Hi everyone!
We hope you are doing well! As summer begins for many of you in the States, ours is just ending. We just finished an extremely hot month of May, and now June marks the start of rainy season (or “winter”).
In April, we passed our one-year mark being here in Nicaragua and boy has it flown by! Since our last update we were visited by some of our best friends, as well as by my sister and brother-in-law, we hosted two short-term teams, and Brian went to a One Collective conference in Zambia!
This year, our team is on track to set a record for the most short-term teams we have ever hosted in a single year! Our total for the year will fall somewhere between 6-10 teams. Although not entirely, these teams are mostly sent from churches. These churches share nothing in common other than being passionate about seeing the Gospel message advanced among the nations, and about seeing lasting change for the hurting, the broken, and the unseen. As a team, it is so powerful to see believers from different backgrounds, denominations, and cultural lenses come alongside us here in Masatepe.
We’ve been so blessed this year to have family and friends from Minnesota come visit us! In January, Brian’s parents and 2 sisters came to visit and we spent most of April with visitors. First, some of our best friends (Josh and Sarah Prescher) were able to come for 2 weeks and their trip overlapped with Tina and Matthew! Those were all such sweet times and we’re so thankful they were able to come.
Right after having visitors, Brian began a 38 hour trek to Zambia (Africa) for a week-long conference for all team directors from One Collective communities around the world. It was an awesome opportunity, both because of the training received, and because of chance to meet leaders from communities around the world and hear their stories about how God is at work. One Collective has a community in Zambia, so they also spent a day walking around that town and learning about their work.
In other news, we purchased a truck! Although it’s not the prettiest car to look at, we chose it because it will be useful both for our team and for hosting short-term teams. We previously needed to rent a bus or truck each time a group came, so now we will use this plus our teammates’ cars. It’s also been nice to not go to doctor visits an hour away on motorcycle while Nique is 6 months pregnant :)
Prayer Requests:
- Health for Nique’s and our growing baby boy!
- In our last update, we talked about our friend “Chris”. We would appreciate extra prayer for him, as he is battling spiritually, mentally, and having some health issues. We’ve gotten to talk about grace and the forgiveness God offers us with him a few times recently. We’re praying for God to move in his heart in a way that only He can.
- We were expecting a short-term team this month, but the team leaders suffered tragic and unexpected death of a family member, and the team will no longer be able to make it. Prayers that the Lord would comfort this couple in the midst of their loss.