9.1 Friday, 5 August (Travel Update)

Our team is at the Atlanta Airport at our gate and our flight is set to depart on-time at 7:24am. The flight is scheduled to land in Pittsburgh at 9:10am. We’ll probably be to baggage claim around 9:30am. The team is weary from very little sleep last night, but it hasn’t dampened our spirits. When the last of our group arrived at the gate after a chaotic and hectic time getting to the airport from the hotel we were greeted by a long, wonderful “slow clap.” We’ll see you soon!

9.0 Friday, 5 August (Travel Update)

We’re a tired bunch. We just got settled into rooms at our hotel – the Clarion Hotel Atlanta Airport South. The hotel’s phone number is (770) 968-4300. We’ve got three rooms with three boys in each and one room with four girls and one room with five girls. In about two hours our team will be congregating in the hotel lobby to ensure seats on the 5am shuttle to the airport. It’s about a twenty-five (25) minute shuttle ride back to the airport and we’ve got to check-in, check our luggage, and go through security to catch our 7:24am flight (it’s Delta Flight #1913) that lands in Pittsburgh at 9:10am. Looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow morning!

8.2 Thursday, 4 August (Travel Update)

Our team is still in Managua.  Our flight is scheduled to leave, at the absolute earliest, at 4:12pm.  Assuming we leave at exactly 4:12pm our estimated time of arrival in Atlanta is 9:55pm and our connection to Pittsburgh departs at 10:05pm (the gate attendant here in Nicaragua have confirmed that the Atlanta to Pittsburgh flight is on-time and that the weather that delayed the departure of our flight was relegated to the Gulf of Mexico).  That said, our team is not going to be home tonight.  We have been booked on the first Delta flight from Atlanta to Pittsburgh tomorrow morning.  Here’s the flight information:

Delta Flight #1913, Departing ATL at 7:24am, Arriving PGH at 9:10am

Also, our team will be staying at a hotel near to the airport.  I have been in contact with two hotels near the airport and both have available rooms.  Also, our team has been told that there will be hotel vouchers available for our team when we arrive.  That being said, we don’t know yet which hotel we’ll be staying at in Atlanta, but I’m confident that it will be in the immediate vicinity of the airport.  We’ll be in Atlanta when we learn this particular piece of information, and I’ll instruct all of our students to communicate with their parents regarding our lodging and other information.

At least we’ll have our luggage and a relatively clean change of clothes for the morning (I suppose that’s the nice part about an international flight and having to claim our luggage in order to clear customs).  So, at this point, we’ll see you tomorrow at the Pittsburgh Airport.  I’ll blog again once we’re checked-in and settled at our hotel (I’ll include hotel information, address, and telephone number – I know that my Mom would have appreciated the same information had I been in this situation when I was in High School; in fact, she still asks for this when Julia and I go on vacation).

Lastly, thank you for being adaptable.  I know a mid-morning arrival will be inconvenient for many families.  Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience this will cause your family.  I suppose the Lord wasn’t ready for our team’s adventure to be finished.

8.1 Thursday, August 4th (Travel Information)

Our team is seated at Gate 3 at Mangua’s airport.  Our flight to Atlanta has been delayed by at least three hours.  The gate attendant just announced that we will be leaving, at the earliest, at 4pm.  Should this hold true it puts our connecting flight to Pittsburgh into question.  If our flight departs Managua at 4pm (which is 6pm) on the East Coast, we’ll land in Atlanta around 10pm.  Our connecting flight departs at 10:10pm, and all that separates us from landing and our connection is baggage claim, customs, a ride on the railway from Terminal E to Terminal A, and a sprint.  We’ve already made plans should our team miss the connection – keep in mind, our flight from Pittsburgh to Atlanta could also be delayed, still allowing our team to make the connection, but this cannot be counted on).  Should our team miss the connection we will be staying in a hotel near to the Atlanta airport, and flying out of Atlanta on Delta’s first morning flight.  This blog is my best way to communicate to all of the families, so please check back frequently, and I’ll continue to make updates as they become available.  As of right now, our team is hoping to make the connecting flight, but is also making plans should we have to stay the night in Atlanta.  This is the opportune time to remind all of you of something that you hopefully already know: our ministry and our students are blessed to have Pastor Darren Bowers leading us and Tammy Demchuk taking on numerous administrative details for our ministry.  Tammy’s efforts ensure that our ministry happens.  Her value is being proved – yet again – as our team is being well cared for by the team back in Wexford all while we’re thousands of miles away in Nicaragua.

8.0 Thursday, August 4th

It’s our last morning in Managua, Nicaragua.  The majority of our team woke early to spend time with the Lord before leaving this place and moving forward into their continuing journey and relationship with their mighty God.  They’ve begun to unpack what the Lord has been doing in their midst and within them this past week.  To understand it all, to expand their categories for relating to and communicating with their God, and to create new categories altogether wherever necessary.

