Honduragua’s photostream on Flickr.
The photos from our outreach are slowly finding their way to the rest of the world. Stay tuned - more is coming!Team Update Week 6
Hello from Tegucigalpa!
This week our team went to a few different schools in the area, the first of them being Pinares. Pinares is one of the more prestigious Christian schools in the area, with some of the wealthiest and most influential families represented. Though the school is fairly restrictive due to a couple of the administrators, we were still able to build relationships with students and encourage some of the teachers (including Christa, Erika’s sister) who are doing their best to see God move in the students lives.
As well as Pinares we spent a bit of time with an international school here in the area. The environment was much more open, and our team had a great time doing dramas and leading worship there. One of the teachers even commented it was the best chapel they had had in four years there! Our last school was New Generation, also a christian school, which hosted a bonfire/youth service. Though unprepared for the school’s last minute reorganizing of the whole event (this is outreach, after all) our team did a great job making opportunities to minister and building friendships.
The team itself has noticeably stepped out in the area of intercession lately, and really demonstrated the role of prayer in missions. They’ve sought His heart for each place we go, and in turn have watched God meet us there; While praying at a hospital, a young girl’s heart murmurs stopped, and she was able to stand and walk for the first time in weeks! Even downtown, in one of the more dangerous areas of Honduras, we saw three people come to Christ. God has continuously blessed this team, and it’s been an amazing experience for us all. He prepared the city for us, brought real friendships from some of the hardest places, and encouraged us through the testimonies of people committed to seeing this area restored. We’ve been blessed in what we’ve been a part of here, and are excited to see what God has for us in our last few ministry times.
Next week will be the last of our outreach. We’ll be headed to a garbage dump to run a VBS with the kids that live there, and prayer for that time is greatly appreciated. As well, please continue to pray for our team’s unity, and that we could get the most out of what God has for us here. The students have done a great job, and we’ve vehemently enjoyed our time serving here in Nicaragua and Honduras.
Kevin, Will, Erika, and the Honduragua Team
Team Update Week 5
Wow! Week 5 already!! We have been having an amazing time here in Tegucigalpa with all kinds of ministry! Our original plans for several days of this week fell through which allowed us to pray and make ministry plans with the students as we heard God direct us. It has been so fun to see every word come to life as the week continued.
We started the week with doing our own extreme home makeover of the home we have staying in. We scrubbed the entire house literally from floor to ceiling and painted it inside and out for two days! 23 people can really transform a place! Our following days were filled with ministry with our local YWAMer, Kike. We were able to go to the cancer ward in a local hospital where we sang, prayed, and just talked with the patients. One man had a tumor on his spine that had caused him to be paralyzed from the waist down, after praying for him he felt a tingling in his feet and legs, before we left he could completely feel his legs and feet!!!!! We also were able to spend a morning up on a mountain top having worship and intercession looking over the city. Later that night we went into the downtown area and had more worship and intercession as well as evangelized to the both male and female prostitutes. We saw so many open hearts and had a man come to Jesus after Erika presented the Gospel to the crowd of people that had gathered to listen to our worship.
We had such a good time at the prison earlier here in Honduras that we went back to do more ministry here with the inmates. It was incredible to continue relationships and to see another guy come to know the Jesus!! The students have been so excited to see the fruit from our prayer times and preparation. We are definitely seeing what a blessing we are to our translators as well, they have quickly become our friends and are getting off work and school just be with us as much as possible. Such a blessing :) we are a big loud group of gringos and have been accepted with loving arms by so many.
Thanks for praying for us and being a part of our lives. We can’t believe that we only have two weeks left and are feeling the pressure to keep pressing in and expecting God’s presence in every situation we are in! He has so much for these people here in Honduras and we are eager to share!
Please pray for us for the next week as we will be ministering in the local bi-lingual Christian schools. Most of these kids are the upper class of Honduras and have become resistant to the gospel. We want to go in and just let the the Holy Spirit do His work! It’s going to be awesome!!! Thanks for continued prayers for the team and unity. They’re doing great!
Will, Erika, Kevin and the Honduragua team
P.S. Today (Saturday) is Erika’s 29th birthday!!!
Team Update Week 4
¡Hola!
We have safely arrived in Honduras and are enjoying the more mountainous landscape. So much has happened over the past week that it’s hard to fit it in one short letter. Our last days in Nicaragua we were able to go to a small village and do door to door evangelism as well as Bible distribution. We saw two people healed and two come to know Jesus!!! It was a surprisingly enjoyable ministry time for many on our team. YWAM Nicaragua has a new DTS starting this week and we able to bless them by doing a month’s worth of work duties in one day.
The 12th we left the base at 2:30AM to start our journey to Honduras which was a long 12 hours with two extended border visits. Our lovely Resident Kenyan, Yvonne, really confuses the border patrol officers as they don’t usually have Africans coming to Central America. Once here in Tegucigalpa we have gotten settled into our new home for the next 3 weeks which is a new Youth for Christ intern house that we will be deep cleaning and painting this week.
