Clean Dirt

My team and I just finished our second week of ministry, and it is nothing like we ever expected.  Everything changes day to day sometimes even in the middle of the day our plans change.  FLEXIBILITY is key when doing ministry in Nicaragua!

This is what ministry looks like majority of the time:

• Sweeping and mopping the kitchen
• Sweeping and mopping the rancho
• Sweeping and mopping the centro
• Construction (we are helping to build an entrance for CICRN), which is cleaning the bricks that they use, making cement, and sifting through dirt to get out the rocks.
• Sometimes construction is getting on the back of a tractor and collecting bricks that are covered in ants, spiders, and scorpions; then we proceed to throw this bricks in the road so the road does not get washed away by the rain.
• Prayer walking
• Sometimes we work in the school which can mean anything from cleaning the garden, organizing class rooms/library, grading papers, cutting out decorations.
• Kids stuff at 4 in the afternoon til 5:30
• Cleaning dirt!

Okay so the last one may sound a little ridiculous to pretty much all of you, but it’s a real thing we do here in Ometepe. We clean dirt! God definitely used this to break me and make me dependent on him. The first time I cleaned dirt was at the school. I was told I was going there to teach English to the high school kids. Obviously, that did not happen at all. When my two team mates and I got there, we were handed rakes and told to clean the dirt. (Wait WHAT?) This means that we were scraping away all the rocks and leaves on the ground, leaving the dirt “clean”. God used this to humble me and to also break any and all expectations that I might try to hold onto while doing ministry.

Most of the time when people think the word missionary, they think of playing with kids (maybe doing a vacation bible school).  They think of getting that perfect picture to post on all social media. Well that’s not always the reality, and it shouldn’t be the reality. Sometimes it’s serving your ministry hosts well because they are the ones who live here 24/7. They are the ones who will continue to love on the kids well after we leave here July.

This is what the Lord has been teaching me as I am going into week three of ministry here in CICRN. So this is how good used cleaning dirt to show me more of his plan and his character.