Yesterday was a full day.  We started our day in La Chureca where we walked through the community where approximately 800 people live.  We prayed for the grandmother of one of the girls who lives in the Children’s Home Daniel and Jessenia Bain founded.  We prayed for a long time, and through our prayers she felt emboldened to sit up and then to rise to her feet after not moving from her bed for days.  However, the Lord did not move in that moment to bring physical healing to her.  And therein can be found an amazingly important lesson for our students both in life and our pursuit of God: God doesn’t always move instantaneously, as we prefer that He does.

I think we’ve all at points noticed it in the lives of these students, but also in our own lives.  As technology has advanced, our impatience has also increased.  Cell phones provide for instantaneous communication, whether by voice, text, or video calls.  Cable television allows us to watch on television show we want “On-demand.”  I can remember being so excited to get dial-up Internet, but now we consider calling our Internet provider if the page doesn’t load within five seconds.  Even when we go to a restaurant we can order anything that we want, even if it isn’t on the menu.  We have inherently learned to expect what our culture offers.  And our culture offers instant gratification, instant access to pleasure and enjoyment.  But this isn’t how the Lord works.

We draw near to the Lord through deliberate effort and time.  We seek the Lord for discernment, and sometimes we know quickly and sometimes it takes months.  In my life in took nearly twelve months of concerted prayer before the Lord allowed me to know that He had something for me beyond and outside of Alcoa Inc.  Then, it took nearly sixteen full months before the Lord revealed to me what that something else was.  What would the typical high school student do if they were told that they had to wait twenty-eight months before they could get something that they wanted.  Our students are learning.  They’re learning that the Lord, despite our sincerest efforts and our earnest seeking, does not always give us exactly what we want in the timeframe that we expect it.  He moves when He moves.  His Spirit moves blows wherever He pleases, almost like the wind.  We are not in control.  We are not able to demand.  We are called to be obedient and faithful, to seek after Him with earnestness and upright hearts.  This is our role.  To go where He leads.  To do what He speaks.  And to know that through these activities we will know who we are, we will settle into a secure understanding of our identity as His beloved son or daughter, and we will abide in His peace.

After our time in La Chureca, our team went to lunch at a restaurant at Laguna de Apoyo where we also spent time in the volcanic lagoon swimming.  It’s a neat place to swim.  The lagoon used to be an active volcano, and now its water is in one place very warm and in the next place very cold.  As our team swam in the shadows on the volcano’s ridges, our students were struck by the beauty and the opportunity to be together and silly.  Towards the end of our time at the lagoon Daniel Bain and I baptized Anna Harjung, Brenna Thorslund, and Julie Wechsler, in addition to Abby, a young college student, who is an intern this summer with Love, Light, and Melody (the mission organization that Daniel and Jessenia are associated with) and is working at the Children’s Home.

After Laguna de Apoyo our team went to the Masaya (a town) market where the students have thirty minutes to shop for trinkets, gifts, and souvenirs.  They had an enjoyable time, purchased several things, and it all seemed like a game show.  I enjoyed watching our students hurriedly make their way through the market recognizing that thirty minutes might not be enough time for a leisurely shopping experience.  But they accomplished all of the shopping that they wanted, in time for us to arrive at the Children’s Home and enjoy watching a “performance.”

The girls and Elias (the one boy who lives at the Home) had wanted to show their appreciation for our team’s hard work and painting project that they decided to organize four separate dance routines, two of them being traditional Nicaraguan dances.  It was my first ever “dance recital” (I’m looking forward to the potential of years worth of dance recitals with Keely).  Our students smiled, laughed, and cheered wildly for the girls and Elias (who performed his portion of the first dance while wearing his Power Rangers costume).  It was an excellent end to the week.

It’s also worth noting that in addition to our team completing the painting project we were able to bless the children in yet another way.  Our team came with a specific budget for the painting project.  Daniel and Jessenia embraced the budget and came in several hundred dollars under budget, which allowed us to be generous in an unplanned way.  We gifted some money to Jessenia to purchase brand new plates and cups, two sets of new curtains, and a brand new bunk bed for the house.  The bunk bed will allow for Daniel and Jessenia to bring two more girls out of the dump and into the Children’s Home, truly providing to whomever these two girls will be a hope and a future that did not exist prior.  Our entire team is exceedingly thankful for the opportunity to bless the Children’s Home in this unplanned way.

Also, we celebrated Anna Harjung’s birthday with a cake and a small dance party!  After that, we returned to La Quinta Havilah and had dinner and then some time together as a group.  That time was an extended time of worship that began with our team singing songs in unison, and ended with our team singing our own songs to the Lord.  It was a beautiful chorus of praise.  And most assuredly not something that our team would have felt comfortable experiencing when they arrived.  The Holy Spirit has moved to free our students from the idea that worship must happen at church and during the first twenty-five minutes to understanding that worship can happen anywhere and does not required a worship leader.  We are free to worship in our own voices, with our own songs, whenever and wherever we find ourselves.

