Women's Bible Study

Hello there,

I know it has been a long while since I’ve posted a blog, but I hope to keep you all updated more often!

Here’s a quick look at our group of ladies at our last Bible study. We continue to meet at each other’s house twice a month on Saturdays. This year we are learning the names of God. This coming Saturday we’ll be meeting at Dona Carla’s house, who lives next door, to learn about God as the Lord of Hosts. That’s one of my personal favorites! Jaqueline will be teaching.

Pray for us to have teachable hearts for the word of God, and to continually grow in Him.

While On Furlough

“Then the apostles gathered to Jesus and told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught. And He said to them, ‘Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.’”

-Mark 6:30-31

I love this passage of when the disciples had come back after being sent out by Jesus to preach and minister in the nearby cities and villages. They had come and spent time with Him, telling Him about their experiences, and He listened to them. That’s really sweet to me. I wonder what kind of stories they had for Him and what that conversation was like. I wonder how He responded. Then He invited them to “Come aside by themselves to rest”. I love that! His invitation to rest with Him alone. That’s what they needed. It reminds me of my own need as I come back from a season of ministry in Nicaragua. Getting away for a time from the busyness of ministry gives me the opportunity to spend extra time with Him, resting and spending more time in His word and in prayer. Then I’m strengthened and prepared for the upcoming season.

While I’m here, I’ll be going to a family reunion which I’m really excited for. We used to do them annually on my mom’s side, but we haven’t had one in years. I’ll post some pictures when that comes.

Aside from that, I spend as much time as I can with friends and family, and church family, too! Enjoying those relationships encourages and strengthens me while I’m here. And as God leads, I like to be available to serve in my home church wherever there’s a need.

Baptisms

Every year during Holy Week, our church group makes a trip to El Crucero, a river about 20 minutes away from us. The last couple of years the time was used to baptize those who had come to that decision in their walk with the Lord. This year was the same! Five people were baptized. Three of them were from our youth group. It is always a blessing to see people take that step of faith in the Lord. Pray for them all as they continue to grow and remain faithful.

Their names are Jonathan, Alexandra, Vilma (Mother), Vilma (Daughter), and Sara

A Meeting over Coffee

Yesterday, Jaqueline, Victoria and I got together for our monthly Youth Center meeting to talk about the ministry and what God is showing each of us for it. We love to go two either two places, El Rancho de Café which is where we went, or Palacio de Café. They are two popular coffee houses here in town that are a few years old. When I first came here, the only place you could go to buy coffee was in the marketplace at the comedores, just brewed coffee which is still really good. But now we have Cappuccino’s and Espresso’s, and If you know me, you’d know that makes me pretty happy.

Anyway, I thought I’d let you get a peek inside. It’s right across from the hospital where I visit, and also connected to an ice cream shop that the same owners of the coffee house runs. If you come and visit, we’ll take you there! :)

Radio Roof Update

As promised, I’ve included some pictures of the progress being made on the Radio building roof. Moises and Danny have been working on it for the last couple of weeks. These last few days in particular have been nice and sunny which has made it possible for them to get much done. It’s difficult and dangerous when they have to do welding, using certain machinery while it rains. Thank God for the sun!

A big thank you again to all who have supported the roofing projects over the years, and have just faithfully supported this ministry as a whole! May God bless you and continue to lead you in your giving!

CC Nueva Guinea Fundraiser

Hello there!

Yesterday the local church here, CC Nueva Guinea, held its second major fundraiser in order to raise funds to repair the church roof and the church cafe fellowship area which are extremely damaged. Even though it rained, people were coming out to buy breakfast, lunch and even some clothing items.

It has been an ongoing effort for them since August when they did their first fundraising event. Ever since then, many of the ladies have volunteered to put their own resources together and sell lunches after Sunday morning services. Keep them in prayer as they will be continuing this work until they reach their goal. They’re doing a great job!

