Nicaragua ~ March 17-24, 2012

Warning:  This post is super picture heavy!  And my camera was even stolen… imagine if I had all my pics ;)

What a week!  God blessed this trip from beginning to end and our whole team was/is extremely blessed.  It was the smoothest mission trip that I have ever been on, and that is a huge credit to Mike & Sherry Hulsey and Vickie Cline at Voice of Hope Ministries.

We left bright and early on Saturday, March 17 and took two flights before arriving in Managua, Nicaragua.  Vickie was there to meet us and we quickly left the airport, heading to Leon.  While a man was helping put our luggage on the top of our van a bird flew into him, so that was funny.  We stopped by Tip Top Chicken to have dinner and drove the rest of the way to the mission house.

On Sunday, we visited the Rose of Sharon Church and Nate got to preach.  I am always so proud of my handsome husband and in Nicaragua it was no different.  He did great!

We went to a different church that night and then the rest of the week was full of awesome ministry where we boldly said the name of Jesus Christ to a ton of people.

We went through the streets of different villages telling people to meet us for a fiesta.  After a few minutes people would start showing up and we would sing and play some games before we shared the gospel two times.  We would do the “sin box” skit for everyone before splitting up into boys, girls, and adults and sharing the gospel again.

While half of the group did the skit, the others went door to door witnessing to people along the way.  One of my favorite parts was working with our wonderful translators.  I got the opportunity to go with Juan a few times and he was an absolute joy and help to me.  I explained how encouraged I was by his boldness.  I told him that in the United States we never just go up to a stranger and ask if they are going to Heaven or hell, and that I so appreciated how he was able to do that with his fellow Nicaraguans.

Here are a few pics of the fiestas!  Hollie and I were very convincing and funny drunks…

 

 

And street evangelism…

 

On Thursday I got the opportunity to go help cook at one of the feeding centers.  It was a great morning with 4 other precious ladies.  Margaret and I didn’t end up cooking very much, but we sure did entertain about 40 kids without an interpreter for almost 2 hours. ha

We also got to go see the Pacific Ocean and it was beautiful.  I have never seen waves as big as they were there, and the sand was black.

On our fun day… we had the greatest time.  We went to a great restaurant and ate the best steaks we have ever had.  Then on to zipline through the Nicaraguan forest (didn’t see any monkeys).  Next we went to see an active volcano… which was a little stinky but skinkin awesome!  Then after some shopping and some pizza hut we were back at the mission house to pack and get ready to leave.

 

 

 

It was also great to see some old friends from Rogers.  Everyone is growing up and it was awesome to work side by side, sharing the love of Jesus.

And, it is always great to be around one of my favorite people in the world for a whole week.  We kept each other positive and she kept everything under control so I could just relax ;)

Lots of wonderful memories were made and I think we are all thinking about when the next time we can go will be.  Maybe next year?  Who knows?

By the way… this post is purely for the pictures. Look forward to others about what I learned throughout the week in Nicaragua.