It’s been a worthwhile week, the fruit of which will last into eternity.

7.0 Wednesday, 3 August

The sun is bright this morning.  The air is cool following along with a gentle breeze.  All of the morning sounds that are familiar to La Quinta Havilah and the “third floor” are singing their chorus.  It’s a beautiful morning.

Some of the girls had another restless night’s sleep.  Early in our week some of the girls were fighting dreams that brought their heart’s fear.  They recognized the dreams as from the enemy (Daniel Bain has had a few dreams that he identified as “attacks from our enemy” this week, as well) and would pray through them.  Elisa Dawson has encountered dreams like this for several years and is well equipped to minister to and care for the girls who have been fighting these dreams.  Two nights ago Daniel and I, along with all of the girls, prayed over the room, anointing our hands with oil, and moving throughout the room to pray against the enemy’s entrance and to pray against him infiltrating our girls’ dreams.  Because the result of the dreams has been some fatigued girls who are now fighting against fear.

And this fear has mostly been overcome.  Since we prayed over the room the girls have still had some disruptions during the night, but they’ve all been noises on the outside of the roof.  Last night, Elisa described the sound as though a large animal were sprinting back and forth across the roof for nearly three hours.  And even still the girls have remained steadfast, even growing in their commitment, to rising early, to spending time in the Word, to writing in their journals, to praying, and to supporting one another.  What has been meant to disrupt and separate our girls has done nothing more than to increase their fervor for the Lord and unite them.  I believe this is the sign of a group of girls who is growing in the Lord and their understanding of Him, and I believe it also demonstrates what excellent leadership can accomplish for our students (and Elisa is an absolutely excellent leader who really only began serving in our ministry after I, her brother-in-law, said to her jokingly, “What do you think people at North Way will think when my own sister won’t even serve in the ministry that I lead?”  She responded by seeking the Lord through prayer, and then by following the Lord’s leading into serving in our ministry and through that obedience the Lord has accomplished some mighty works, revealed Himself to her in abundant ways, and she has quickly grown into one of our most trusted and respected adult leaders).

The boys, on the other hand, have slept like rocks throughout the week.  There are multiple reasons why this could be, why the boys have not faced the same opposition that our girls have, but which of those multiple reasons is the correct one I do not know.  The only hiccup in our sleeping came last night when at 3am a student’s cell phone alarm began to go off, which, in and of itself was extremely strange.  Our students have not had their cell phones on this week, our students have no reason to have ever set their alarms for 3am in the morning on a Wednesday and especially the student whose phone it was.  I’m sure that boy will tell me this morning that he turned his phone off when we left Atlanta last Thursday and hasn’t turned it back on since.

1 Peter 2:9-11 reads…

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

Our students and all who follow the Lord are a royal priesthood, called and separated for His purposes and for His glory.  Our purpose, as members of His royal priesthood, is to be about our Father’s business to build the Kingdom and to build the Church (which we know is the body of Christ).  I believe this is why our students are being resisted through their sleep.  Because the Lord has gifted them, because the Lord is pouring out His Spirit on them, to be further set apart as members of the Lord’s priesthood.  Among the multitude of things the Lord is teaching our students, they are learning this: they must be walking with the Spirit and be empowered by the Spirit through their obedience and faithfulness in order to be effective in their roles as members of Jesus’ royal priesthood.  We cannot simply wake up, do nothing to pursue the Lord throughout the day, live according to our own desires and plans and passions, and expect to be effective priests and priestesses.  The Lord rarely, if ever, forces Himself onto us.  We need to be continually renewing our minds and hearts, understanding and taking hold of what God has ordained our roles and purposes to be here on this earth so that we can be effective and trusted workers as He builds His Kingdom!  There’s a reason 1 Peter 2:9, which is a relatively well-known and oft-quoted verse, especially when we are seeking to encourage someone or to remind ourselves of who we are.  The verse is quoted in isolation of what follows it, giving the verse a fuller understanding.  We are members of the Lord’s royal priesthood, and, therefore, are called to abstain from seeking the pleasure of the flesh (of the world, that are separate and have no part in God) and to keep our conduct amongst the Gentiles (that is, anyone who is not following Jesus with their lives) honorable.

