This morning our team enjoyed a great Nicaraguan spin on the “all-American favorite”, pancakes! I know that some of our team members were very thankful for this. The food has been very good in general, although I feel like we have not had too many authentic dishes yet. One good thing is that no one has gotten sick from anything that we have eaten. I am beginning to aquire a taste for one of the staple foods in Nicaragua, platanos. It seems like there are more than a dozen ways to prepare them: boiled, fried, baked, etc.
I think that everyone adjusted pretty well to our living arrangements and got accustomed to the swing of things in Jinotega. The buzz of the market outside the church was full throttle at six in the morning, making it useless to even try to sleep in.
I believe that the language barrier has been a challenge for most of us. It places such a limit on communication and our ability to express our hearts to the people, which can be quite frustrating. Thankfully compassion does not need words to speak.
Kenton did a great job of planning this trip by working with the church to accomplish our goal of being with the people and for the people. With the people means to show compassion by doing things for them and helping them receive some of their basic needs; it’s like a bandage. For the people means to show justice by trying to get them out of the unfortunate situations; it’s more long-term. To do this, Kenton made a visit to Jinotega in March to plan how our team could best assist the church in serving and addressing problems in the community. Kenton brought back three main project ideas for our team: working in a hospital for babies, a jail, and with drug addicts and alcoholics. We were able to choose the project we wanted to work on and then planned and prepared for the next 3 months. The idea behind what each project team is doing is geared toward working with the church in something that they can continue to be involved in when we leave.
The first project that our group is addressing is the hospital. Leading up this project is Tyson, and the team consists of Amy, Amanda, and Nikki. They have planned a lot of ways to help and minister to mothers and their newborn babies at the hospital. One thing in particular that they have prepared for is to provide roll up mattresses for mothers to sleep on, as the hospital lacks good accommodations for mothers who often come from surrounding towns to have their babies.
The second project is the jail whose team consists of the leader Mike, Jeb, Jacquelyn, and Christy. The jail team is planning on doing a lot of nasty clean up and then painting to improve the conditions of the jail. They will serve meals to the inmates and show the JESUS Film—Yay!! Also, they are going to try to start a jail ministry that hopefully the church in Jinotega will continue after we are gone.
The final project focuses on homeless alcoholics and drug addicts. This is the team that I am a part of along with Joanna, Janna, and our leader Zac. After assessing the problem of addiction and homelessness in Jinotega, we came to the conclusion that the program Celebrate Recovery (developed by Saddleback church and used around the world) could be effective in helping people to not only overcome addiction but also come to know Christ. We have prepared to teach church leaders and volunteers about the program and equip them with resources to begin their own Celebrate Recovery.
Today is the first day of project work! I am sure that each team is very excited to begin working on what we have been preparing for over the last few months. To being our project day we met in the church and had a time of worship with the people that would be helping us through the week in our different projects. Then we split up into our groups and were joined by the members of the church who were interested in our projects. I’m sure that it was very reassuring for each project team to see these people come out to help them. It means so much that all of our volunteers are taking time out of their week and putting their own lives on hold to be with us and support what we are doing!
Many sweet older ladies from the church joined the hospital group to help with the mothers and babies. While Tyson and Pastor Julian left to meet with one of the hospital administrators, the girls on the team received valuable input from the Nicaraguan ladies. It seems like the hospital volunteers are very eager to help with the project, I am sure they will be a lot of fun for the hospital team. The team also listened to the nurses at the hospital about what they could do to serve there, “just make it brighter” is what they were told. So the team spent part of the day shopping with the ladies from the church and buying paint supplies to bring more life to the rooms at the hospital. From what the hospital team members had to share it is clear that visiting the hospital has left an impact on them and that they see a great opportunity to minster and serve there.
