Greetings from Casa de Shelly,
Matthew 11:28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
Life in Somotillo Nicaragua for the North American is relatively stress free. Unlike life at home, here we are quicker to see our relevance in the kingdom of God. As Christians we often slip into our comfort zones and with that, we take on our "yolk" which often becomes a burden. We were reminded that each day we need to wake up, trust what the Lord has in store for us and take on His yolk so that we can rest. After the devotional we divided into small teams and set out on foot to visit local villages. Our initial conversations with the neighbors was simply to remind them of the new church plant, Prince of Peace II, and invite them to Sunday service. However, each team quickly took this opportunity to share the Gospel when possible and pray with each household. Many relationships have blossomed in these last 2 days as we have traveled on foot to be the hands and feet of Jesus. It has been such a sweet time of fellowship as we have hugged, prayed, and cried with these families and lifted up their burdens to the Lord. We shared food with the parents and small toys with the children.
This afternoon we headed to El Chaguite, which is a village beyond the gold mines. The doctor saw 37 families while the remainder of the team engaged with frisbee, soccer, toy airplanes, told stories, shared the Gospel message, and fed the village from the pot of chicken stew that we prepared. It was a blessing to the team to see how something so small could bring so much delight to the children. To literally see bunches of children run after our truck in hopes of getting a piece of candy or T-shirt was simply precious.
To sum up our day, we will leave you with this bible verse:
Isaiah 61:1 "The spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.
