through I truly don't mind raking, weeding and playing with machetes, that was not God's plan for me as I had anticipated. Instead, a 14 year old boy named Michael and I struck up a friendship. He was at El Puente to receive guitar lessons from one of the men who work there. After kicking a soccer ball around for 20 minutes and exhausting all of my Spanish conversational skills, we started playing the guitar. I am eagerly learning to play the guitar and have mastered about 4 chords now. Michael played a few worship songs and we sang in Spanish. Then he taught me "Ven," or "Come, now is the time to worship." After we played the guitar for a while and I asked him if he would like to come to Young Life that night. Sure enough he came. My kind and understanding team was happy with the friendship struck between Michael and I that they did not even mind my lack of physical labor that day. Its great to be surrounded by a community of believers anxious to build relationships and lead others to Christ.
Yesterday was our day off. We had nothing at all scheduled, which was a blessing to have the chance to just chill. In an effort to relax, I went to watch the boys on our team play soccer with some Nica friends. I had no intentions of playing soccer or doing anything except sitting in the shade on the 100 degree day. However, when we got to the field there was this cute and energetic little boy that caught my eye. Nicalsi is 7 years old and just a bundle of energy. (His picture is on this page) He and I played soccer, baseball with a rock and stick and just about any game he could think of for an hour and a half while the soccer game was going on. Nicalsi didn't have any family at the park and only had younger siblings. It was a blessing for me to be able to show the love of God to such a beautiful child.
God never ceases to amaze me with His plans and "Its fun to be in God's game" as my dad always says :) Thank you all for your ongoing prayers and support. Peace be with you all.