One last thought before we head into our day.  In Romans 12:3-8 the Apostle Paul lists spiritual gifts that we’ve come to know as the Motivational Gifts.  These gifts lead into roles that we know as the Prophet (prophecy), the Servant (service), the Teacher (teaching), the Exhorter (exhortation), the Giver (giving), the Leader (administration), and Mercy (people empowered to focus on the emotional needs of others through compassion, empathy, etc.).  Paul describes these gifts as being given in different measure to each of His people (us) and that these gifts are to be employed in the build up and His Kingdom and His Church.  And then in 1 Corinthians 12 Paul provides a list of spiritual gifts that we’ve come to know as the Ministry Gifts: Wisdom, Knowledge, Faith, Healing, Working Miracles, Prophecy (different than the motivational gift of Prophecy), Distinguishing between spirits, Tongues, and Interpretation of Tongues.  These gifts are also available to every person who follows after the Lord with their lives, and they are the capacity each of us has in us to carry out our purpose, role, and function, in Christ’s body, the Church.  These gifts are vital not only to us living into the fullness of Christ in our own lives, but also in the corporate life of the Church.  As such we must steward well these gifts, searching out our gift and seeking to understand it so that we can discern our specific role and function in the Church, enabling us to determine where our time and energy should be spent (our lives are already overloaded and so we should be endeavoring to function inside of our spiritual gifts as much as possible rather than focusing our attention and energy elsewhere), and because knowing our spiritual gifts can help us to discern God’s will for our lives (the choice of ones occupation – whether “secular” or “religious” – should take into account whether or not that occupation will help or hinder our exercise and development of our spiritual gift; a practical example of what I mean: someone who does not have the spiritual gift of teaching will have invaluable insight into the Lord’s will for their lives and the decision they should make when/if they were offered a teaching position).

This is why I share all of this: Scripture never tells us to place our physical priorities onto following our own passions and desires in determining our occupations.  Scripture tells us to seek after, understand, and develop our spiritual gifts, and then to follow the Lord’s leading through the ways He’s gifted us into our occupational endeavors.  I am presenting these thoughts because the vast majority of our high school students, when making the decision regarding which college or university to attend, what their fields of study (major and minor) should be, and what occupation they want someday to have make their decision through the lens of the world and a worldly focus on what will allow for them a “good life.”  Our students make these decisions with very little to no understanding of what their spiritual gifts are and what the Lord has purposed their lives to be about through those spiritual gifts.  My hope is that through North Way’s High School Ministry and our partnership with every family in our church we can change this pattern.  When we do, I believe the impact this generation will have on the world around them will be unmistakable and all to the glory of the Lord!  And it will be to His glory because in faithfulness and obedience He will be placed first in all that we think, ask, and do!

6.1 Tuesday, 2 August

We’ve now finished our Tuesday.  The girls are back in their room and the guys are back in their room after our group time concluded ten minutes ago (it’s 9:46pm in Managua, Nicaragua right now).  We’ve had a good day as a team.  We began our morning with breakfast, although, for the majority of our team, the morning actually begins between 5:30-6am with morning devotions and quiet time.  Breakfast happens each morning at 7:30am.  And, normally, we spend time together as a group following breakfast.  However, this morning we opted to forgo group time in order to maximize our time at the Children’s Home – the earlier in the day our team started painting the more time we’d have to work without distraction since the children are all at school (the youngest children return home shortly after 11am and the older children return home at 1pm).

Our team worked diligently today, focused on the project, and understanding that it had to be completed today.  Our students responded!  Elisa Dawson, Anna Harjung, Alli Behr, and Brenna Thorslund focused on the most detailed, tedious painting project our team had.  Their task was to paint around a decorative painting that Jessenia Bain had wanted to maintain from the prior wall.  On previous days our team had painted the wall, leaving space around the decorative branches and flower buds paintings along the wall.  Today was the day the tiny, artisan-type brushes came out and these four girls with occasional help from others (for example, Nate Christie, whose height proved invaluable since our team had only one step-ladder) to bring that project task to completion.  And, not only to completion, but the work was carefully and beautifully done!

Our team also painted a bathroom, a storage room, the kitchen, one wall in the living room, the entrance room (the foyer, I suppose), and large portions of the front exterior wall and columns running along the house’ front.  Needless to say it was quite the undertaking.  Braden Rathmell proved to be an all around handyman of sorts, always looking for work and then ensuring it was properly completed.  Stephanie Swaney painted edges meticulously in the living room.  Tyler Rose and others did incredible work in the kitchen, not only having to move furniture all around, but in doing an excellent job. Andy Conway painted like his life depended on it.  Taren Hodges, Christopher Leasher, Haley Milcic, Logan Rose, Julie Wechsler, and Caleb Wulforst owned the front exterior work, and received several remarks from several people about how excellent their work was.  Anne Neuhaus and Peter Hrydil came alongside Tyler Rose to complete the kitchen project, as well as a large portion of work in the storage room.

I’m exceptionally proud of this team for accomplishing this work.  They took  on a task, a portion of their overall trip cost went to covering the cost of the paint and painting materials as a blessing to the Children’s Home and to Daniel and Jessenia, and the owned the work and did it with excellence!