*If you would like to give towards roof repairs, we are currently saving funds for the Apartment roofs where the missionaries reside. Click here to read about and to give toward the Apartment Roof.

Roofing Projects

We want to thank God and you all who have continued to financially support the ministry here in Nicaragua. Last week, we were able to put an order in for much needed Roofing materials for the Radio Building. Since they will be coming from Managua, we won’t have them until later Thursday or Friday, so they will begin working on it by next week, Lord willing.

It is an extremely old roof, and leakage into the radio room was a constant issue. So being able to repair it will ensure that the radio itself will continue to function as it should, and the computers and other equipment can stay dry.

We are currently fundraising for the Apartments Roof as well. It also is just as old as the others. When it begins leaking, it is usually patched over with a material called ‘stop-leak’, but it would be best to be able to secure it with new roofing, as God provides.

Here are a few pictures of both roofs currently. All of it is brittle, and you can see where planks are put in place to prevent leakage in some areas. On the underside of the roof is where some of the patching is applied.

*Should you decide to donate, you can do so Click Here

Make sure to specify in the comments section that your donation is for the apartment roof, this way it goes directly towards that effort. Please also email us directly so we know a donation was made and we can be sure funds are allocated in the right place.

angela@graceministriesint.com, pastorgreg@graceministriesint.com

Radio roof

Apartment roof

Back from Furlough

I’ve been back for about two weeks now and I’m adjusting well! I thought I’d share a few pictures of what has been going on lately. Some of you knew that the kids from the local school, Ruben Dario, needed to relocate while their school campus is being renovated. They were originally going to come study on our facility, but didn’t need to after all. They instead are occupying two houses across the park from us, and the central American church building right down the street. This means that during recess, the park is full of kids, and many of them make their way up to youth center even if for only twenty minutes. It’s nice because kids that live farther away and wouldn’t normally be allowed to come over are able to be here, so that’s been a blessing. I counted thirty kids one day!

Aside from that, as pastor Greg has mentioned people from church here have been fundraising for the church roof, as it is in bad condition. Since their corn festival where they sold food and used clothes, the ladies have been working together to make and sell lunch after Sunday morning services. The Sunday before last they made Sopa de Res (Beef soup), and this past Sunday they made Nicaragua’s version of Menudo which they call Sopa de Mondongo. They sold out fast, and they were delicious!

September 19th they plan to do another fundraiser where everyone participates. That should be good.

Leaf-cutter Ants and Rose bushes

We’ve had a huge problem with leaf cutter ants for a long time. They’ve made their homes everywhere, and especially on pieces of land near us that haven’t been well maintained. I had been carefully tending to a rose bush that I propped up with stakes so that it grows upward instead of slouching on the ground. I was so excited because it was full of leaves and it had a few buds on it, so I was looking forward to it blossoming. Unfortunately though, over night a couple weeks ago, the ants got to the rose bush and stripped away all of the leaves. I was so disappointed, but I noticed that the roses were still left. The ants haven’t been in that area since then, so I’m hoping that when I get back from furlough, and now especially since the rains started for the season, they’ll be full of leaves and roses again. The good thing is, is that they didn’t get to some of the other pretty flowers that are in the same spot.

An Opportunity to Serve

This past week Jaqueline and Victoria started serving together in youth center on their own. Jaqueline was serving with me a while back, but had stepped out for time since she had her new baby girl and because of Covid. She is ready now to get back in and continue ministering to the kids. Victoria has also been coming alongside on Monday's with me and she also has a heart to minister to the kids here. They have both been a blessing to this ministry, and the kids love having them! Please pray for both Victoria and Jaqueline to find their strength, wisdom and joy in the Lord as they show His love to the kids. Pray also for God to raise up even more people to serve in youth center.

