Posted: April 22, 2011 | Author: dustinholliday | Filed under: Outreach |
Today is the final day for the CFC Nicaragua team to spend time with the kids at the orphanage and enjoy the Caribbean sun. I will work on getting some of their testimonies of the week posted here after their return. God always impacts the people we go to serve, but equally the team members who go.
The two little boys in the first picture live in the community called Caminante. Their families are essentially squatters and live by digging through trash for recyclables. The team delivered food to many families in this community and spent time talking with and offering to pray with the families.
In the second picture you see first aid training for the kids at the orphanage. What a blessing to have this new knowledge when you have over 100 kids living together with less than 10 caretakers!
a few quotes from team member’s facebook updates….
“A busy day spent entirely at the orphanage. Bible story, Easter egg hunt, crafts including tie dye shirts, and of course baseball, basketball & soccer.”–via Bob Rexroad
“A highlight of any missions trip to Puerto Cabezas is church service at Verbo. Pastor Earl preached a great sermon. The worship time is spectacular, and transcends any language barriers.”–via Bob Rexroad
Posted: April 21, 2011 | Author: dustinholliday | Filed under: Outreach |
Update from team member Bob Rexroad (he’s posting a lot of great pics and video too on his facebook; so friend him to follow along!)
“Finished the evening with “Men’s Night” for the older orphans (41 total.). It included games (Bible baseball, tug of war, and water balloon toss), phenomenal and effective testimonies shared by two of our team leaders (Rich and Zach), pizza and prizes. A high point of the week! The girls had their own special time simultaneously.” –Bob Rexroad
Posted: April 20, 2011 | Author: dustinholliday | Filed under: General |
I received this email from Nate Allen, the team leader, this morning!
“Team,
Thank you so much for your prayers for our team and this work here. They are definitely felt and totally appreciated! Among many ways we’ve experienced God’s answers to your prayers through safe travel, a spirit of unity in the team, and a growing clarity around what God desires us to focus on while we are here as we’ve sought to adjust the “going in plan” to that. Highlights so far have included the ongoing interaction with the children, hospital visits for the past couple of days with about 8 members of the team at a time where they’ve prayed over and heard the stories of people in the hospital (to include a teenaged girl from up river who had to have her leg amputed due to a snake bite). Today we are heading out to esperanza, the community at the dump. Our plan is to hand out food packages (rice, beans, etc) to 100 families and pray with them. Please pray that God will direct us to the families He desires and that the team would make a powerful connection between the Gospel message and the meeting of both spiritual and physical needs. Tonight we have planned Guys/Girls night where we’ll spend time focused on the older children.
Love you all and trust you are have an amazing week. I pray that you are blessed many times over the way you’ve blessed us through this covering in prayer.
Your Brother,
Nate”
Posted: April 16, 2011 | Author: dustinholliday | Filed under: Outreach |
This morning at 2:30 a.m. almost 30 people arrived at Dulles to get checked in for their flights to Nicaragua. Yes, I did say 2:30! This group is heading to Puerto Cabezas where our partner church, Verbo, has an orphanage with over 100 kids they are caring for. Our group is giving up their “vacation” time to go and engage and love these kids and the people who take care of them every day.
Additionally, they will engage in ministering to people in the local prison and also make a trip to a village of Miskito Indians, named Betania. Betania is one of the communities that we are focusing on with the PEACE plan.
It’s going to be week of fun, challenges, work, emotions, spiritual growth, and maybe a trip to the beach! Stay tuned here for updates as the week progresses…
Posted: February 9, 2011 | Author: dustinholliday | Filed under: Outreach |
“It is not the brightest who succeed. Nor is success simply the sum of the decisions and efforts we make on our own behalf. Outliers are those who have been given opportunities-and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them” – Malcolm Gladwell
Well said Malcolm. Often we look at successful people and we too easily attribute their success to luck or some privileged opportunity. But as Mr. Gladwell deciphers it’s much more complicated than that and he proves it through multiple accounts in his book “Outliers”.
But, Mr. Gladwell, what about those people who live in a system or context that our frame of reference is not really relevant nor practical for disambiguating the nature or process for “success”?
Pictured here is my friend Deborah. She is a Miskito women, mother of four, who lives in the jungles of Nicaragua on the Coco River. Her community is only accessible by river and has no modern conveniencess such as electricity or clean water. But, Deborah is an Outlier in the making nonetheless. Debo cannot read or write, but because of her unique intelligence…being fluent in her native language and in Spanish…she has been offered a job as a teacher in a community school. Having a job that actually pays money in her community is a phenomenal opportunity and would put her on a trajectory unlike most in her community. It would set her on a path that is different than her mother and the generations before her.
What’s the catch? What is preventing her from taking the path of the Outlier of her community? She is illiterate. Debo is so impressive that the school looking to hire her did not even realize that she was illiterate.
Here is the part that Mr. Gladwell couldn’t predict. As a church that is focused on holistic ministry and believes in this idea of the Kingdom of God, we actually care about literacy. We care about it to the extent that we have spent thousands of dollars and man-hours to adapt a robust curriculum to the Nicaraguan/Miskito culture….for Debo. She is the quintessential target. Literacy will literally change her life.
Pray for Debo. Pray for Literacy. Pray for the Kingdom of God that it will collide with her world and her community’s in such a way that will glorify God and draw more people to the truth of Jesus’ good news.
But, what do I know?
Posted: February 3, 2011 | Author: dustinholliday | Filed under: Outreach |
People love sayings don’t they. “A picture is worth a thousand words.” “The eye is the window into the soul.” “Our faces reflect what we are looking at.”This evening I was mindlessly watching episodes of The Office on TBS when a Target commercial came on. The tag line of the advertisement (pronounced British style ad-verrrr-tizzzz-mant) was “Life is a moving target.” I was blown away by the theological brilliance of the Target commercial writers! Most people spend their entire adult life seeking safety and security for themselves and their families. Not a bad thing I should think, right? But what if you have no legitimate avenues to pursuing such a lofty goal?
In today’s picture you see a young mother from the village of Siksayari, Nicaragua. She lives over a hundred miles by boat from the nearest town that has electricity, cars, or anything resembling modern. We were in this village with a medical team providing care for people who rarely, if ever, receive any kind of qualified care. So, I had to wonder when I I saw this young mother what she was staring at. What is the target that she is trying to hit?
In our culture here we seem to all have similar dreams and aspirations in life. But when I look at her face it seems so pensive and uncertain. She really cannot see past today it seems. Even her young son is communicating with us. Is her target as simple as food on the table and no parasites in her children’s bellies?
Jesus cares about those who worry, those who hunger, those who are meek, those who are persecuted, those who are sick, and those who don’t know what tomorrow brings….(Luke 6:20).
Is there a saying that suffices for her situation? Maybe not, but hopefully an image can help us try to understand…
But, what do I know?
This morning at 2:30 a.m. almost 30 people arrived at Dulles to get checked in for their flights to Nicaragua. Yes, I did say 2:30! This group is heading to Puerto Cabezas where our partner church, Verbo, has an orphanage with over 100 kids they are caring for. Our group is giving up their “vacation” time to go and engage and love these kids and the people who take care of them every day.
