Good evening. Sorry for the late post...I have to adjust to your time change as ours doesn't change. Now y'all are two hours ahead of us. But we wanted to share all the amazing opportunities God gave us over the last few days!
Saturday, March 8th
We traveled to San Juan de Limay for our first English Class. God has made it possible for us to offer FREE English classes to the church community there and a few others from the community. I think God knew how much I was missing teaching and opened this door for us. There are two reasons this is an awesome opportunity for the people in this community... 1. It offers free classes which they might not receive otherwise because of the cost. The English classes will help them achieve so much more especially open more job or career opportunities for them. 2. It will also help us to teach them about God through English. Each week we are teaching them a Bible verse in English.
We are so excited to see how God uses us in this particular ministry. Pastor Guillermo had said there were 15 people signed up to come and we ended up having 23 if we counted correctly. Please pray for this ministry as we plan to continue it for a few months. It will be every Saturday for at least 1 hour.
Sunday, March 9th
We traveled to a city named Somotillo after English class on Saturday. On Sunday, we visited with a small church. Typically, on a Sunday morning they have 10 children but Sunday they had 22 (25 if you count our crazies). The pastor, Pastor Henry, had invited the entire community adults and children. They were disappointed that only the children came but we were excited to be able to teach all the children.
The children's church lesson was on the days of creation. We focused on how each thing that God created was good and beautiful. We talked about how we should make sure to take care of all the things that God created. We also talked about how God rested on the 7th day, and it wasn't just about sleeping. We were able to provide a craft wheel to color and help them to remember the lesson for the day to share with others. I was excited to see Hannah in action on Sunday. She helped with the game and even sang the song in Spanish and did the motions with me.
Sunday evening, we were invited to a different church to give testimony and share about our family and ministry. We shared with them all the things most of you know about how we came to the call of being missionaries in Nicaragua and how God has used us to tell people about Christ. We also shared that being a missionary and/or sharing the gospel isn't always easy. We shared Proverbs 3:5-6 with them as this was our families focus verse last year during our first year in Nicaragua and how much of an encouragement it was to us. One thing that we saw Sunday night was Josiah kneeling at the altar. To see our 8-year-old son on his knees praying to our amazing creator in heaven was a huge blessing. It opens your eyes as well...if an 8-year-old can take his burdens and prayer requests to the Lord on the altar than we all should too. We should follow his example and lay it all down at the cross. Boy did this make our hearts proud!!
Monday, March 10
This was a new opportunity for us. We lead a class on children's ministry training. I am so thankful for all the people that have poured into Ryan and I over the years and all the leaders we have had over the years within our children and youth ministries because all those experiences helped us to create this training. We spoke with over 30 people about how to make their children's ministry successful. We discussed what the Bible says about our children...Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." and Ephesians 6:4 "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." We provided for them a couple different curriculum options, ways to structure their schedule of teaching, and ways to pull children into the church and keep them interested. We feel this training was a great opportunity for all who attended.
In the next post, we will discuss a little more about the children's ministries here in Nicaragua and maybe how you can help.
That's it for now...I apologize for such a long post, but we had a jam packed three days!! Check out all the great pictures from this weekend below.
We are so thankful for all your prayers and encouragement. Keep them coming and we will continue to pray for all of you as well.