Ministry update

Youth Center-Monday, Wednesday, Friday

Less kids are coming out, but there is still a group of about 8 girls that come regularly. Each time we meet, we pray together and I ask if they have any special prayer requests. They always do. Loemaren, Sorchel, and Britani ask that God would help them change their sometimes bad attitudes and be obedient in their homes and to God. They want to change, so I know God is working in their hearts! They have also been praying for sick family members who have since been healed, so it has been a good opportunity to point out how God answers prayers.

School Ministry 1st 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Grades

In one of my classes, the teacher cut my time to 15 minutes which barely leaves me time to go over a scripture with them, OR do a game. This has been a little bit difficult, but it works so far. I get to their classes usually just after they've been out to recess, so their focus sometimes is off, and it makes for a difficult time keeping their attention for the lessons. I could use prayer for this.

One of the teachers, Daisy, has been asking me to pray for her family, her son specifically who has a problem with alcoholism. It opens up the door for me to minister through sending her encouraging words or a verse throughout the week since I have her phone number.

Study Time-Tuesdays

I still meet weekly with Barb (another missionary here) and Lucy for a Bible study that we started some time ago in the book of Isaiah. Right now though, Barb is in the states until November, so our meeting is on hold. I do still meet with Lucy Tuesday mornings for another study that we started before on the Armor of God.

Discipleship-Thursdays'

Bible study with Victoria and Blanca has been going really well. Aside from bible study together, our relationship has grown just as we spend time together and have gotten to know each other. They both want to follow Jesus, and make Him first in their lives. So far they've learned about 5 basic Guarantees in our faith and the scriptures that support them (which they've been memorizing): The guarantee of Salvation, the guarantee of answered prayer, the guarantee of forgiveness, the guarantee of victory and the guarantee of God's leading in our life. They are now practicing cultivating a personal relationship with God through time spent with Him daily in His word and prayer.

Victoria is coming out on Monday's for youth center and has volunteered a couple of times to share a verse with the kids. She also wants to learn to do crafts so that she could do them with the kids too.

Sunday School:

The size of the Sunday am class fluctuates weekly. I may have up to 13 kids, or I may just have 5. It depends. But we're going through the book of John.

Women’s Ministry

-Last month the ladies got together for fellowship at Dona Carmen’s house. Gabriela is working on getting our monthly Bible study started up again

Aside from these activities are the day to day cooking, cleaning and outside up-keep.

Prayer Requests:

For God’s continual provision for things like craft material, and games/balls for the school ministry and youth center. If ever you’d like to give towards these things, you can just specify what your gift is for in the comment section of the donate page www.graceministriesint.com/donate

Please keep the young girls from youth center in your prayers. Pray for changed lives, and to be godly influences in Godless homes. Some have stopped coming because they like to watch the telenovelas that come on at the same time that we have youth center. Pray that God would remove strongholds in their lives.

Wisdom, creativity and effectiveness as I teach at the school. Some days are tough when trying to keep the kids’ attention during their lesson. Some kids have also really stopped trying to learn their memory verses all together. Pray for their hearts to be fertile ground for His word.

Pray for Blanca and Victoria to be “rooted and built up in Jesus, and established in the faith” Colossians 2:7 Pray that they would develop a true and personal relationship with God in Jesus, and be led by His Spirit in all they do.

For Women’s Bible study to get started again soon. For the women to be women of the word.

God is Faithful-Dios es Fiel

At the school, we’ve come a ways through the different attributes of God, and today was about God being Faithful. The kids had two weeks to memorize their verse in Deuteronomy 7:9 which says, “Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments”. It’s exciting to encourage the kids to be in God’s word so that they would know what His promises to them are, and that He is the faithful God who fulfills those promises.

The kids were split up into two groups and competed to see which could put the verse together the fastest. Rufino’s group won (group on the left). Rufino is a young boy that has really been on top of his scripture memory since we re-started.

