Service

I'm sure some of you are waiting for me to write about my trip. Sadly, I am not quite ready to do that. It takes a while to process how I feel about everything when I get back from an experience like that.
Thank you all for your patience. In the mean time, I will tell you a little story about something that happened this week.

Our church had two amazing men,Bill Davis and Steve Sjogren, speak this week about servant evangelism and outreach. They challenged us to show Jesus' love in practical ways. We were encouraged to break the stigma that Christians do nice things for others in order to get money or to get people to come to church. It was great stuff. Thursday morning, they partnered with us in heading out into Ames and serving people.

Judah, Mayah, Liam, and I went to the library where we go to story time and handed out roses to moms and suckers to kids. We also handed out little cards that said "On us." and "Seriously...It's free!" These cards had our church's name on it, so once the librarians caught wind of what we were doing, we were told we couldn't give anyone else the card. No big deal.

After a while, we packed up and headed for the mall with a couple other families. We had bags of microwave popcorn and dollar off gift cards for Pretzlemaker. Judah had a blast walking around chanting, "Free popcorn!!" He would walk up to complete strangers and ask them if they wanted popcorn. Most of the guys would look really confused and say, "No thanks", so after a while I began to explain to people that I was out trying to teach my kids how to serve others. After that, people were so sweet to Judah. It made my heart so happy.

On to my favorite part of the day: I saw a guy walk into Footlocker and told Judah to go in there and ask "that guy" if he wanted some. Judah clearly did not see which guy I was referring to, because by they time I rounded the corner and caught up, I saw a very confused little boy. Judah was standing in front of a headless mannequin with his hands on his hips. I asked him what was the matter, and he responded:

"Mama, this guy doesn't even have a head...how is he gonna eat popcorn???"

Precious.

Nicaragua

My trip to Nicaragua is quickly approaching! I am super excited. I am blessed to have people committed to praying for my team each day, and I thought you all might like to join them. Here is a brief rundown of how we will spending each day:

Friday: We leave for the airport at 6:45 am. We arrive in Jinotepe, Nicaragua in the late evening. You can be praying for the safety of our travel that day. It would be great if all of you would say a prayer for Will as he begins his journey as a stay at home dad for the week.

Saturday: We will be spending our day with the kids from the Arms of Love orphanage. We will take the kids to the beach, where they get to swim and have fun. These kids rarely get to go to the because it costs teams quite a bit of money to take them there for a day, so it is a pretty big deal for them to spend a day there. We will also treat them to a meal at a restaurant on the way home, which is another big deal.
Prayer for the day: Pray that God will use this time to show the kids how much they are loved, that we would begin to develop relationships with these kids, and that God would use our team (especially the women) to model modesty and Christian behavior.

Sunday: We will be spending our day at the orphanage. This is a day where we will just love on the kids again. We have some big group activities planned and some devotions and small group Bible studies with the kids.
Prayer for the day: Pray that God will use this time to strengthen the bonds we are making with these kids. Pray that God's love and compassion for them will be shown. Pray for strength and energy for my team as we run around and try to keep up with the kids!

Monday: We will be spending the morning doing work projects around the orphanage. The afternoon will be spent with an American couple who live there and do ministry with boys and girls who have been kicked out of orphanages or are transitioning from an orphanage to a "grown up world" situation. We will spend time with these young adults, and we will be bagging food to take to the dump the next day.
Prayer for the day: Pray for continued strength for the team. Pray that all of the supplies will get to the right location so we can bless the poor with food. Pray that we can help influence the young adults who are transitioning to stay on a godly path.

Tuesday: We will be spending the day at La Chureca. This is the city dump in Managua where hundreds of people live and work, sifting through piles of burning trash to sell. La Chureca is plagued with addiction and child prostitution...a place where parents will sell their daughters to the garbage men for prime trash. We will be handing out a weeks worth of food to the families who live there and praying for people.
Prayer for the day: Pray for protection for my team while we are at the dump. Pray for the people who live there to be open to what God might want to do.

Wednesday: Most of our team will be spending this day at Arms of Love with the kids. We will be doing work projects, devotions, and big group activities. Another part of our team will head into an area where child sex trafficking is huge. They will be prayer walking and just following the Holy Spirit's lead.
Prayer for the day: Pray for the team who will be with the kids. Pray for God to give us extra energy and strength. Pray for the team doing the prayer walking. Pray for protection and the ability to discern and follow the Holy Spirit.

Thursday: We will be heading out with the couple with whom we bagged food and went to the dump. We will be heading to some poverty stricken communities and handing out a weeks worth of food to families. We will also be praying and sharing the message of Christ with these people.
Prayer for the day: Safety for the team. Pray that God would ready the hearts of the people who will be hearing the message. Pray that we are all open to what God wants to do.

Friday: We will be leaving the orphanage at 3 am Friday morning to make the two hour drive to Managua and to the airport.
Prayer for the day: Pray for safety in traveling and re-entering the US.

Thank you to all those who have supported me financially and those who will support me in prayer. I am ready for God to do some amazing things!

Counting the Days...

I have been an unreliable blogger as of late. My deepest apologies to all of my loyal readers who have been sitting by their computers awaiting the newest nugget of brilliance to break forth from my fingers. To all of you haphazard readers who just happen to read about the Owens Five when you are bored and have exhausted your other internet sites, get over it :)

So the burning question is: What could be so important to have kept me away all week? I leave for Nicaragua in three and a half days and am trying REALLY hard to not put off being prepared until Thursday night. My MO is most commonly to pack the night before or even the morning of when I am going off on an adventure. The difference this time is that I am a co-leader for this trip. I have responsibilities. It will reflect poorly on my leadership if I forget a towel or toilet paper...won't it? Well, I also have things like devotions to prepare, so I am trying to get myself ready for this trip little by little each day. This just might revolutionize my entire way of preparing for a trip. Or I will arrive in Nicaragua and realize that I am just as unprepared as I always am. Only time will tell.

Maybe I should quickly recap what I am going on about...

I am co-leading a trip for my church to Jinotepe, Nicaragua. We are leaving Friday morning at 6:45 in the morning and will return the following Friday night. I am excited for many reasons. Selfishly, I am excited for the sun...the heat...the tan...the jungle...the delicious fruit...
I am excited for other reasons as well. Missions is something I am extremely passionate about. Off the top of my head, I can count 19 missions trips that I have been on or lead (the majority of them being to Cabrini Green in downtown Chicago). Will is amazing about letting me fill this need in my heart. I'm sure it is hard for him for many reasons, but mostly because I always come home with a plan to move my family there. (Will doesn't share my passion:)

While we are there, we will stay at an orphanage called Arms of Love (armsoflove.org). We will love on these abandoned children and do whatever we can to make their lives easier. We will also go to some of the poorer neighborhoods, hand out food to families, and pray for them. We will do some manual projects, devotions with the kids, large group skits and messages, and prayer walk in a neighborhood where sex trafficking is prominent. We will also visit the dump where thousands of families live each day and do some prayer ministry.

It is going to be an amazing trip. Your prayers will be appreciated. I will give updates as I can.