After finishing the painting project we took the team to an old, abandoned house with an absolutely majestic view of Managua.  And after that, I decided to be a bit extravagant with our food budget and took the team to Pops for some excellent ice cream (it’s a fitting treat for a job well done!).

After that we had some down time back at La Quinta Havilah, then had dinner, and then had our group time where we answered questions that our students had and also discussed spiritual gifts.  We’ve also had some students ask if they can be baptized tomorrow at Laguna de Apoyo, a volcanic lagoon that we’ll be visiting and taking a swim in tomorrow afternoon.  Please be praying for the three students that have, thus far, expressed a desire in being baptized: Anna Harjung who is desiring to simply dedicate herself to following the Lord with all that she is and to publicly acknowledge this of her own volition, Julie Wechsler, and Brenna Thorslund!

I can’t wait to see these three girls (and hopefully more of our students) be baptized and to be raised out of the water into new life, in a resurrection life with Jesus!  The praise be to Him, Lord of Lords and King of Kings!

6.0 Tuesday, 2 August

The morning’s breeze is cool and filled with sounds.  Roosters greet the morning in the distance.  And the mountain ridge along the distant skyline is visible.  It is a clear morning.

Last night our team began our meeting time with worship.  Our group began by singing two songs, and after those two songs a member of our team was lead to read a Psalm to the team.  And we decided to continue worshiping.  This continued for approximately thirty to forty minutes: our team would sing a worship song, a member of our team would be lead to a Psalm or a portion of a Psalm to read over the team, and then we would continue worshiping together.

As our time progressed our students began to pursue the Lord in worship and in praise individually while in unison.  Some began to dance.  Some knelt.  Some stood with their arms raised.  Some began to sing their own song, a new song, filled with praise-filled exclamations to the Lord.  It was a unified chorus of praises to our great God, all the while each person was responding to what the Lord was specifically doing in and through them.  Students were singing songs filled with words that expressed what the Lord was placing into their hearts and minds.  It ended with what I’m sure would seem coincidental (or, maybe, even planned or scripted) to anyone outside of that experience and moment: everyone on our team finished by singing the same worship song, in unison, and loudly.

When the final word was sung, people on our team sat down, knelt down, or laid down on the floor.  The Presence of the Lord was all around and His Presence was peace-filled.  Daniel and I encouraged the team to continue making confession to the Lord, and to receive His peace and His Presence.  It was a different length of time for each student.  Some sat, knelt, or laid on the ground for ten (10) minutes and for others it was thirty (30).  Each student drinking in the Presence of the Lord and experiencing His peace.

Throughout the time together as a team there was lightning all around.  It was in the distance, and it was in the sky, and it was silent (thunder did not accompany the lightning).  Frequently, a portion of the sky would light up in immaculate white.  It was as though the Lord wanted to give a physical representation that He truly was present and that His Power truly is without compare or limit.

It’s worth mentioning that the Psalms that the Lord lead a member of our team to read over the team throughout the time of worship and praise had three themes: 1) that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and that the Lord would not turn His face away from us in our sins, 2) that we should sing praises to the Lord, and that we should shout before the Lord, and 3) that deliverance was coming for the ones who need to be delivered, and that the mighty hand of the Lord always conquers the enemy (the enemy of our souls, as well as the enemy working through other people to disparage and destroy us).  It’s also worth mentioning, because it’s easy to assume something when we haven’t directly experienced the Holy Spirit or when people we know have had negative experiences in environments that were supposedly Spirit-filled environments, that these moments are spontaneous.  I can assure you that the person the Lord lead to proclaim multiple Psalms over our team does not know Scripture well enough to turn to six or seven different Psalms, all connected by theme and content, and read them to our team.  Nor can worship and praise like we experienced last night be planned or scripted.  All of last night is the result of having space to hear the Lord, respond to His leading, and to do what He’s instructing us to do.  It results from an uncluttered place filled with people earnestly seeking the Lord with upright hearts (and our team is continuing to progress toward having completely upright hearts).  And it results from the willingness to interact with the Holy Spirit.

After our team’s time of worship and praise we sat together and began to introduce the Spiritual Gifts to our students.  We didn’t get into much teaching, for it was late and our team has been quite tired (despite embarrassingly early bed-times throughout the week).  Daniel and I will work through the Spiritual Gifts with our team this evening and tomorrow, while also responding to the Lord’s leading for our group time together.  Despite Daniel’s and my best plans this week, the Lord has often lead us to modify our plans so He can accomplish His own.  That said, I want each of you to be able to study along with us and with your son or daughter who is on this trip.  I share this so that you can have opportunity to continue this conversation with you son or daughter after they return home from this trip (my prayer is that our students and you will dive into these passages of Scripture with an open eyes, open ears, and open hearts, and not a closed off spirit because we feel we already know exactly what the Spiritual Gifts constitute and how they “work”).