Desiring Change

Over the last two weeks two girls on two separate occasions asked for prayer for themselves because they wanted to be different. Xorchel has been coming for a few years now and Sani has been coming since she was a baby. They are now in elementary school. One Sunday night while I was taking prayer requests Xorchel asked for prayer for her family, specifically her dad who she really wants God to save. But then she also asked for prayer for herself because she said she wanted to be different, she wanted to be pleasing to God. I know I shouldn’t be surprised…this is exactly what we pray for, to reach these little babes for Jesus and see them desire to grow in Him and know Him and be changed by Him.

The next week during youth center, Sani’s prayer request was similar. She wants to change, and not tell lies anymore. She admitted she lies to her mom, and she doesn’t want to continue to.

I’ve been so happy to see them coming out, spending time with them again, and knowing that God’s Spirit is working in their hearts. It just motivates me more to pour into them, into youth center.

Please remember Xorchel and Sani specifically when you pray for this ministry. Pray also that the other kids would desire that change in Jesus, too!

Xorchel: Top Left

Sani: Right Picture

Keeping Busy

Even though we aren’t carrying out certain ministry activities like youth center, or congregating for services, going out to the school, etc. There is always plenty of things to do here to keep us busy. Aside from your typical day-to-day duties like cooking/cleaning/studying, and venturing on our new project of making face masks, one thing I like to try and stay on top of is keeping the classrooms clean, even though we aren’t using them right now. Since we live on dusty roads, and our driveway is mainly rock and dirt, dust gets in and dirties the classrooms. The windows were clouded with dirt! The classes would typically get cleaned every other day or so after youth centers and children’s ministry; swept, mopped, wiped down, etc. But I hadn’t gone in there in a couple of weeks, so they were pretty bad. That was last week, and I’ll do it again this coming week just to maintain them.

Another thing that I am staying on top of is our fruit trees. I see now that we’ll have fierce competition with the squirrels that live in all of the trees around here. I noticed some of the mangos were eaten at and left on the ground. I was offended, lol. But today I did get a good bunch to bring in. I was happy about that! Our papaya tree has about four good sized papayas on them, so I’m waiting for them to start turning yellow so that we can cut them down. The tree is tall and heavy with them at the top, so it started to bend over to the neighbors side of the fence. Moises tied a rope around it and tied it down to the post in the garden area to straighten it out. This way they’ll be on our side.

We have a small garden area down on the far side of the property where that papaya tree is. Right now we have spinach growing there, but I’d LOVE to maintain a small veggie/herb garden. I recently cleaned it out and weeded, but its due for another. I also planted tomato seeds and am waiting to see how those go. At the moment though, being Summer, I’m working on staying faithful just keeping plants watered :) Bear with me

Mangos!

One of our mango trees is giving off fruit. We have a total of five mango trees on the property. A few of them don’t produce every year like they should. But one tree in particular produces twice a year, once now, and again during August/September. We began seeing some small mangos a couple of weeks ago, but they aren’t quite ripe yet. One of my favorite ways to eat them is while they are still hard and green, with salt, lemon and chili. (Ugh, so yum!) That’s how Nica’s like to eat them, and that’s actually how I learned! Soon enough, we’ll harvest them and make them into juice, eat them as is, and then freeze some for the future. I’ve made a mango pie before that turned out really good, so that might be something we do, too.

Anyway, I thought you guys might like to see for yourself :)

Kids Center Invites

On Tuesday Elisa, Vanessa, Loemaren and Angely went out with me to pass out Kids Center flyers to the kids in the surrounding area of our zone. They were shy at first, but then they started seeing some of their friends from school and got excited about it. It was a change from the routine, coming out to play and have our Bible lesson. Vanessa said it was the best day! I was glad to hear that. Our lesson for that day was when Jesus said to His first two disciples “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men” -Mathew 4:19.

God has been helping me to see some different ways to encourage the young kids to not only come and learn about Jesus themselves, but also to share what they know and/or invite other kids to learn about Him as well. Flyer distribution was a good start! What I loved most was that they asked for extra flyers to take with them to school the next day. Then they complained when I was only able to give them three each “Solo tres? Que poquito!” They wanted to hand out a bunch!

