25th May 2014
Day 01
The sun rose early here in Managua, Nicaragua, and so did our site team. After several delightful rounds of coffee and a hearty breakfast provided by the kitchen staff of Villa Esperanza, we were given the full-length grand tour of the Villa.
(wait a minute...that introduction sounds strangely familiar...)
Anyhow, once we were done touring the Villa Esperanza complex, we boarded a van headed to church. Coming along with us were our partners from Forward Edge, Jeff Thompson and Susie Miller, as well as the girls living here at the villa.
The church service was rather phenomenal. Personally, this writer has never been to a Latin American church service, and he felt a bit out of his element. However, the passionate worship and the spiritually-charged sermon made this writer, and the rest of the service team confident that the Spirit was active and present in the meeting.
This writer is reminded of a passage in the Acts of the Apostles, when Barnabas was sent from Jerusalem to the assembly gathered at Antioch. In this passage in chapter 11 verse 23, it said that Barnabas "saw the grace of God, and he was glad" (ESV). There was no mention of anything else: no practices, no visual details, because these were superfluous What mattered was that the "grace of God" was there for Barnabas to see, and this writer believes that our team experienced that with the service this morning.
After the service, we returned to the Villa and ate a bountiful lunch with the same company from before. There, we were introduced to the girls living in the Villa and other members of staff, including other missionaries, house-mothers (it's a full-time job here at Villa Esperanza, and it is deserving of praise) and other friends.
At around three o'clock in the afternoon, a bunch of us from the Villa went on foot to a store nearby. There, we all savored some delicious snow-cones and spent quality time with one another. The site team members who were fortunate enough to be fluent in Spanish conversed confidently with the girls, forming friendships in the process; this writer, on the other hand, struggled to deal with the girls as he tried desperately to scrape up words to no avail.
Regardless of where each site team member was with their Spanish proficiency, we felt very touched by our experiences and the time spent with the girls living at the Villa. This writer hopes that the rest of the trip would be equally fruitful, and that God would bless our efforts tomorrow.
Day 01
The sun rose early here in Managua, Nicaragua, and so did our site team. After several delightful rounds of coffee and a hearty breakfast provided by the kitchen staff of Villa Esperanza, we were given the full-length grand tour of the Villa.
(wait a minute...that introduction sounds strangely familiar...)
Anyhow, once we were done touring the Villa Esperanza complex, we boarded a van headed to church. Coming along with us were our partners from Forward Edge, Jeff Thompson and Susie Miller, as well as the girls living here at the villa.
The church service was rather phenomenal. Personally, this writer has never been to a Latin American church service, and he felt a bit out of his element. However, the passionate worship and the spiritually-charged sermon made this writer, and the rest of the service team confident that the Spirit was active and present in the meeting.
This writer is reminded of a passage in the Acts of the Apostles, when Barnabas was sent from Jerusalem to the assembly gathered at Antioch. In this passage in chapter 11 verse 23, it said that Barnabas "saw the grace of God, and he was glad" (ESV). There was no mention of anything else: no practices, no visual details, because these were superfluous What mattered was that the "grace of God" was there for Barnabas to see, and this writer believes that our team experienced that with the service this morning.
After the service, we returned to the Villa and ate a bountiful lunch with the same company from before. There, we were introduced to the girls living in the Villa and other members of staff, including other missionaries, house-mothers (it's a full-time job here at Villa Esperanza, and it is deserving of praise) and other friends.
At around three o'clock in the afternoon, a bunch of us from the Villa went on foot to a store nearby. There, we all savored some delicious snow-cones and spent quality time with one another. The site team members who were fortunate enough to be fluent in Spanish conversed confidently with the girls, forming friendships in the process; this writer, on the other hand, struggled to deal with the girls as he tried desperately to scrape up words to no avail.
Regardless of where each site team member was with their Spanish proficiency, we felt very touched by our experiences and the time spent with the girls living at the Villa. This writer hopes that the rest of the trip would be equally fruitful, and that God would bless our efforts tomorrow.
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