There are three different types of Spiritual Gifts: 1) Motivational Gifts (Romans 12): Prophecy, Teaching, Exhortation, Service, Administration, Giving, and Mercy; 2) Leadership Gifts (Ephesians 4:11-13): Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Shepherd, Teacher; and 3) Ministry Gifts (1 Corinthians 12): Wisdom, Knowledge, Faith, Gifts of Healing, the working of Miracles, the ability to distinguish between spirits, various kinds of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues.  All of these gifts are gifts from the same Holy Spirit, the only Holy Spirit, who desires to spiritually empower His people for the work of building His Kingdom and Church.

We introduced to our students the understanding that the motivational gifts are for everyone, and each of us functions in these gifts on a different scale.  We also discussed how people tend to operate very proficiently inside two of the motivational gifts, while also having a third and predominant motivational gift that complements the other two.  As we become more like Christ (as we progress through the Lord sanctifying us) we can increase in our ability to operate in each of the motivational gifts.  The leadership gifts are not for everyone, but are given freely by the Lord to those whom according to His will need them for the work He is calling them to.  The purpose of the leadership gifts is to equip the saints for the work of ministry and for the purpose of building up the body of Christ.  The ministry gifts are gifted to us by and through the Holy Spirit to reach and minister to His children, our brothers and sisters, our friends, and so on.  Once a Ministry Gift is given the Lord does not remove it, however, we have responsibility for how powerfully and freely we operate in that given gift.  When we walk in the flesh (when we walk with the world against the ways of the Lord) we build a house or Kingdom unto ourselves and the enemy and his purposes and, therefore, are significantly less likely to operate inside of the given Ministry Gift.  But if we walk in the Spirit (when we walk in the Kingdom in accord with the ways of the Lord) we build a house or Kingdom unto God and His purposes and, therefore, are significantly more likely to grow in the given Ministry Gift to great benefit to other people.

Lastly, Daniel introduced the way that the Spirit alive within us through Christ aligns with the Old Testament tabernacle.  The tabernacle had three “layers” to it: the outer court, the inner court, and the Holy of Holies.  The Spirit alive in each of us has parallel “layers”: the outer court is my interacting and relationships with and ministering to other people, the inner court is my interacting and relationships with my family (both my physical family and my spiritual family), and how we each have a necessary role and purpose to fulfill inside of both of our families, and the Holy of Holies, which is my relationship with the Lord, my conscience and my consciousness.  No one else can be inside of this part of my relationship with the Lord.  It is where I deal directly with Him.

With that, we’re off to breakfast.  We will not be having a group meeting time this morning so that we can maximize time at the Children’s Home to complete the painting project.  The goal is to completely finish the painting project today! After that, we’ll eat lunch in Managua, and then either go to La Chureca or to an old, abandoned house that has strong spiritual meaning to Daniel for the Lord’s fight through him here in Nicaragua!

5.0 Monday, 1 August

It’s 9:51pm in Managua, Nicaragua.  Our team’s “lights out” time is 10pm so this blog post will be short.  Today our team spent considerable time and energy at the Children’s Home painting.  Our students have been eager to take on the work and its tasks, they have been diligent, and when they have finished their task they have looked for other tasks and projects that need to be completed or need additional hands to complete more quickly.  I’m sure some of you will read that last sentence and wonder why you don’t see that same sort of effort from your children in area’s of their lives that you feel are highly important.  I am learning, just from watching these students, that when they know there is deep meaning and purpose in the work and tasks that they are doing they are apt to accomplish the task with zeal.  My hope is to grab hold of this learning and be able to apply it as I raise my daughter, Keely, whose thirteen (13) month birthday is today!

The painting project has allowed for Daniel Bain and I to have several one-on-one conversations with our students.  We have been talking with them about their experiences this week, what the Lord has been working in them and through them, and attempting to answer any questions that they have.  One theme has become recurrent in my conversations with our students.  They are not perfect.  Again, I know that some of you will read that sentence, remember the last conversation you had with your son and/or daughter and say, “No kidding, Dennis.  Thank you for sharing an obvious truth.”  But it’s deeper than that.  And the thing that is deeper makes this worth writing.

Our students have sinned against the Lord and themselves.  Each and every one of these students has deep wounds.  Wounds that are founded in familial sins, wounds that are founded in the divorce of parents, wounds that are founded in their insecurities, wounds that are founded in their deep need for belonging and acceptance, wounds that are founded in their need for intimacy and connection with other people who will help shape their identity, and yet still more remain.  These wounds impact the way that they think about themselves, the way that they talk about themselves, the way that they clothe themselves, the way that they choose and make friends, the way that they will act in those friendships, the way that they pursue relationships with the opposite sex and the intimacy (emotional and physical) that comes with those relationships, and yet still more remain.

