*Post three of my Nicaragua2012 Posts.*
*This
is partially for you, and partially so I have a place to write it all
so I remember it. So pardon all the horrific details.*
At this point, you may be thinking, "Wait. He's already at the end! How can he have a third post??"
Well, this post is just for a few stories that I've thought of. So let the stories begin!
1. Imma start out with a good one.You may know Nathan Arndt. You probably don't. Regardless, this story is amazing. Picture this:
It's day four. It's 6:30 in the morning. I'm still in bed, half asleep and honestly I'm amazed I have any recollection of this. Riley Robbins is walking around. He cringes, and says something about the painful blister on his foot. Nathan, out of the blue, says "Hey, you want me to pray for it?" Riley says sure, so right then and there, at 6:30 in the morning, Nathan kneels down, and says a prayer of healing on Riley's foot.
Moment of honesty, I doubted. I thought, why would God spend His time, just so Riley could get out of a little pain? But later, Riley's is asked about it, and he says "I haven't felt it all day......but in a good way!"
2. This is gonna seem really shallow after that one, but whatever.
Thing is, down there, they don't get the luxury of lawnmowers, weed whackers, or anything of the sort. But they still need to keep a little bit of landscaping! So how do they do it??
Machetes.
They sent four of us guys out, to see what we could do. We couldn't. I actually thought we were doing decent! It only took like 15 swipes to get a tiny patch of weeds down! Then a Nicaraguan lady comes out to show us how it's done. With a piece of bread and a cup full of juice in one hand, she takes a Machete, and in THREE SWIPES gets what it took us twenty to get. Talk about an ego buster!
We were even less adept when they started throwing them. Yes, you read that right. They grabbed a few machetes, and started throwing them and getting them to stick into trees. I actually got the most out of any of us Americans! Which was two. But neither of them was as impressive as theirs! And they did it over...and over...and over again!
3. Obviously, there are people who live at the place we stayed. They prepared food, and cleaned our rooms while we were gone. Similar to a hotel. Except the food was FLIPPING INCREDIBLE! I would live there just for the food!!!
Anyway, one day we get back, and there are two piles of clothes in the middle of the rooms. I realize after look for a few seconds, that it is a bunch of our clothes! A few seconds later, I realize that its the stuff I already wore, and got all dirty! That's right. Those ladies, out of their own free will, hand washed all of our dirty clothes. Shirts, socks, and even underwear! I wouldn't even do that for myself!
Once again, I just wanna thank anyone who supported me, through either money or prayer! You don't know what a blessing you were!
So there you have it. That's the end. Until next year that is!
Monday, August 27, 2012
Nicaragua2012 (Part 2)
*Post two of my Nicaragua2012 Posts.*
*This is partially for you, and partially so I have a place to write it all so I remember it. So pardon all the horrific details.*
OK. So you may remember, when we left off, I had come back from the beach. The next four days were our designated "work days". I'll begin there...
If you want the most basic overview, "We built two houses."
For a more detailed description, I'll just write what I wrote in my journal after day 3:
"It's been a ton of fun. You never get overworked, because there's not enough work for everyone, so you can easily take breaks. But don't think it's easy! I wake up every day more tired, and super sore!
People are so helpful! Sammy spends the entire time giving herself to all the little Nicaraguan children, and also is constantly offering to bring people their waters bottles! Everyday, Tara goes out of her way to cover all of the backpacks, so the when it rains, (which it does everyday here) none of our stuff will be ruined! No other specifics, but everyone gets whatever you need, and if you need a break, they jump at the chance to get back to work!
At some points throughout the day, I just spend some time with the little boys. We just run, fight, growl, and tickle (Yes. I did say tickle.) Even though we aren't doing anything, they still have so much fun, and the glee on their faces is amazing to watch!
I also love watching the teenage Nicaraguans. I can't understand much of what they say, but i feel a connection. We're just a few teenage guys, out here building to help some people out!"
So there you have it. That was my play-by-play, in the midst of the action.
On Thursday night, we went to Church. The preacher was another visitor, and he had a ton of great stuff to say about worship.
