4

"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire."

Day number four was once again incredible. It is always a blessing to know that we have so many people back in the US praying for us. We definitely need it. We went back to the barrio with the kids again today and took a couple of soccer balls to them. It was fun playing with the kids but the Gringos won! (Keep in mind these kids are probably 7-10 years old!) But it was also pretty awesome to see the roof being delivered to the work site. It came in a couple of beams and tin for the roof. Hopefully after the weekend, we can begin working. We are just unable because they had to wait for more money in order to purchase the materials.

Later on we took a truck ride over to William Perez's house. He is the head honcho for building the church. He made us lunch. It was fish (barracuda, catfish, and one no one knew) and crab soup. It was very good. But other than that we didn't do much else. We just finished eating pizza and now are relaxing. Continue to pray for us.

Our Needs: Prayer for the church and the barrio, we only lack 6,000 to finish it completely and we would love to get it done before the rainy season, so they can begin to meet inside, out of the rain. Prayer for us. There is also a situation going on here with other parties, pray that it can be resolved and ultimately Christ will be glorified.

Dia numero tres

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."

Words cannot describe the glory of our Lord Jesus. Just to catch a glimpse of his glory is remarkable. We had a wonderful day, after all of the traveling issues had been resolved. It is good to be back in the swing of things here in Nicaragua. It is also amazing to see what God is doing with these people, and how these people are actually blessing us. Everyone is amazed at what God is doing.

Today we all got some rest and had breakfast together. We got to share what was going on and kind of talk about our plans for the coming days. It was nice also to see many of our friends again from Nicaragua. After that we spent most of the day in the barrio where the church is located. The church has about twelve feet of walls up and the entry way is beginning to take its form. It is awesome to see how much progress has taken place. The most amazing part is that we are only around 5 or $6,000 away from completely finishing the church. Playing with the kids is always something that no matter what is going wrong will make things better. They jumped in our arms, tried to learn English, and also asked for new sandals. We are hoping to get a lot done with the kids. Even after just one day of being with the kids, everyone's heart is for them. We are also hoping to get rice and beans for the community in order to help the families out. There are thirty families in the barrio of the church. A lot is on the table but pray for us to not get bogged down in it but rather get nothing but pure joy from it. Pray for these families and that the Gospel will change them, for that is our ultimate purpose in building this church and pouring our lives into the people of the barrio. Above all else, pray that the Gospel will be advanced to all peoples.

Until next time...

The Time Is Near

Well once again the time is approaching to head back home to Nicaragua. The relationships that were built will last a lifetime and even beyond that. I thank God for each and everyone of them and what they mean to me. There is so much that is in store as we approach the time to go back. There is a lot to do in the states but its just not the same when I'm not there. I am ready to get back to say the least.

There is a lot of work that is to be done down there. We have already sent money down for the builders to begin working again on the church. We had to stop building while we were not there due to the fact that we did not have enough funds. Our setup right now is to go twice a year and while we are in the States, we are trying to raise enough money to finish the church but we only have enough to send it right before we come down. We have about $15,000 left to finish the church completely. Right now the church just got the floors finished and hopefully we will be able to put the roof on while we are down there through the new year. After that, our hope is that the church can start meeting there. What an exciting time this is!

To all who are reading this please be in prayer for us as we travel down, not necessarily for safety but however God would use us best. Pray that the Gospel will be advanced first and foremost. Pray that we will be able to share the gospel with many, and that God will prepare the hearts of those who we will come into contact with. Also pray for the families there and that we can meet some of their needs. Also, pray for us that we will have clean hearts and nothing in our way to detract us from our relationship with Christ. Thank you all for your support.

14 de Junio

So as I was sitting here tonight, I was thinking of how amazing this trip has been so far. But one thing that I want to mention, and want to talk on is why am I doing this?

