Mission trip to Nicaragua

Colored with hope.

Green, yellow,  pink and orange. Balloons in all different colors and shapes are floating through the air, accompanied by soap bubbles and the sounds of many excited children. Some team members are painting the kid’s faces while others are carrying around little babies. We are at a daycare of El Faro, a church in Managua, Nicaragua. This is the church we serve these 10 days of our mission trip. The church has a daycare and school for children from the trash dumps and the surrounding neighborhood. Every morning we get to help them serve the kids breakfast and play with them afterwards. The future of this nations lays in the little hands of these children. It’s our honor to invest in them, because we realize that each of them has to full potential of becoming a world changer. 

The pastors of the church have already proven themselves to be world changers. Pastor Ramon and his wife Miriam lead the church El Faro, the school, the day care, the ‘sowing machine ministry’, the partnering churches in the dumps and the family of their 2 daughters and 5 adopted children. They live in genuine integrity and love in every area of their lives and the results are following their heart’s attitude. It’s just a small church, but their impact on the community is massive. They are God’s heroes, and became ours too.

Green, blue and orange. The houses beside the road are painted colorfully. We catch glimpses of the city as we drive out of Managua towards the trash dump Tipitapa. The colors of the city fade away quickly into shades of grey and brown of dirt and faded colors of poverty. We arrive at a little village looking out over a large piece of ground full of trash, dirt and burning tires. The houses of the village are made of material that’s probably coming out of the same trash dumps. The people here live and work here, they collect pieces of plastic for almost a week to sell it for less than 2 dollar. These are the circumstances that the newspapers would label as extreme poverty. We enter one of the houses and meet a family of three: Mario and Teresa and their son Domingo. We get to pray for the hernia of Mario, and his back pain completely leaves as we release the healing power of Jesus! We love on them, hug them, pray for them and prophecy life over them. After she dried her tears, Teresa proudly shows us around in her garden where she grows a couple of trees and plants for food. We are all just as excited as she is and are amazed by how well she stewards the little she has. We bless the ground and the plants to be supernatural fruitful before we continue our ‘freestyle treasure hunt’ in the trash dump. A couple of precious families, many prayers and a pair of healed knees later we are on our way back to the city again. As we drive through the village I no longer see the devastating, despairing state of the village anymore. I see many people who know the value of family better than we do. I see Gods precious children being hungry for more of Him and better living circumstances, but being trapped in the vicious circle of poverty and a poverty mentality. My heart breaks as I see that their living circumstances are way below what they should be for precious, royal sons and daughters of the King. But my heart rejoices together with Gods heart in who they are. They are not pitiful, hopeless, sad beings, they are people with great potential and who will run with whatever is given them. If success is measured in character and relationships instead of accomplishment, our Western world might be less successful then these people. Perhaps we should listen to them more and learn from them instead of labeling them as helpless without our help. I try to take off my Western glasses and look at them from a Kingdom perspective. All of a sudden I see this village in the dumps becoming green. Green is the color of hope, growth and fruitfulness. I see the ground of this village becoming fruitful and producing enough food for the families to sustain themselves. I see the ground of the heart of the people becoming soft and fruitful for the seed of the Spirit of God and creating an atmosphere of harmony, love and community. All of a sudden I’m overwhelmed by this sense of hope for this place. There’s more hidden gold in the dirt of the trash dumps than I expected to find.

Green, yellow and blue. Colorful little chairs are set up for the kids of the church. Their moms and dads and our team take their seats behind them. We are at the church in the village in the trash dump Tipitapa again, but this time for the Sunday morning service. Luckily the Presence of God is not dependent on whether you speak the language of the worship songs or not, so we dance, hum and worship with them as good as we can. One of our team members gets up to preach and afterwards our team calls out prophecies to different people in the church. Surprised looks on their faces, tears welling up in their eyes or big smiles shaping their mouths; their reactions to the words of God are beautiful. The same beautiful responses is seen on the faces of the church leaders when we meet with them after the service. We call out different words of knowledge and pray for healing for many of them. God the Healer touches their lives as back pain leaves at two people, peace comes over anxious hearts, a neck can be fully moved again, headache left and pain in the knee left and could be bended completely again. These miracles of healing are seen all through our trip, because the God Whom we read about in the Bible is still the same today. The leadership meeting of the church ‘El Faro’ ended in prophetic ministry and ministry in words of knowledge and healing. On Wednesday night we led a healing service and saw many miracles. Blind eyes opened, pain leaving and full movement and functioning of body parts again. All of that just by praying in the name of Jesus. In the last church service, our team didn’t pray alone for the sick. We asked the church members to pray with us, because it’s important that they experience that the healing power of Jesus also works through their hands and prayer. And yet again, many people got touched by Gods power and were healed! Every miracle is more than a testimony of Him being still alive and an expression of the light of His kingdom invading the darkness, it’s in His very nature to heal and show His love to His children!

Green and grey. The grey walls are steadily covered in green as we paint the classrooms of the school at El Faro. Some are scrubbing the floor, others are cleaning the chairs and another part of our team is repairing the roof of Carolina. Carolina is feeding many children from the trash dumps every day in collaboration with El Faro, but her own house is about to collapse because of the bad condition of her roof. Our whole team came to Nicaragua to bring revival and minister in love. Bringing revival looks like praying and prophesying over people, but it also looks like serving practically in love and honor. Ministry is nothing more and nothing less than love. Love looks like something and has many forms to express herself. As sweat and dirt are covering our skin, the revelation that we are being the (working) hands and feet of God is covering our hearts. We want to build the Kingdom and leave something tangible behind in the spiritual atmosphere and in the physical environment.

Green, red, orange and purple. The market is filled with colorful products inviting us to buy souvenirs or just enjoy the laid-back pace of our ‘fun-day’. We’ve seen the poverty of the country, as well as the beauty of her nature and culture. We find that beauty in a cup of iced coffee in Casa del Café, in the experience of a market inside an old castle and in the flavors of mango’s and coconuts that just fell of the trees. We find the beauty as we are floating on a boat past little islands in a lake with a volcano at the horizon and palm trees full of birds and monkeys besides the water. It feels like we’re floating through a National Geographic magazine. Our leaders don’t jam our time full with ministry and activity, but give us enough time to rest, bond as a team and enjoy this trip. And since is ministry not something you do, but an overflow of who you are, there are always plenty of ministry opportunities. The security guard of a coffee shop had no more pain in his knees after prayer and a single mom who was begging on the streets full of tourists in Grenada felt loved and seen as we prayed and prophesied over her. Ministry is not restricted to church services, it’s a lifestyle of love!

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. All the colors of the rainbow are displayed in the rich culture of Nicaragua. Some were bright and shining, some were faded away in the dimming darkness of poverty. But from all the colors we’ve experienced this mission trip, we will always remember how one color forever painted the inside of our hearts towards nations, places and people. Green, the color of hope.

©Eline Millenaar – April 10, 2013