We have now passed the 6-month mark of being in Nicaragua, so thank you – thank you for your support and encouragement over these months. Since April, we’ve gotten tanner than Minnesota weather allows us to be, eaten more rice and beans than we thought was possible, become more fluent in Spanish, and most importantly, become more sure that God has us where we should be.
Brian and I have some exciting news to share! Our team has been undergoing some changes in structure and leadership over the last month or so, and that involved some changes for Brian and I. After much prayer and consideration, we have both accepted new roles on the team.
Brian will be stepping into the role of Director for our whole team here in Masatepe. On our team, the Director role is designed to function similarly to a general contractor when building a house. As the leader of our team, his role will be to help bring people together—including our team, local partners (schools, churches, businesses) and international partners—to work together to find holistic solutions to community needs. As he continues his language learning, he will receive training for this new role over the next few months, and will slowly adopt the responsibilities that come along with it. The goal is for that training to be completed in February or March.
I will become the Manager of Beto’s Bistro—which is undergoing a transition to function as more of a community center and slightly less like a restaurant. Beto’s will still serve coffee and some food items, but we want to continue to use our space and resources for much more than making coffee and food. Among other things, this means that events—like worship nights, business seminars, meetings, classes, etc.—will become a much larger part of what we do at Beto’s. Our goal is for Beto’s to continue to become more of a gathering place for people all over Masatepe.
Saying yes to these roles wasn’t only a matter of whether we thought they would be a good fit for us. For Brian to accept the role of Community Director, it also means that we have removed the constraint of a 2-year timeline on our commitment here in Masatepe. Initially, we committed to serving for 2 years. We always told people that we were committing to at least 2 years, and that at the end of our 2 years we would make a decision about whether we felt like the Lord wanted us to stay in Nicaragua or return to the US. It’s one thing to say those words, but it’s not always easy to practically let go of control of our future plans and trust that the Lord is in control. Admittedly, this was a hard decision to make, because in some ways having the 2-year timeline felt like a safety buffer that we could lean on when we felt worried or uncertain about the future.
Note: Either way, we still plan to come back to the US after two years (April of 2024) to raise support again!
Other members of our team (both Nicaraguan and American) are changing aspects of their roles as well, so we ask for prayer in this transition. We need humility to learn from each other, unity, and creativity to see how we can move forward.
This isn’t the only thing that has been on our minds since our last newsletter, so here are more photos!
We felt like sharing this news about our role changes was important enough to have its own newsletter, but we will be sending another update in the next week or so sharing more about what we’ve been up to recently.
In Christ,
Brian & Dominique