Senior High & Team Nicaragua
This year's major event was a short term mission trip to Nicaragua August 6th to 13th/09:
Please see email update from Kathleen Hallam, one of the team leaders who went to Nicaragua:
Date: August 23/09
Subject: Nicaragua Missions Trip
We want to thank our church family for the prayer and financial support that made our trip to Nicaragua possible. We had an amazing time and had opportunity to work with some truly wonderful people. We praise God for safety and strength for the team and especially for a real opening of our hearts to the people of Nicaragua.
We had a great time working with a group of about 60 junior high youth from a Christian school in Masatepe. We played games and sports, swam and did crafts. The boys and the girls had separate talks and discussion time. The boys talked about true heroes and the girls talked about true beauty. We were grateful for our translators and for the teachers and youth workers from the church in Masatepe who worked with us. Please pray that the words that were shared will be remembered by the youth and that they will know that they are esteemed by God. We gave the toiletry bags to the girls (thank you Ladies Ministry!!) and sports stuff to the boys.
We had an opportunity to visit a woman's hospital and pray with the women in the cancer ward. What a privilege. I had one woman tell me that she had no family that was able to visit her, so she was thankful to God that He sent us to be her family that day. I was so proud of our youth on the team for being willing to step outside what was comfortable and talk and pray with these ladies. We also painted the outpatients building (it was much needed!), we provided lunch for all the women in the cancer ward and the rest of the toiletry bags were given to these women. Please pray for Martha the Chaplain at the women's hospital. What an amazing lady with a huge heart for these women. She is a beautiful role model of great strength and joy in the Lord!
The next day we were painting again. This time we painted playground equipment and benches at a preschool in San Marcos. The director was so thankful for our willingness to come and help. We got a chance to play with the kids at recess (I think the best part of our day for everybody) and we gave out toothbrushes and dental floss to every child and teacher as well as leaving behind some craft supplies for the teachers. That was just the morning!! In the afternoon we had a sports camp for high school students from the Masatape school and church youth group. We had such fun playing floor hockey and baseball, swimming and creating t-shirts with these youth.We provided short devotionals at each of these activities, encouraging them in their walk with God. These youth are so important to the continuation of the work for God's kingdom in Nicaragua. Pray that they will continue to be encouraged and grow in Christ.
Our last day in Nicaragua, we visited another preschool. We were a bit surprised to discover that they were expecting a presentation from us, but the team was great and in about 5 minutes we had a plan for some songs, a skit and a story for the kids. Then we got a chance to visit in the preschool classes. I found that my Spanish is sufficient to understand 3 year old preschool - yeah! We toured the rest of the school and were impressed with what they are doing with limited resources. In the afternoon, we visited an orphanage. We were all very tired, but God gave us the strength we needed to play kickball, do some skipping and colour with sidewalk chalk with the kids. We provided some of the extra toiletry supplies and toothbrushes, the skipping ropes and a new soccer ball for the orphanage. It was wonderful to see the kids gradually come forward to play and to get an ice cream treat - and then the smiles!
And then it was time to say goodbyes to the staff at Skylark, our translators Isbel and Esmir, the youth leaders Oscar and Yigsa, and Bernie, Pastor Rip and his daughter Erin who guided us through our week.
It is hard to put into words all that I learned on this amazing journey. I was moved by the depth of love for God I witnessed in those serving God in Nicaragua. I learned to trust God in ways I had not before, because His plans are so much better than anything I can imagine. There is so much more to share and it is our hope that we'll have an opportunity in September to share more of the details of our trip. Please know that we could not have done any of this without the support of our church family. Gracias y gloris a Dios.
Kathleen Hallam
Click to listen to the Team performing their Nicaragua Team Song (in Spanish)
(or click here to download).
To learn more about Senior High missions and events, or if you would like to help out with this life-changing impact on our youth, please contact Debbie Spence, or Rob Downs.