These wounds need to be able to be talked about inside of their homes and with their parents.  I can remember my parents, knowing that things were askew with me while I was in high school, setting aside time in our home’s kitchen to talk.  My parents wanted to know what was driving some of the behaviors that they saw manifesting themselves in me that weren’t beneficial or positive.  And yet there were times that the space they created didn’t feel completely safe.  There were times that I wasn’t sure and, even, outright doubted if I could share the actual, deep stuff that was going on inside of me without being judged or without being criticized or without feeling as though a simple and “quick-fix” could be applied.  I am learning this with Keely, and she’s only thirteen months.  More often than not I find myself falling into the mistake of being concerned about correcting undesirable behavior than I am about digging deeper and discovering the foundational issue that is driving that undesirable behavior and applying the resolution there.  I wonder how this applies in our own families.  If our child is disrespectful, is it because they don’t respect us, or is it because of something else that manifests itself in disrespect?  If our child doesn’t take seriously the things that we want them to take seriously is it because they just don’t get it, or is it because of something else that manifest itself in a lack of focus and seriousness?  These are mere examples, and they are bad ones at that, but my hope is that I’m communicating well enough.

Here’s why I write all of that and while I’ll fall into sleep tonight praying that these words are received well: our high school ministry should not be the only place where our students feel safe enough to share their deepest struggles and failures and insecurities and sins and so on.  Their homes (your homes) should be that place for them, in addition to our ministry.  I know that there are times our students feel more comfortable first sharing their deepest struggles and sins with their leaders at Blitz, and I am thankful that our leaders are such an incredibly well trusted group of men and women.  But our job is to point these students back to you, their parents.  When our leaders do point our students back to their parents and we sometimes get told, “I could never tell my Mom or Dad that.”  And yes, I openly and fully acknowledge that much of the culpability for not being able to tell Mom and Dad falls on the student.  But, as parents, some must also fall on us.

These students are wounded and hurting.  And the Lord is healing these wounds this week.  Our students are being delivered through their failure and shame.  And they need a safe place to return to in order for the healing to take hold and for the restoration to really begin.  They need you, their parents, so desperately so that they can discover who they are, why they’re here, and where they’re going.  You are so vitally important to their lives.  And I am thankful to be able to partner with you as we seek to raise a generation of Christian servant leaders!

4.1 Sunday, 31 July

The majority of our team is sitting on the “third-floor.”  This is the name our team has decided to use referring to the open-air room on the third floor of one of the guesthouses here at La Quinta Havilah, because, well, I guess we all get a little confused when trying to determine how to refer to what feels like a roof-top deck as a room.  At least, this is what our team of high school and college students has elected to do in the face of a deep quandary.  That aside, the majority of our students are sitting along two picnic tables on the “third floor” playing Catchphrase.  Thirteen students are playing Catchphrase right now and while our God is a God of order, this game is all about disorder it seems.  Yet, the warm, damp night air is being filled with exclamatory answers and lots of wonderful laughter.  I share all of this to communicate one thing: our team is united and deeply enjoying one another.  This is what authentic community looks like.  This is the sort of community that is attractive and appealing.  This group of students genuinely cares for one another and stands for and alongside one another.  I am proud to be leading them.

Yesterday was a day of painting, playing, and rain.  Our project for the week is to entirely repaint the interior of the home.  There are three mid-sized bedrooms, a family room, a living room, a kitchen, and the covered exterior wall of the rear porch.  Our team put the first coat of paint on the three bedrooms and one of the living room walls.  We learned that in Nicaragua (and perhaps other Central American or Latin American countries, according to Stephanie Swaney, a sophomore at Grove City College, whose mother’s family is Colombian) paint is purposefully watered down so that it lasts longer.  Or, so the theory goes.  This presented a few problems for our team since the pain oftentimes seemed interested in only running down the wall it had just been brushed or rolled onto, as compared to actually sticking to the wall.  Honestly, it’s a small thing and a small challenge that our students faced, but I know plenty of people whose first reaction to having to complete a task or project with imperfect materials is to complain or explain why the task or project cannot be completed.  This group of students found ways to solve the problem.  They are focused on the project and completing it for these girls and boy who live at the home.

While half of the group painted, the other half played with the children.  I’m not sure at the end of the day which group was more tired.  Our students or the children.  Both were tired.  And, not to use the word in a place or situation that it doesn’t seem to fit, but I spent the day marveling at the beauty of it all.  Our students being drawn to these young girls and boy.  Our students desiring to complete the project with excellence.  This is a project that directly impacts children that our students, so quickly, have come to honestly care about.

…

Last night the Holy Spirit continued His movement and work for and through our team.  We started the time together in worship, singing three songs together, and then moved into a conversation where we were attempting to unpack and talk through the prior night’s move of the Holy Spirit.  The prior night our group had individually, yet collectively worshiped the Lord.  It had been a chorus of voices and movement praising the Lord.  Our students spoke in tongues, our students were lead to Scripture that was spoken over others, our students proclaimed the Truth of our Lord and Who He is, our students sang worship songs that they hold close to their hearts and others sang a new song to their God, and some of us danced (while I have been widely evidenced as an extremely poor dancer, I absolutely love to dance before the Lord).