The answer is simple it isn't for me or any other man but solely for Christ. About three years ago my life changed. I met God. I had lived as I thought a genuinely decent life but something was missing. My heart was yearning for something else. Something not of this world. Someone introduced me to the God-Man, Jesus Christ. He can get lost in all of our attempts such as church, and our daily lives. But when I met Him, I had a purpose in life, I have personal communion with God. And I came down here to share that message with those who don't have that communion with God through Jesus Christ. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.And through Christ we can become the righteousness of God. Maybe someone that doesn't know Christ will read this or maybe those who are reading will pray for those that we can share with. Grace and peace to you all from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Solo Cristo

Well a lot has been going on the past couple of days, with a lot of work being accomplished. We began work on the church on Wednesday and worked most of the morning and mid afternoon digging a huge ditch (see Facebook pictures for proof). So we have gotten a great start on that and look forward to many weeks working on it. It has been amazing getting back here and trying to remember all of the spanish that I once knew, ha not much at all. But God has been good in giving words to understand enough to communicate.
Today we didn't go to work due to the massive monsoons that we have been having, but we did get to visit the beach, a property that Lynne and Glenn are looking at in order to have a place to build another church. And we visited a doctor's house that overlooks the beach which was awesome. I cannot say enough about how beautiful it was.
Another interesting thing happened last night as I was on the roof. IT just had finished raining and the lightning was far off in the distance, and I was just watching it light up the whole city. It quit for a few moments and then I asked, God one more, please, and then WAM! Across the whole sky was lightning, it was amazing. It is the really small things like that that one can see.

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like n a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them,
and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

Nicaragua Part III

Well we finally arrived in Nicaragua, just me and Ginny. It was a long day but we had a great time and an awesome trip down. It is amazing to see that God is Lord over all peoples in all of the earth. We hope to be working on the church tomorrow and starting some digging. Thanks for all those that are praying for us and keep on praying for us. It's been a long day, so I am hitting the sack early tonight. More updates tomorrow.

He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by [Christ] him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through [Christ] him and for [Christ] him. And he is before all things, and in [Christ] him all things hold together. And [Christ] he is the head of the body, the church. [Christ] He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything [Christ] he might be preeminent. For in [Christ] him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through [Christ] him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of [Christ] his cross.

-LP

Prayer Requests

There are some prayer requests needed right now, I want to ask all of you to pray for us as individuals, Satan is attacking, as always, but even stronger now, and I will just leave it at that. But we need dire prayer, and I want you guys to pray for each and everyone of our hearts, to prepare them for our journey back to the States on Sunday and that God will reveal to us what we need to do and how we need to change our lives, and give more to Him. I especially want prayer for me (Luke) in these next three days for an unspoken. Please also pray for the families of the town of De Lores, we will be passing out beans to 23 families in the morning and this is an area where they are trying to reach them and plant a church in here. I don't know guys, I thank God for each and every one of you and thank you for praying, but if we have ever needed it, we need it now. I also want to pray for Manuel's familiy, they were completely out of food, and God pressed all of our hearts to give him rice and beans, and he was almost in tears because he desparately needed it. I wish each and everyone of you could be here to see God working, and to meet these people that love God so much. En de nombre de Jesus, Amen.

Now, as I was saying...

After the professor left that night we went and bagged up more rice and beans, then went to bed. What an awesome day in the presence of the holy one!