This week here in Tegucigalpa we have been joining with a ministry in a local juvenile prison. We have been doing dramas, testimonies, songs, soccer, puppets, and games with different groups of the prisoners. We ministered to a group from one of the most dangerous gangs here in Honduras but felt God’s peace and were very safe. We were able to lead a 16 year old girl to the Lord who had just lost her mother to aids while she was in prison. We were all blessed to be able to see the respect of the prisoners for the Word of God and their leaders there. What an amazing ministry! We can’t believe that outreach is over halfway done already, wow! We are excited to see what else God has for us! We love you guys hope you are all doing so well!!
Will, Erika, Kevin and
The Honduragua Team
P.S. for those of you who know him, we were able to see Kike last night and are excited to have a fellow YWAMer join us for some of our ministry here.
Team Update Week 3
Hola!
This past week we said goodbye to our friends in Masaya and
hello to YWAM Diriamba. We were blown away by the niceness of the
facilities here and the welcoming staff! We all have beds and are
sleeping much better here as the nights are cooler than in Masaya.
Our ministry has been filled with more loving children,
evangelism in the local parks, picking up trash in our neighborhood, 2
days of a VBS, playing soccer, and ministering at local churches. It
was such a delight to be able to minister to the same 250 kids for 2
days. We normally have to say goodbye after the first day, but these
kids came back as well as live right here in our neighborhood in
Diriamba!! So as we walk down the streets and in the city we’re
constantly greeted by kids that we were with this week!
During one of our park ministry times we were praying with a
man had been abandoned by his father at a young age, put into an
orphange that he later ran away from, and then became a thief to
survive. Long story short, he pulled out a huge kitchen knife from
his pocket and surrendered it to us saying that he was going to hurt
someone tonight and steal, but he now knows that what he really needs
is Jesus!!! PRAISE GOD! It is so amazing to see lives changed! Later
on this week we saw him working with the local buses and his whole
countenance was completely different. What a transformation!
We are so blessed here in Diriamba and are amazed by the beauty
and wildlife here. Thousands of leaf cutter ants in the parks and one
park in a nearby town has four sloths living in the trees! (don’t
worry, we took tons of pictures) Yesterday on our day off we were able
to take a bus to the Pacific, so all of us gringos could get tans:)
(although currently they look more like burns on most people) One
thing we have not seen, thankfully, are more scorpions!
This week we finish up our ministry here on Tuesday and leave
for Tegucigalpa, Honduras at 2am! Please pray that we finish well here
and are able to continue to serve hard and share the Gospel wherever
we are!
The Honduragua Team
Will, Erika, and Kevin
Prayer points
-vulnerability
-team unity
-servant hearts
-continued safety
We’ve arrived in Diriamba
Hello family and friends!
I just want to send you an update from our location right now. We are in Diriamba, Nicaragua and we are staying at the YWAM base here. We have had extremely sketchy wifi and internet connections so we just wanted to let you all know that we are alive, healthy, and seeing God move in miraculous ways.
One man surrendered his knife that he used to rob people on the streets, he accepted Jesus and is on the path for a changed life! Praise God!
Please keep praying for us. Our next location is Honduras and with that comes border questions and other travel concerns. We have less than a week left here and we are already halfway done with outreach! WOW!
Bless you in the name of Jesus!
Erika & the Honduragua team!
Team Update Week 2
Happy New Year!
We are officially sending this letter from the year 2012! It has been amazing to celebrate these two holidays in Masaya, Nicaragua. On New Year’s Eve we went to the local church that is helps the ‘Casa Hogar’ which has been both our home for two weeks and place of 24/7 ministry as we are living examples of Jesus for two young men who receive housing, love, and support instead of an addiction to sniffing glue on the streets. We have become really fond of these boys, Cesar (20) and Mariano (18) and we are going to really miss them as we leave the house tomorrow morning for our next ministry location.
This week was full of kid’s ministry and PINATAS! We have been able to minister to over 1200 children while here for 2 weeks. God has given us clear pictures about the children in this city that will be the next generation to spread hope to not just their own families, but to other cities and even to the nations. It seemed as though God’s timing really did include our team for this season in Nicaragua. We also know for sure that any child with a stick and a blindfold is asking for trouble, but have you ever seen an old man with a stick and a pinata? We visited an elderly home one afternoon, to play music, talk, and break a pinata! It was a sight to see…..trust me!
With joyful hearts, smiles on our faces, and our lungs full of sulfur from our visit to the active Masaya Volcano and clouds of dynamite explosions from very cheap Nicaraguan fireworks, we move on to our next ministry city. We will be working with YWAM Nicaragua in Diriamba. Although we are sad to say goodbye to this time here, we are thrilled to see what God has in store for us with YWAM. We will be there for a week and a half.
Please keep praying for us in the area of team unity and health. We have seen God heal dramatically within our team, but many still suffer from random fevers and chronic coughing. We are believing that God not only has a breakthrough for totally healing for us, but that we will be a bridge to getting his heart and hands out to a desperate city.
Bless you and thank you for your prayers,
Erika, Will, Kevin and the Honduragua Team
