If you read my previous blog, you’ll find out I did in fact live in Nicaragua for a month. Crazy. I know. I’ll tell y’all a little bit about it.
Nicaragua was an amazing country. We stayed at a place called REAP ministries run by an American couple named Jen and Scott! They were great! The property was this huge farm. There were lime trees and plantain trees and moringa trees!
A lot happened in Nicaragua. My parents came for the Parent Vision trip. We went to a volcano and swam in a lagoon. We made amazing friends with the locals.
For ministry, we did prayer walking for one half of the day. And farm work for the other half.
Prayer walking was probably one of my favorite ministries on the race. What that looked like was our teams going out into the town that we lived in and going door to door, asking if we could pray for people for them. The houses in Pantanal (the town we stayed in) were mostly made out of tin and scrap wood. The area we were in was pretty poor and most people were out of jobs because of the recent crisis that has just ended. But almost every person at every door we knocked on invited us into their home with open arms.
One of my favorite memories from prayer walking was when my parents went prayer walking with me and our friend/translator named Nelson!! We were walking down a dirt ally way and we come across this house with a little old lady sitting inside. We yell “buenos!” And she’s sitting in the back in a little chair. She said “buenos!” back to us. Her name is Rosa and she was about 4’11”! She was so cute and tiny! We asked what she needed prayer for and she said that her knee has been hurting for a while and her and her husband were the caretakers for their grandsons. So we prayed for her and talked for a little bit and left.
THEN, a few weeks later, after my parents left, we went prayer walking as a team, and we went back to the same neighborhood with Nelson. I had almost forgotten that Rosa lived in this area, but Nelson remembered! So we walked down to her house and she welcomed us with open arms again. She led us in her house and one of her grandsons was laying on the bed. We asked if he was okay, and she said that he had gotten into a pretty bad bike wreck and had been sleeping ever since. We figured out that he probably had a concussion so we brought down Ashley, our squad leader who is also a nurse and she told the grandfather what to do so that the concussion doesn’t turn into something worse.
While they were talking, me and Rosa sat outside in some plastic chairs. Rosa seemed very overwhelmed. She was very old and she had all of this responsibility. So I asked in broken Spanish if she was okay. And boy did that open the flood gates. She started talking super fast in Spanish and crying and pointing everywhere. And I just sat there and listened. She calmed down but still kept talking to me. I had no clue what she was saying but I would not my head and give the occasional “sí” or “no se”. And she would just keep talking!
This was one of my favorite times because the Lord taught me that sometimes people just need someone to listen to them! She knew I couldn’t understand but knew that I had the Holy Spirit inside me and was willing to sit with her. He taught me that as a Christ follower, we look different to people. They notice something different in us and that’s what Rosa saw that day. She knew the Lord was dwelling inside me and that’s why she kept talking!! It was a really sweet moment. Very encouraging and funny at the same time!!
Nicaragua was super good but also super hard! Another blog coming soon about those times!!
Thanks for reading!!
Eliza
