Every summer, my sponsoring church, the Sunset Church of Christ (in Miami) conducts a mission trip to Central America.  This year we returned to León, Nicaragua to help a congregation continue its building project.  One of the things that attracted us to this group of believers was their forward-thinking attitude: they were going to accomplish this project regardless of whether we helped or not.  They weren’t sitting around for the “americanos” to do everything.  They had purchased a small plot of land, so we purchased the one next to it and doubled their investment.  Our first year, they poured the foundations and we built the walls.  This year, they had put a roof on the structure and asked us to help them pour the floor.  They had manpower to do the manual labor, but didn’t have the funds to rent a cement mixer.  That’s were we were able to help them.  So the floor got poured and we began adding two classrooms to their structure.

In addition to the construction crew, we took two doctors who saw hundreds of patients and distributed medicines worth thousands of dollars.  We had puppet shows and fun and games for the kids.  It was a great week!  Next year, we plan on focusing our energy on providing seminars and training sessions for the leaders and members of the congregation.  The clinic and the seminars will be held in their new building.

As God partners with us, we are learning what it means to partner with others (Phil. 1.3-6).  What an absolutely amazing thought: God wants to work alongside us!  As we go with God, he goes with us.

Enjoy the pics!