Week Five in Nicaragua

As soon as we returned from Bluefield (see our previous blog entry), we quickly washed clothes and headed off for a five day trip up north. Actually, to the center of the country. We are spending two days in Esteli and then moving on to Sebaco for three days. After that, we return to our host home in Managua for more washing of clothes. A lot of time is spent washing clothes. But, I guess it is good to take showers and wash your clothes if you don’t want to run people off.
Esteli is known for cigars. They do it all. From growing the tobacco to making and packing the boxes. We moved in with a wonderful host family for the two nights we were there. While in Esteli, we attended a fundraiser to start a new church in one of the communities. The featured attraction was a fut ball (soccer) game. The pastor and church members sold food and clothing. Gene spoke for about 15 minutes before the game started. It was an exciting time. At the end of the day, money was raised (not sure how much), relationships were formed, a great game was played and 23 new souls accepted Jesus as savior. That night we attended service at the central church. The name of the church was ”church of fire” and the fire came down. Gene preached the message and just about everyone in the church came up for prayer afterward. You could feel the Spirit moving as God touched the hearts.
After this great service, we moved on to Sebaco. They grow rice and have very large rice fields. It is pretty amazing to see how they have the rice paddies raised and irrigation ditches to create the needed environment to grow rice. You can see that a lot of manual work goes into this process. While in Sebaco, we did home to home evangelism in the mornings and services at night. There were 3 souls added to the book of life and many seeds planted. The host family we stayed with was wonderful and we had new experiences that will be remembered forever. We head home on May 4 and will post our week six entry.  Until then, be blessed.