Here's some of my notes:
Ephesians 2:10
God designed us to worship Him through good works.EVERYONE WORSHIPS SOMETHING
What do you worship?
What is worship?
Singing?
Praying?
Praising?
All three of these, but more! Worship is doing what the the Holy Spirit leads us to do, and its from
your heart!
Whatever you do, do it for God!
Romans 3:23
Worshiping is reflecting the glory of the Master.
Love like He loved, Grace like He graced, and Forgive like He forgave.
God is most Glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him!
You have to KEEP your heart close to God.
You don't plan to fall out of love. It comes from not continually coming to Him.
Worship: an outward expression of your inner love.
Do you know Him? If not, you can't truly worship Him.
Psalm 139:14
You will never be able to worship God if you think He made a mistake in you.
And that's the conclusion! Now on to post numero tres!
*This is partially for you, and partially so I have a place to write it all so I remember it. So pardon all the horrific details.*
OK. So you may remember, when we left off, I had come back from the beach. The next four days were our designated "work days". I'll begin there...
If you want the most basic overview, "We built two houses."
 | |||||
| They started lifting before I could get to the side... |
"It's been a ton of fun. You never get overworked, because there's not enough work for everyone, so you can easily take breaks. But don't think it's easy! I wake up every day more tired, and super sore!
People are so helpful! Sammy spends the entire time giving herself to all the little Nicaraguan children, and also is constantly offering to bring people their waters bottles! Everyday, Tara goes out of her way to cover all of the backpacks, so the when it rains, (which it does everyday here) none of our stuff will be ruined! No other specifics, but everyone gets whatever you need, and if you need a break, they jump at the chance to get back to work!
 |
| Putting in the floor boards |
I also love watching the teenage Nicaraguans. I can't understand much of what they say, but i feel a connection. We're just a few teenage guys, out here building to help some people out!"
So there you have it. That was my play-by-play, in the midst of the action.
On Thursday night, we went to Church. The preacher was another visitor, and he had a ton of great stuff to say about worship.
Here's some of my notes:
Ephesians 2:10
God designed us to worship Him through good works.EVERYONE WORSHIPS SOMETHING
What do you worship?
What is worship?
Singing?
Praying?
Praising?
All three of these, but more! Worship is doing what the the Holy Spirit leads us to do, and its from
your heart!
Whatever you do, do it for God!
Romans 3:23
Worshiping is reflecting the glory of the Master.
Love like He loved, Grace like He graced, and Forgive like He forgave.
God is most Glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him!
You have to KEEP your heart close to God.
You don't plan to fall out of love. It comes from not continually coming to Him.
Worship: an outward expression of your inner love.
Do you know Him? If not, you can't truly worship Him.
Psalm 139:14
You will never be able to worship God if you think He made a mistake in you.
And that's the conclusion! Now on to post numero tres!
Nicaragua2012 (Part 1)
*Post one of my Nicaragua2012 Posts. For the rest of the story read the next few posts!*
*This is partially for you, and partially so I have a place to write it all so I remember it. So pardon all the horrific details.*
If you didn't know, I went to Nicaragua (in Central America) a few weeks ago!
It was an incredible experience, I learned a lot, and I will for sure be going next year!
We first got started back in January/February, when we got to know who all was going, and then we had 3 other meetings between that and the trip. I had so much help from people paying for the trip. I had to raise $2100 dollars (if you include my Chicago trip), and I got it completely paid for by peoples fabulous donations!
So the day of the trip arrives. We have our packing party, go over final details, and head home for a few hours before we leave. Some people slept, I on the other hand watch The Batman movies, and an episode of The Walking Dead. :D
Then we head back, take the 2 hour drive to Chicago, and fly from there to Miami, and then to Managua, Nicaragua. (That's fun to say!) We spend the night in a hotel there. It consists of tons of pizza, even more pool-dunking, an hour long talk with Riley and Jeffrey about awesome movies, and my headphones disappearing overnight. Then we take a smaller propeller plane (a 46-seater) to Puerta (Port) Cabezas. Surprisingly that was my favorite flight! I sat next to Austin, and played solitaire, war, and chess. And then we were there.
