Bluefields Update February 14

Please excuse my double entry - we had an action packed first two days!!!

February 13 After two long days of travel, we finally arrived at our home away from home in Bluefields, The Caribbean Dream Hotel. We had a little delay in Newark for wind - man it was very windy on the runway - but after two hours, we departed for Houston and left there without any issues!

We met Mike Najjar and Rigoberto Reyes in Managua and headed to our hotel for the evening where we just crashed. Breakfast was served and we boarded a bus for a 5 hour trek to El Rama, the port town where we embarked onto boats on the Rio Escondido. The ride down river was wonderful and we arrived in Bluefields where a short walk to the hotel ended our 2 day journey. We were welcomed by Claudia (Rigo’s wife) and Lesly and Jeremy (Mike's wife and 13 month son!) as well as Francisco, the pastor of Strong Tower Baptist Church. We have enough time to get cleaned up rest and walk in town before we head out for dinner.

Tonight, we will have our orientation meeting and prepare for our first full construction day tomorrow... Saturday evening will also be our welcome service - not sure what is in store for us - we will see the members of the Strong Tower congregation, but our main "mission" this week is to build a church for the new congregation of El Buen Samaritano, which is a church plant of the original church.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Thanks to all for your prayers and support for our team!

February 14 Last night we spent some time with Rigo as he shared his testimony and also his vision for the ministries throughout Nicaragua – it is inspiring to hear how God is using Rigo and his family to serve the poor of Nicaragua! Day one on the worksite is over – wow, the reception by the new congregation was wonderful and we are plugging away at a rather nasty worksite – there is a lot of cleaning of major debris needed in order to start digging the footings… some digging commenced today – tomorrow we will grab picks and shovels again and really make some progress! The entire team worked very hard today – and the in-town conditions weather wise are much hotter than the previous site on top of the hill on Coco Terra. We miss and long for the steady breezes!

The church will be nestled into a neighborhood – funny story Rigo and the church association bought the land from a former pastor that was leaving Nicaragua. His dream was to one day build a church on this site, so when Rigo told him that he was going to build a church on that site, he was elated and reduced his price by $ 3,000 USD! Praise God for Rigo’s given talents of being able to work with all sorts of people. Once again, I am blown away by his passion for the ministry and his ability to serve God with humility! I look forward to spending this week + with him and Claudia! I am also going to be with him later this month when I meet up with a vision trip from Jackson Baptist Church – we will tour other ministries that Rigo and his association has begun – the welding school in Chinandega, the carpentry school in El Crucero as well as many churches that have been recently planted. Since 2001, Rigo has planted 13 churches!

Children are starting to warm up to the team and already have stolen our hearts! We are working side by side with the nationals and already, it is obvious that we do not all need to speak Spanish to communicate God’s love! The women under the leadership of Claudia Reyes and Lesly Najjar have prepared wonderful meals for us so far – as usual, we eat very well and we appreciate their hard work on our behalf!

We have seen three kids from the Strong Tower congregation – Simone and the twins, Juan Carlos and Juan Daniel. We were warmly received at the Strong Tower church tonight – we had so looked forward to worshipping with them! The bond our congregation has with the ministries in this area is so cool – for all parties! Rigo was telling e today how much of a blessing it is for the new pastor to be the recipient of so much love! A group had gathered with us as we talked and we all told him how much of blessing his ministry and the people of Bluefields were to us! We are blessed!

We heard some sad news about one of the Bluefields children – Misha (Nashaley’s sister) was killed a couple months ago by a car at the top of the hill where we walked down to the Strong Tower church. Nashaley’s family situation was bad enough (her mother is a prostitute)… we will pray for her as this will be a trying time.

I say goodbye for now – thanks again for your prayers! We serve an awesome God!

Here we go - Back to Bluefields!!

The team met for the last time on Sunday - bags are packed and questions (most of them!) answered - all are ready to go - on Thursday, we are heading southwest to Bluefields, Nicaragua.

This cold weather sure has made it more desirable to be in warm Bluefields! The other day, there was a 98 degree difference between Oneonta's low and the afternoon temperature in Nicaragua (-10 here and 88 there!)

We will be building a church for a new congregation that has been worshipping in a storefront near the central park in town - the name is El Buen Samaritano. It is a church that was planted by the church we have worked on for the past two years. Praise God for His mighty works in Bluefields! It is awesome to be part of such a dynamic ministry!


Stay tuned for more updates from the team - we thank all who have supported the team financially as well as our faithful prayer partners!


The reason why we do this...