Yesterday, Wednesday was a really neat day. We saw some beautiful sites we had never seen before. We started the day by going to Doloris to deliver the rice and beans. The families we very grateful for just a small portion of food. Then we came back to the hotel and met Harold. He took us first to a volcano. Our intention first was to take a bus ride to the top of the volcano, however, once we found out it was very expensive and included a four hour hiking trip. We decided the view from the bottom was perfect! After the volcano we went to Grenada and went on a boat tour through the swamps of Lake Managua. Which by the way is a hugeeeee lake that takes up a very large part of the county. Its so big it has waves. On the boat ride we pasted many islands. One island had these banana-looking flowers. They looked like a banana on the outside then when you peeled it there were beautiful long pedals. The little boys on the boat gave one to me and one to tiffany. Then the next island was monkey island. When we pulled up to the island there were a TON of monkeys. One hopped right on out boat only five seconds after we got there. We tried to give him some food when he got on. We gave him a cheez-it and he picked it up, looked at it, and threw it on the ground. Guess it wasnt extravegent enough for his liking. He hung out on our boat for a while and decided about five minutes into his stay that his seat was on my lap. So here i am, with a wild monkey sitting on my lap throwing cheez-its on the ground. When the boat ride ended we went to another volcano site. It was a volcano that had blew its top many years ago. It now was a huge lagoon in the middle of a ton of mountains. It was just breathtaking. We ate at a resturant that overlooked the lagoon while mariachi bands surrounded us. It was so neat. We ended our adventures with a shopping trip to the marcado in Masaya. After a long day we came back to the hotel to meet Edgar, Ruth, and Pastor Manuel. We had an amazing prayer time and goodbye time for Ginny and William. Keep them in your prayers as they travel back to the states! Dios le bendiga!

Psalm 19:1
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Buenos dias familia y amigas. Sorry for the "scare" of not talking to everyone yesterday. I suppose we are all on Nicaragua time. After about three parents called this morning worried, I figured we should probably give an update! Again, we apologize for not keeping in contact yesterday and not blogging for the past two days. So lets travel back to Tuesday, shall we....

So we went to La Quinta Wednesday morning. We painted the rooms that were just build for Juanita, the lady who looks after the kids. It was a beautiful melon color. We had a great lunch and got to fellowship with the kids that just came back from their New Years weekend. After we got the rooms painted we came back to meet two translators that Luke worked with and befriended over the summer. They were great guys. Keep them in your prayers. Their names are Harold and Giovanni. We all went and got ice cream with them and hung out. It was so much fun! We got back to the hotel just in time for the sunset, which if I might say, was the most amazing sunset I've ever seen. Shades of orange, blue, purple, and pink stretched across the sky over the village. We brought the guitar up to the roof and we began singing praise and worship to God. It was such an incredible moment! After it got dark we went and met Professor Smith in a classroom in the hotel. He's a man we met at La Quinta a few days ago who offered to give us a few Spanish classes. It was just like school. He used a white board and we all sat in a classroom-like setting. He taught us for an hour about vocabulary and grammar. We gave him a few dollars and he was so grateful. He said he could use it to feed his family for the next day. He said he didn't have any money for food prior to our donation. We also gave him a bag of rice and beans.

And now we have to go to La Quinta for today.
To be continued...

CMM

Lunes en Nicaragua

Dios le bediga todos. Por que escrivo, es te amo todos. We are all working on our spanish, and loving it. Today we got to hand out the rice and beans (arroz y frijoles) to Pastor Manuel's church, and there were about 20 families there. It's hard knowing that most of them don't know where there next meal will be coming from. Pray for those 20 families. It's been a productive week though, we got a lot of the dorms painted, and tomorrow we will get as close to done as we can. Also, today we met a few kids about 7 or 8 years old while we were waiting for pizza who were selling things. They made little grasshoppers, hearts, and such from a coconut leaf. It was pretty cool. They sell these things because they usually don't have a father to support them, or their parents are alcoholics and make them bring money in, or they use the money to sniff glue because they are so hungry and dont have enough for food, but they don't want to be hungry. It's sad.