The night we got there, all we did was play with the kids. Me and Brennan were chasing around a little boy and girl, letting them go chasing them some more...and so on. We also sat around for a bit, and learned this weird hand pounding rhythm thingy. (I forgot that one, but I learned another one later which I remember!)
Day 2:
We went to Church this day! It was a flipping awesome experience! There were three different languages being sung, but even if they were singing in one of the other languages, I could still understand, and connect in my own. It just really showed how Jesus isn't American. He is universal. We so often think of Him as our own, and this was just awesome to see how much He did in the lives of people who wouldn't understand a word of our English bible, but have there own way of sharing the Good News. And then we got to hear a great message from our very own John Keim, in English, and translated to Spanish. Their services are long! Johny even had a short message, and the service was still two hours long! But I wouldn't have missed any of it for the world!
After church, we took all of the kids to the beach. It's Nicaragua, so of course it started raining as soon as we got there. But after the initial ten seconds of disappointment, (and after I covered Katie and I's bags with my poncho) everyone started having even more fun! Some people were playing beach-rain-soccer, others were building sand castles, and others (me) were having an all out war, dunking, throwing sand, etc. No casualties though! One little girl kept throwing sand at me, so i would scare her, or throw sand at her or something. At the end we shook hands, which I thought meant we were cool. But then she threw sand at me again!! What a jerk...haha
Gotta love those children...(but boy are they tiring!)
Well, I'd say thats a good place to end this one. You can find the next one here:
*This is partially for you, and partially so I have a place to write it all so I remember it. So pardon all the horrific details.*
If you didn't know, I went to Nicaragua (in Central America) a few weeks ago!
It was an incredible experience, I learned a lot, and I will for sure be going next year!
We first got started back in January/February, when we got to know who all was going, and then we had 3 other meetings between that and the trip. I had so much help from people paying for the trip. I had to raise $2100 dollars (if you include my Chicago trip), and I got it completely paid for by peoples fabulous donations!
So the day of the trip arrives. We have our packing party, go over final details, and head home for a few hours before we leave. Some people slept, I on the other hand watch The Batman movies, and an episode of The Walking Dead. :D
Then we head back, take the 2 hour drive to Chicago, and fly from there to Miami, and then to Managua, Nicaragua. (That's fun to say!) We spend the night in a hotel there. It consists of tons of pizza, even more pool-dunking, an hour long talk with Riley and Jeffrey about awesome movies, and my headphones disappearing overnight. Then we take a smaller propeller plane (a 46-seater) to Puerta (Port) Cabezas. Surprisingly that was my favorite flight! I sat next to Austin, and played solitaire, war, and chess. And then we were there.
The night we got there, all we did was play with the kids. Me and Brennan were chasing around a little boy and girl, letting them go chasing them some more...and so on. We also sat around for a bit, and learned this weird hand pounding rhythm thingy. (I forgot that one, but I learned another one later which I remember!)
Day 2:
We went to Church this day! It was a flipping awesome experience! There were three different languages being sung, but even if they were singing in one of the other languages, I could still understand, and connect in my own. It just really showed how Jesus isn't American. He is universal. We so often think of Him as our own, and this was just awesome to see how much He did in the lives of people who wouldn't understand a word of our English bible, but have there own way of sharing the Good News. And then we got to hear a great message from our very own John Keim, in English, and translated to Spanish. Their services are long! Johny even had a short message, and the service was still two hours long! But I wouldn't have missed any of it for the world!
After church, we took all of the kids to the beach. It's Nicaragua, so of course it started raining as soon as we got there. But after the initial ten seconds of disappointment, (and after I covered Katie and I's bags with my poncho) everyone started having even more fun! Some people were playing beach-rain-soccer, others were building sand castles, and others (me) were having an all out war, dunking, throwing sand, etc. No casualties though! One little girl kept throwing sand at me, so i would scare her, or throw sand at her or something. At the end we shook hands, which I thought meant we were cool. But then she threw sand at me again!! What a jerk...haha
Gotta love those children...(but boy are they tiring!)
Well, I'd say thats a good place to end this one. You can find the next one here:
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