All Things Nicaragua!

It’s been two weeks since we’ve arrived in Granada and WOW, Nicaragua is beautiful. We arrived here late at night and woke up to the most insane views and about 15 dogs excited to greet us. The base sits right next to a volcano and is surrounded by tropical fruit trees and so much green! (See pictures below!) I live on a 70-acre farm with an organization called REAP Granada. I went on REAP’s website to find the explanation of the acronym because it’s so good: 

Restore relationship with God first and then others;
Educate on applying God’s Word to every aspect of life;
Activate faith through following Christ’s example by loving and serving others;
Perpetuate the ministry by raising up leaders to carry forward God’s work with and for our neighbors in Granada.

REAP’s focus is loving people so they have many different ministries! We as a team (my team has 9 people!) get to participate in prayer walking, micro-churches, the dump, hospital prayer, farm work, and kids ministry. With each of these ministries we get a translator which is a huge blessing. The days here consist of early mornings and early nights because we get up at 5 am everyday! We spend time with God alone from 5-6 am then meet as a squad to pray together at 6am. This has been both hard but so sweet to build as a habit. Hard because I’m not an early-riser and sweet because I get to watch the sun rise at 5:30 am! 

My favorite ministry so far has been prayer walking! There’s a neighborhood just outside of the base that covers this huge hill and on Thursdays we get to hike up it and visit locals. People here extremely nice and quick to welcome you into their homes. A lot are new believers and need encouragement to continue growing in their faith, but some are desperately in need of the hope of the Gospel. I’ve been praying for the Lord to give me his heart for the his children here and he’s starting to do that! This past week my team had the opportunity to pray for a family who had a family member pass away that same day. We got invited to the casket viewing well as the funeral procession. Being apart of a new cultural experience like that was something I’ll never forget. In Nicaragua when someone dies, that same night, everyone who knew them gathers together with coffee and bread to celebrate their life. Stories and memories of their life are told all night till morning! The next day my team joined the procession to the cemetery. It was a 2-mile walk behind a truck in the heat of the day. I struggled to feel like I wasn’t an intrusion on the family’s funeral even though they were honored by my teams presence. The Lord is teaching me that love is so much more than words, it’s about showing up for people. 

Another ministry we are a part of takes place at the dump. Families make a living there by separating plastic and glass from the rest of the trash. Doing this earns them about $40 US dollars a year which is insane to me. For the past 10 years REAP has been seeming teams to host a micro-church at the dump. We get to prepare a message and serve a meal. The most recent time at the dump we thought to write out Bible verses to hand out. Thinking nothing of it, I began to pass the verses out to people as they ate their food. One woman’s face lit up with the joy of the Lord as she read her verse. She began to show her friends! Another man, when I handed him a verse, was extremely thankful. He started talking to me in Spanish about how much he appreciated the message that day. I asked him in my broken Spanish if I could pray for him and he gladly accepted. Even though I prayed in English, he was touched by the gesture. He said after I prayed that God hears and understands all of our prayers, regardless the language. This got me thinking about how much I rely on words to love people and receive love. This is a big thing God is teaching me at the moment! 

My time in Nicaragua has been filled with things I never thought I’d experience. For example: 

-Experiencing how badly the enemy doesn’t want us in Nicaragua. Government officials did not want to let my squad into their country in case we were coming to share the Gospel! By the grace of God, we were able to get in. 

-Our only form of transportation besides walking to ministry is riding in the truck bed. We cram as many people into it as we can with people standing in the middle! It’s been my favorite way to see the city of Granada. 

-The pipes here can’t take toilet paper, so you throw used toilet paper in the trash instead of flushing it. This was hard to get used to!

-One day my team cut grass with machetes for 3 hours and it was the most physically taxing thing! 

-There are dogs, cats, chickens, horses, and cows that roam the streets wherever you go

-Watching babies drink coffee! 

I hope you enjoyed this compilation of my time so far here! It has been hard, sweet, and everything in between. 

PRAYER REQUESTS

-Ethan broke his arm last week playing soccer. Pray for speedy healing!

-The days are LONG here and lots of people (including myself) are getting sick. Pray for supernatural energy and a willingness to seek the Lord in all that we do. 

-For me personally, pray that I’d see more and more of God’s heart for the people here. That I’d learn to thrive in the uncomfortable.

-Love, Julianna! (That’s what I’m called here!)

This was the funeral procession 

Here is the view of the volcano at the base!

My team on the way to prayer walk! 

Machete team!

One of the sunsets here!

We get fed a meal at the micro church we visit every Thursday! Meet Madilyn and Baylee from my team 🙂