The prison team also had a very good day of beginning their project work at the jail, but they didn’t go because they did anything wrong (ha ha). Mike expressed confidence that one of their volunteers from the church was very interested in their project and would most likely take over leadership of the jail ministry after our group leaves. I was shocked when the team reported the conditions of the jail, and especially that there were only four jail cells for thirty seven people. Luckily, this is a hard working team that is dedicated and determined to improve those conditions. The team brought the prisoners lunch, made by the pastor’s wife and her business, and plan to do so for the next two days that they are there. They commented on being a little nervous about the police guards watching everything that they do- particularly about a close call of almost bringing in plastic skewers, spoons, and forks with meals into the prison. While they were eating, Mike had the awesome opportunity to share his testimony with about a dozen young detainees, and then Jacquelyn was able to lead them in a salvation prayer. While riding in the back of Eliezel’s pick-up in search of project supplies, this team experienced the adventures of Jinotega’s roads. A bridge was under construction and the detour, not just going around the block or a different way, was to by-pass the bridge and just drive under it through a little river. They made it through the water okay, but it was the getting up the other side of the river bank that became an issue as the truck began to slide backwards into the river. On the second attempt Eliezel gave it more gas and they made it up alright. You never know what kind of an adventure you’ll have around here! I am so excited for this team and the incredible ways that God can use them to minister to the people in the jail!
Unlike the other groups that got to explore Jinotega as they visited their project sites, the addiction team had an intense day of staying right at the church and listening to and working with our volunteers. We had four volunteers, three members of the church and the pastor of the other Nazarene church in Jinotega. We got to spend almost the entire morning getting to know them and their passion for helping others to recover from addition; something that they all had some form of personal experience in dealing with. Introducing the program to them was a little challenging because small groups and step studies are not something they are culturally familiar with. However, our team leader Zac was on top of everything and prepared to really take them through what Celebrate Recovery is and how it has been effective. In the afternoon we introduced team development and the leadership roles in the Celebrate Recovery program. It is evident that this project is something that the church is passionate about and that the community is in need of, however, it is also clear that on this trip our team may only be able to resource the church with and plant seeds about Celebrate Recovery, rather than being able to see it actually get started.
After dinner we carried on the excitement of beginning our projects by showing the JESUS film. Just down the street from the church was a large empty lot that served as the bus station. It was here, in the middle of what is sort of the downtown market, where we would show the JESUS film. However, before we could show the film, the lot really needed to be cleaned up. With trash everywhere and dogs sniffing at the trash, we got geared up and tried our best to make a dent in the amount of trash in the area where people would be sitting to watch the film. Meanwhile, the rest of our group was busy setting up the equipment to show the JESUS film. When we were almost ready to begin, people started showing up. Our group carried pews from inside the church down the street for people to sit on. I think that there were nearly a hundred kids and adults, though maybe there were more as many people watched from across the street or houses above the shops. As we were encountering difficulty with getting the film to play, an older girl from the church grabbed Joanna and me and started leading us down the street. We somewhat had the idea that we were going down the street to invite more people to the film, but the language barrier made things very difficult and I was getting pretty nervous after turning our second corner. Eventually though we made it to her friend’s house, and then after inviting her along made our way back to where we were showing the film. The technical difficulties continued. Several were trying to make it work while others circled up and prayed for God’s hand to fix the sound and the DVD. We finally heard the film projecting the story of Jesus! What an opportunity for us to give God the glory for His answer to prayer rather than to receive the credit for thinking up a way to fix the machine!
After the film Pastor Julian and Kenton had an alter call and our group joined them to pray with the people who wanted to accept Christ. We were able to place gospel-sharing booklets into the hands of almost everyone who was there, including the homeless men across the street. It was so cool to be a part of the JESUS film ministry and see people brought to Christ through it!
All around, today was a great day that I think really set the tone for our projects and the momentum that we hope the church will carry on when we leave. After being separated into our project teams during the day it was great o get back together in our big group and show the JESUS film this evening. So far it seems like we have been capturing our goal of being with the people and for the people! Great work everyone!
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