Since Tuesday was one of the hotter days this past week, we stopped for helados (frozen sweet milk with fruit flavor) and a bag of taqueritos (chips) from the pulperia. After that, they got to get wet with the hose for their time of play.

Keep kid’s center ministry in your prayers! Pray for these young girls to grow up to love and serve Jesus with all their hearts, and to bring others to know Him too!

Passing the flyer through a fence to friends

Left to Right: Vanessa, Elisa, Loemaren, Angely

Stopping for a rest with some girls they met

Youth Staying the Course

Sunday nights youth from 13-17 come aside to study with pastor Greg. While he's not here, I get to fill in with them. Some nights we have up to about five or six students, while other nights it might be three or four. Julipsi, Judith, Melissa, and Sherly are those that are there each Sunday...(I think the boys are waiting for pastor Greg to get back!) Ever and Elian come sometimes also. We're continuing in the book of Acts, now in chapter 17. I love, love working with these youth, and my heart is to encourage them to stay the course especially through these impressionable years of adolescence. 

I know when I was that age, I was easily swayed by all the distractions and temptations of life, and I hardly ever wanted to be in church. Now I know that I should have continued with the Lord. I ended up wasting time in the world. But even still, because of God's faithfulness to answer the prayers of my church family and my mom, I can serve Him now and encourage these youth to stay the course, and finish the race. 

Pray that the teenagers would be kept strong in the temptations that they face, that they would walk after the Spirit and serve the Lord with all their hearts. Pray that they would desire more of Jesus than anything they can find in the world!

Decisions for Christ!

Decisions for Jesus

This past month, Blanca made a decision to follow Jesus! She had been coming to church regularly, but had always put off making a commitment to Him. Two weeks ago, she finally did it and we are so proud of her! She now needs so much extra prayer for the journey that is ahead of her in the Lord. The ups and downs that will come, the hard days and trials that will test her faith. Please pray for solid and continual growth in the Lord. Since she accepted Him, she jumped right into helping however she can at church. She is studying nursing right now at the Huracan college.

Along with her, Katherine reconciled with the Lord the same day. She has had a lot of struggles, but sincerely wants to follow the Lord. Pray also for her that she would grow in a true relationship with Jesus! She has had health issues also, so pray that she would be healed and able-bodied to do what ever God calls her to.

Growing in Grace

Thursday night was our first get together for our study in Why Grace Changes Everything. Victoria and Jaqueline are coming out for this study.

After reading the first part called A Love Relationship With God, where pastor Chuck talks about how he used to try to relate to God through his works, both Victoria and Jaqueline expressed how they have felt the same way. Jaqueline even shared how she has believed before that if something bad were to happen to her or her family, sickness or something like that, she would immediately examine to see if she forgot to pray or spend time with God.  As if their well being and God's care for them depended on her works. Oh how I pray that God would breakdown any strongholds in their life, and that they would know His grace and grow in a love relationship with Him. 

Please continue to pray for their growth in the Lord, and for God to continue to reveal to them any ways that they seek to relate to Him through their works. Pray that they would be set free!  

Prayer for Nicaragua

On Saturday, youth and younger adults from throughout Nueva Guinea came out for a time of worship and prayer for Nicaragua. We prayed for the political unrest, killings, against the work of the enemy, and for open hearts for the gospel. The event started at 3pm so that everyone could get home at a decent hour before it got too late. The youth from different churches in Nueva Guinea came together to worship and seek God's intervention in Nicaragua. It was just a really great time! When that was over, the youth stayed for a game of volleyball. We are grateful that we have been kept safe by Jesus our Shepard and are blessed to continue to evangelize and disciple. Please continue to pray with us for Nicaragua! God bless you as you walk in his spirit!