Day 6 Thursday
Miss Mary left at 3:00am for the airport, so we were on our own to be on time to the van and such. Mike was there to lead us, but you can’t replace Miss Mary!
I started my day with a very welcome shower. We had breakfast and I rested on my bed for a few minutes with my feet up. My ankles (and whole body) were really swollen due to the heat and being dehydrated. I wasn’t drinking enough water, even though I love water. But with limited bathroom accessibility during the day and then no water in the evenings, I think I was subconsciously not taking in fluids. My ankles and feet didn’t hurt, but they were getting huge. The little bones that stick out looked more like dimples. Quite interesting.
Johanna led the devotion for the morning. We then had a little time to get ready for the late morning Fiesta and feeding. I gave Deanna a quick call. I had talked with Mike about coming down and working during the summer and I wanted to let Deanna know. She has been praying about how God is calling me to serve in Nic and I wanted her to know that I could travel back and forth and wouldn’t be leaving her hospitality for too long of a time.
We arrived at a church plant that had a roof, which was wonderful for the shade!!! The people were already gathered and doing some worshipping. A Pastora (lady pastor) from a church in Leon has been spending time for the last 10 years to help this village plant this church. There were hundreds of people gathered. Mostly kids and moms. We did the Fiesta first. I was blessed to be able to help prepare the food. I was in charge of putting tortillas on the plates. There were 2 dipping lines and then the plates/bowls were stacked up on the tables and covered with cloths. A few volunteers stood over the tables swishing small tree branches with leaves over the food like fly swatters.
After the Fiesta, the people lined up and received their plate and a bag of drink. Everyone was very appreciative. We had a good time walking around and taking pictures of the sweet faces. The food was provided by a donation from a previous mission team, so pictures were taken with a sign thanking them for making it all possible. What fun to be another link in ministering to this group of people.
The second Fiesta for the afternoon was cancelled for some reason, so we arrived back at the Team house by 4pm. We had water, so everyone got a shower and felt relatively fresh for church.
The guys went to one service, which was outside and was huge and had some crazy preaching and such. The ladies went to another church where a Ladies conference was being held. Paige and I had used some ‘gift items’ left by another mission team to make up some door prizes for the conference. There was lots of costume jewelry to choose from. We made 4 nice sets with zippered bags and jewelry and some USA money. The funny thing was that we got to the church and it was very conservative. Some ladies were inside praying over the place before it got started. They wore lacey scarves on their heads. (I was questioning our choice of ‘prizes’ for this crowd. I was hoping that we wouldn’t offend them with the jewelry.)
Paige and Johanna gave testimonies and there was some singing. Right when Vanessa (the missionary living in Nic) started to speak, the power went out. This happens a lot there, so right away a battery powered light (kind of like what you would take camping) was turned on and placed behind Vanessa and Chico (interpreter). They had to hold up their papers and Bibles to catch the light, so Rydder (another interpreter) jumped up and held the light at their shoulders for the entire service. A couple of dogs were fighting right outside the open doors to the church, but nothing distracted the ladies from hearing God’s Word. Just when Vanessa was finishing up her message, the lights came back on. The Pastor came up to say a few words and thanked our team for helping with the feeding earlier in the day. The ladies with the lacey head coverings welcomed us as if we weren’t all that different from them. They are so much more accepting in that culture than North Americans. The Pastor said that we started out the evening in the darkness and ended in God’s Light. We all clapped.
We loaded up and went back to the location of outdoor service where the guys were. They were still going, so Chico and Rydder sat in the van with us gals and told us funny stories about interpreting for teams and we all laughed at how things get lost in translation. It was a lot of fun. We said goodbye to the translators. They were all awesome!
We went back to the Team house and had dinner about 9pm. We were tired, but enjoyed our share time with Mike, who was leaving at 3am. Our team got to sign a wall like other teams. We left a little bit of ourselves there in many ways.
We got to bed about midnight. Including the large Fiesta/Feeding and church services, there were 75 Professions of Faith for this day. God never slacks off. He is always at work around us. What a blessing to be there.
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