Last night (Saturday) we were unpacking that experience.  And as we finished the conversation Daniel brought us back to praying for people who needed healing.  Some members of our team have health issues, others have been experiencing severe pain in portions of their body, and others were feeling the beginnings of illnesses.  And so what began as an opportunity to pray in faith for the Lord to heal the members of our team who needed healing, it shifted into a different experience altogether.

While our group was unpacking the prior night’s experience one member of our team saw a vision (to be specific, it was an “open vision”).  What they saw was the floor lighting up as though it were a grid.  There was a clearly defined grid, with light shooting along the grid, almost like explosions.  The light always moved in the same directions, and the grid would infrequently rotate to the right.  Daniel suggested that the person seeing the vision inquire of the Lord what it meant.  Here’s what the Lord revealed: “This is how my Spirit works.  It is coordinated and aligned.  It carries Power to all the places that I send it.  It is Power to give life and revelation and healing.  It is Power available to all of my children.  My Power is accessed by faithfulness and obedience.  The Spirit is my Power for my work.  It is mine to give and mine to withhold.  I am the Lord, greatly to be feared.”  The vision and the Word from the Lord were not shared amongst the general team, but amongst most of the leaders (Daniel Bain, Elisa Dawson, and myself).  The vision and the Word proved to be an appropriate prologue to the remainder of the night.

The Holy Spirit moved in an aligned and coordinated manner through our students.  One of the students who earlier in the week received the gift of tongues was praying over another student when yet another student could fully understand what was being prayed in repetition.  The student who received the gift of interpretation, after realizing the way the Lord has just used her, broke into weeping.  Other students were being prayed over and delivered from strongholds in their lives.  Strongholds that originate in deep wounds and deep hurts that have been both self-inflicted and inflicted upon them by others.  Strongholds that have taken form in the deepest of insecurities and shame.

At night’s end Daniel Bain and I spent time individually with the guys and individually with the girls to help them begin to process the night and to answer (or attempt to answer) any questions that they had.  We prayed for them and then sent them to bed.  Our team is learning that the spiritual battle is very real, and not just words that they hear in church.  There is a spiritual battle raging for the hearts and minds of people everywhere.  We enter the battle on the Lord’s terms and with the Lord’s Power.  We are teaching our students to seek the Lord and to go where He tells them to go.  To only go where He tells them to go.  Too often we Christians fall into the lie that we can follow our own passions and fulfill our own desires and invite the Lord to bless our work because, really, it’s His work.  But it’s only His work for us if He tells us to do it.  Had I remained at Alcoa Inc. after clearly discerning the Lord’s leading into ministry because I liked the job and income I would have been living in disobedience to the command the Lord had given to me.  The Lord’s will for my life right now is to lead the High School Ministry at North Way’s Wexford campus.  Should I leave to go do something else, no matter how noble the cause, without a specific Word from the Lord that I am to go and pursue that cause I would be living in disobedience.

Our team knows that the Lord speaks and that we can hear the voice of the Lord.  This generation, I pray, will wait for the Lord to tell them where they should go and what they should do and then go there.  That their posture will be that of Isaiah: “Here am I Lord; send me.”

Today we attended church with Daniel and Jessenia, the girls and boy from the Children’s Home, and then went to get lunch as a team.  We spent the afternoon together as a team and then, again, as in two separate groups.  One with all the guys and one with all the girls.  As a group the Lord lead us through an extended prayer of confession.  As our team was preparing for this trip and throughout the first few days of being here in Nicaragua, I knew the Lord was encouraging us to earnestly seek after Him and with upright hearts and that, if we did this, He would reveal Himself to us.  And while He has revealed Himself to our team in mighty ways already, Daniel and I (the students and adult leaders know it, too) know that the Lord wants to accomplish much more in and for and through us.  I have seen just how earnestly our students are seeking Him, yet I have understood that our team might not be stepping into the fullness of the Lord because of unconfessed sin in our lives.  As a group we prayed through our most shameful moments, the ways we have clearly disobeyed His commands: the ways that we have sinned.  The Lord’s leading was correct.  Our students needed to receive the freedom that is found only in forgiveness for the sins that we confess and repent from.

Afterward, many of the students commented on how free they felt releasing their deepest “stuff.”  They no longer are attempting to carry their burdens on their own.  My prayer is that they have learned that our sins must be confessed to the Lord.  It is through confession that we can receive forgiveness and healing.  It is through confession that we can take on the yoke of Jesus, a yoke that is easy and light and joy-filled.

Now, we’re off to bed.  Tomorrow will be filled with painting.  Tomorrow will be filled with the Holy Spirit.  Tomorrow will bring deliverance.