But keep praying for us and our strength, to keep carrying on, and also more opportunities to share the love of Christ. As always, we haven't got to share with enough, nor will I think we will ever reach enough. Because until the whole world hears, then we will have reached enough.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of a him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Nicaragua, Day 6

Today we went to Pastor Manuel's church. After a long bumpy ride(think Motocross), we joined many children and their mothers. there were no men except Pastor Manuel, Luke, and William. the sanctuary was a bare,dirt lot surrounded by palm trees. the children were so loving....they came around and welcomed each of us by name.There is no way to describe how special the simple service was. How marvelous that God can be so close and so real, and that even though you can't understand all the language, His spirit is there in abundance.
The song service was led by the pastor's daughter who is such a spiritual person,so precious. She told me that she prayed for each of us and for our families back home many times a day;that we were her forever brothers and sisters in Christ. Even though I could only understand an occasional word, I immediately recognized a song I learned as a child, Standing In The Need Of Prayer".All the songs were sung with great enthusiasm, and it was very evident that this was a service meant to glorify God with a "joyful noise unto the Lord".
After the preaching service (no sleeping during THIS message!),the children including our group played soccer and Duck, Duck, Goose. Courtney and Tiffany are pretty good runners!t While they were playing, I walked under the palm trees, still praising God for the service. His love is manifested in SO many ways and many times"a little child shall lead them". To see those children who have so little, yet are so happy, is awesome. To have those little arms around your neck and here "I love you"...if that wouldn't touch your heart, it would have to be made of stone!
This afternoon we packaged one hundred pounds each of rice and beans to give to the church families. Pastor Manuel said each portion would feed a family of five for two or three days.
Our continued prayer request is that we are able to make a difference in the lives of the children and that their memories of us will be as precious to them as theirs to us. I know you are already praying for a church building for Pastor Manuel and his people. Please continue to pray to that end, and if God lays it on your heart to help, well,Praise the Lord! And if you are blessed with the opportunity to join us, I assure you,you will never be the same. Blessed beyond measure..Linda Gentry








'

Day 5

First day of labor and boy are we tired. Before we left we all actually picked up the parrot that stays in the hotel so that was really cool. We headed out about 8 for La Quinta. We stopped on the way to buy paint and tools to knock down the wall around the pool. When we got there the girls started painting the bathroom to the girls dorm light green but we ran out of paint before we finsihed so we had to start on the big room. We painted it tan. Ginny and Courtney sang to us the whole time making up there own words to songs. They drove us crazy. The guys worked outside and busted down the wall around the pool. They were wore out so they came in to help us paint the big room. Elvis, one of the orphans there, helped us work all day. He has a limp but it doesn't stop him from working for the Lord. :) We finished painting the whole room today. Praise God. Tomorrow we will be going to Pastor Manuel's church and then going to visit the barrios which is like the ghetto and alot of the children live there. We will be evangilizing and giving them cookies. I want to ask that you pray for us as we go tomorrow that God will work through us and that the people will see God when they look at us, not us. Pray that God has his will during this trip. Last but not least pray for me (Tiffany) personally because I'm the only one who has gotten sick from the food here. Pray that God will make me feel better so I can continue doing his work. Thanks for all of the suport so far we couldn't do it without you!

January 1st, 2010

God is good all the time, and all the time God is Good. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! It is amazing how God can display his glory through His creations. We went to the beach today because it was New Years and nearly all the stores were closed. Much like in the USA, they dont work on New Years. But the beach was awesome. The water was very warm and the beach was VERY hot! My momma (Ginny) rode a hore on the beach and I thought I was going to die laughing. Although we were in the sand, we took the opportunity to share Jesus by passing out "tracks" that showed how to become a Christian in Spanish. We passed out about 60 of them. I remember one case in which the boy we gave it to read it, and looked interested. The tributary was very low so we got to walk down the exit of the river. I saw so many "houses" that were nothing but a fdw sticks with metal on the top. Amongst the poverty I saw many children laughing and having fun. It really opened my eyes to what real poverty was. We havent even seen the extreme poverty of Nicaragua! As for prayer requests, I ask that you please pray for us as we are working tomorrow. The guys will be busting up concrete and the girls will be picking up the pieces and/or painting. I ask that you pray for are strength to be full and our hearts to be open to hear God. Thanks for all of thr prayers and messages.