Remembering our time in Nicaragua
A few days ago, I ran across a journal that I kept when our family and several other friends went to Nicaragua to work with a church there. That trip was just over six years ago. I thought I would share a few excerpts from this journal.
In this post, I’ll share a few thoughts that I wrote down the day before leaving for Nicaragua:
We leave for our trip to Nicaragua tomorrow. Everyone is excited, and we are physically ready. But the conflicts at church during the last two weeks have been mentally, emotionally, and spiritually draining… and distracting…
I must remain ever listening, but especially on this trip. Strange places, sounds, smells, language, faces, customs – but God is the same. He is the constant that must hold by attention. If I focus on other things, here or there, then I will not listen and I cannot obey…
I wrote this the day that we left for Nicaragua:
The Lord has focused my mind on Him. All of the distractions have faded. Now, I must check my focus continually…
Anything good that happens this week will come from God. I cannot manufacture changed lives. My goal – my prayer – is that I live uprightly before god, and that I present my life to Him as a tool that He can use for righteousness.
Therefore, I must not worry about the path – the plan, the schedule. Those are in God’s able hands. At each moment, in each circumstance, I must ensure that I am walking in obedience. Everything else is up to God.
(The church that I mention in these excerpts is not the church that we are part of now. Unfortunately, those “conflicts” did not end well.)