A Mission to Remember: Blog 3

This is part three of a guest blog by my DS 3. He and 21 other college students just spent their Spring Break in Nicaragua on a mission trip. This trip was certainly life-changing for them. These are his words and his account of the experience they had there.

On Thursday morning we went back to the school to say our goodbyes to the kids of La Chureca (the dump). This was full of mixed emotions. Obviously we were sad to leave the kids, but we were so happy to have had the opportunity to show these kids some joy and love. Many of the kids wrote us letters and drew us pictures as a goodbye gift.

I played soccer with my buddies that I had made throughout the past week, and we gave out the soccer balls that we brought. As we drove away from the dump for the last time, I saw it much differently as when we first arrived. I didn’t see the smoke or the cardboard houses. I didn’t see the kids with no shoes to wear or the parents sniffing glue. I saw a beautiful display of God’s Kingdom!

La Chureca is a beautiful place, and God is present there. He is doing some awesome things in the cardboard village. The dump taught us a lot about how backwards America is. Here in the states we have EVERYTHING, but lack so much in our hearts. In La Chureca, they have nothing, yet the joy is evident in their hearts! As Americans we saw that they had nothing and our hearts broke for them. We wanted to buy them gifts and give them our hats and bracelets. God really showed us that all we need on this side of heaven is Him! God will provide for all our needs if we trust in him. Not all our wants, but our needs. We quickly realized that these people don’t want gifts, they want love! And, it was awesome to shower them with love for the few days that we were there!

As our bus pulled away, we were told that we were heading to Ms. Ruby’s house. Now Ms. Ruby always prayed over every group that came to La Chureca. She prayed individually for each person in the group, and her prayers were always spot on for what each person was struggling with. They say that she “had a direct connection to God.” Unfortunately, Ms. Ruby passed away two months ago, but since then, her sister has turned the top floor of her house into a prayer room. Now, groups come up there and get prayed over by the leaders of the mission organization down there.

When we arrived and were all seated up there, they asked if anyone played guitar and could lead worship. I raised my hand, but I didn’t have my guitar with me. It was back at the compound where we were staying. As I said earlier though, God is a provider, and it just so happened that Ms. Ruby played guitar! They pulled out her bright blue guitar and handed it to me. When I held her guitar I felt an electricity coursing through my body. I started to shake and I didn’t know if I could do it. I had never led worship before, but about two months ago I began to learn to play the guitar.

I said a prayer silently while I began to strum just asking God to help me with this, and to give it all to Him. The next THREE hours are a blur to me! I just kept playing and we kept worshiping and praying over one another. It was the most amazing three hours of my life! God was with me every strum, and though my fingers were bleeding from playing so long, nothing was going to stop us from praising His name! Ms. Ruby was definitely with us in that room as I played her guitar and we prayed just as she did a few months earlier!

We began our last day by taking the kids from the orphanage on a hike. The mission group that we were working with is in the process of buying a 400 acre farm to expand their ministry. This farm is not a normal American farm. This is the most rugged terrain I have ever seen on a farm. What I thought was going to be a nice fun hike turned into carrying these young kids and attempting not to fall as I climb this mountain! Despite it being 98 degrees, we had a lot of fun hiking and eating wild fruit, and the kids loved showing us the way!

As our final day was coming to a close, we took a very scenic drive out to the beach. This was most of our first times on a Pacific beach, as well as a black sand beach. The beach was deserted and it seemed to go on forever. After taking it in for a few minutes, I grabbed the surf board and began to paddle out. The waves are much bigger than here in Florida. About 25 minutes later I met my buddy out there and we had a blast. The waves weren’t perfect, but they were a lot of fun! As the sun went down, our group took our last group photo and headed back home. God painted such a beautiful sunset for us to see that night.


As I was writing this all the feelings, sounds, smells and tastes came back to me. It was cool to re-live my week in Nicaragua. Now there are many more stories that I could tell, but this will give you guys a good idea of what we did and a few stories to go along with it. I look forward to telling stories of Nicaragua for many years to come. Nicaragua definitely has a piece of my heart. I learned so many things while I was over there, and I pray that God gives me the opportunities to share my stories back in the states. We went there with the mindset that we were there to bless them, but I believe that we came back just as blessed. La Chureca is a beautiful place and I thank God for giving us the opportunity to go to Nicaragua and bring joy to his beautiful little angels!