Day 3 Nicaragua
Today Steve and I studied Spanish for 4 hours, which by the
way is our normal routine in the mornings with our teacher. After our studies on Friday we decided to
take a break and head to the beach, which by the way is a blessing in San Juan
Del Sur. If you remember we are here for
about a week taking extra classes in Spanish before we head off to our town.
This place we are at now is about 4 hours from the town we will be living in
which is called Nagarote. The
weather here is very hot, typically about 90 degrees, which is amazing
especially to be so close to the beach and to have trade winds. So it is nice to be able to get cool and head
off to the beach. We got a ride from a
local surf shop called “One Love”, the drive in a truck which is a shared ride with
other people and takes about 20 minutes.
The cost is about $10.00 per person for the ride and about $10.00 to
rent a surf board (sounds like a great missionary life) well it is. So we left around 1pm in the back of a pick-up
truck which is to say the least very interesting and at the same time extremely
dangerous" if we were to get into an accident."
Normally when you ride in the back of the truck you talk to the people
and tell them about yourself and you ask them questions about their life. One thing about this city (San Juan Del Sur)
that is unique to all other cities in Nicaragua is that mostly everyone speaks
English. It’s a big tourist location, its very beautiful and cheap. So this makes it much easier for
Steve and I to talk to people as we are still learning to speak Spanish
fluently. As we head out we start to
talk to a middle aged man who in his near 50’s, he is a grey haired and is
fairly thin (can you picture this) he is here alone to surf and travel. If I remember correctly he is from Washington
D.C, and his name is John. Also there is
a young girl who is also traveling (she is not with John), her name is Racheal
and she about 23 years old and she is from Germany. Our conversation starts with why we are here, Steve
and I answer that we are here to learn Spanish and then go to our city here in
Nicaragua (Nagarote) to help our friends with their church. We told him we are Christians and that we
sold our business at home to obey the call the Lord has placed on our lives. As
we talk to John and Racheal (Racheal is quietly listening to our whole
conversation), we find out that John was what I would call a radical Christian
(as he told us also). John has attended many
conferences and many churches, many different kinds of churches, but from what
he told us these churches and pastor conferences had many different things happening. These weren’t your regular church services as
he told us, but many people were being slain in the spirit and speaking in
tongues. Steve and I were like wow
that’s really awesome John!
As John continued to
tell us he no longer believes in one God, he believes in many, but the most important
one is the god that is inside himself and the power of himself. Basically the power is in yourself to do
anything you want. Steve and I both
calmly asked John many questions and John asked us many questions as well. Once important thing that John asked us is “if
we believe the entire bible for a literal translation” and also if we have
faith in God that he created all things.
If you are reading this and you wonder what our answer is, it is always
yes, we believe every part of the bible was God breathed and is inspired by
God. We believe that when you read the
word of God, there is power in it to change our lives. If you don’t believe me I challenge you to
pick it up and read it for yourself and ask the Lord to help you understand it
much better. Anyway back to John and
Racheal, John asked us another question; he asked us straight up if we believe that
people that do not believe in or accept Jesus Christ into their heart are going
to Hell. Our answer is the bible says:
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that
whoever believes in him shall have eternal life. I
guess this didn’t make John or Racheal very happy, Racheal said “So I guess I
am going to hell”, we replied that this is what the word of God says. John
was starting to get very angry with Steve and I, why you ask? John
didn’t like any of these answers, he was so mad that we believe in one God and
that Jesus Christ died for us and that he is all powerful and knows every part
of each one of us. This was challenging
but at the same time this is the whole purpose we are here. When you are unsure of an answer it is always
good to pray and ask the Lord for wisdom.
The power of prayer always amazes me. So we talked to them both the whole drive, we
asked John if he still believed that Jesus died on the cross for forgiveness of
sins, he thought for a couple minutes and replied very angrily “Yes I guess I still believe that”. Ahhh a starting point to come back to a
personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
I want you to know that when we arrived at the beach Racheal and I talked
about life and the power of the bible and how Jesus loved her no matter what
she has gone through. We talked about
Jesus coming back one day for all of us and that if she lives to the end of
Jesus’s return, she will have to make a choice.
Racheal told me that she has never heard of any of this. It amazes me that someone from Germany has
never heard about the great return of our Lord Jesus Christ. I told her I would
pray for her and that I know life in general is hard and that I wanted her to
be award of all of this. This was the end where we all parted ways to hang out
on the beach. John went his way and Racheal went her
way. We prayed a lot for them, a lot for
all of Racheal’s pain, but mostly for John who felt mad, angry and
confused. At the end of the day we all
had to take the truck back to our city.
Before getting on the bus John came to Steve shook his hand and said all
in good fun, and asked Steve if he would you like to come fishing with him
tomorrow. Oh my gosh I can’t tell you
how crazy this is , John was literally angry with Steve and I, almost like he
wanted to argue with us, but we didn’t argue at all. We just stated what we know to be true and
that is the word of God. John
apologized to us and just was so different when he came back to us, Racheal was
just cute and hugged me when she said goodbye.
Today still I am praying for these beautiful people. We are here for this reason and I am sure
there will be many more encounters and we are so excited to be here and to focus
on the purpose of our life.
hola
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