365 Days...They only happen once a year.

Some of you may have seen Don's 365 Project pictures on Facebook or on his 365project.org homepage. The Project consists of taking a picture each day, which we thought would be one of the most effective ways to keep you in touch with what's happening here.

This is his photo from June 22nd, just another 1 out of the 365 days of living God's adventure for our lives. Don shared a story on this picture's day that I thought was a great glimpse into what God is doing to raise us up and to walk us right into his heart.
You can check out the rest of Don's 365 Project at http://365project.org/donstraka/365.

This is a regular Wednesday morning Bible study, but this one happens to be packed out with the 30 participants from Calvary Day School. It is sweet when it is so packed out. The singing is so full and alive. 

This picture is a good picture to describe what can often happen during Bible studies or church at El Puente. El Puente reaches out to the lost and the broken, and as a result, it often has some people attending who have strong addictions. It is incredible because great ministry happens, but often times, even during the service, ministry takes place outside the gates. 

This particular story took place a few days after this picture on June 26th, but I believe it is worth sharing. All the names in the story will not be people’s real names, partially because that makes a good story even better. 

"Samuel is a broken man that El Puente has been reaching out to for a long time. He not only has a few mental problems, he also struggles heavily with addictions to alcohol and glue. He has a job where he makes almost no money, so often he is hungry and thirsty, yet he still manages to buy alcohol. 

El Puente has sent him to a rehab center where there was little success, partly due to his mental disabilities. This particular Sunday, Samuel showed up at El Puente completely drunk and high. He showed up to church with no shirt, and one could tell that he was going to be a problem if he was allowed to attend service, so he was asked not to come in. That of course resulted in him kicking and making a ruckus, and when he got tired of that he moved on to harassing some kids playing in the street. 

Next thing I know I am in the middle of this situation asking Samuel to keep his distance from a girl who was visiting on a short term trip. Samuel stopped harassing her, but unfortunately, he decided that he was going to crawl under a truck and go in and out of consciousness. He just kept falling asleep under the truck, and when occasionally he would roll over, straight into the gray water that was flowing down the street. 

Eventually, we convinced Samuel to come out from under the car, but when we tried to encourage him to go home, he would start swinging at us. At this point the situation had clearly escalated, so a pastor stepped in and helped out. Luckily Samuel had a great relationship with this pastor and responded really well to the help he was giving him. The pastor helped Samuel get up, get into the back of a truck, so that we could take him home. All of us had been trying, to no avail, to get Samuel to go home, and finally, when this pastor intervened, Samuel cooperated.

Well, I piled in the truck with the Pastor, Samuel, and another helper. We drove for ten minutes into a barrio that has a reputation for being dangerous and full of drunks. It was about 6:45 p.m., completely dark and definitely not the first place you want to be as a gringo in Nicaragua. It didn’t matter if it was safe to be there or not; the pastor, who was also a gringo, and I were in the middle of this barrio. 

Finally, we arrived at Samuel’s house, and as soon as we stopped the truck and began to unload Samuel, we started getting swarmed by people asking us to help them and pray for them because they knew we were Christians. 

Our first priority was to get Samuel home. The crazy thing, though, is Samuel has to sleep outside because his family won’t let him inside. Nonetheless, we got him home, and we started taking care of our second goal, which was getting juice and bread for Samuel. We went to buy the food, and the pastor saw an amazing opportunity to do some ministry. So instead of buying one piece of bread and one juice, we bought four of each. 

We took all the materials back to Samuel’s house where all the drunks and street kids where hanging out. At this point the pastor spied Samuel sniffing glue and wisely demanded that he give us the glue. Samuel refused to give over his glue, and eventually, one of the other street kids took the bottle from Samuel. 

The next task was handing out the juice and bread and ensuring that Samuel took a drink and was safe. Once we did all that, the pastor began to share with the people who were around, which at this point had to be twenty people who all had come out to see what was going on. 

Well, due to the fact that the pastor speaks mainly English, I was immediately thrown into a translating role. Talk about receiving words from God in a time of need. He started sharing about how his life was once like all of theirs, since half of them were drunk. He shared how he was just like them for many many years and he was standing before them telling them with complete confidence that this is not how God wants us to live. God came down to rescue us from our brokenness. To literally pull us out of the mud, which was the perfect analogy since at that point Samuel had collapsed and was rolling in the mud. 

He was sharing this and I was, with the grace of God, translating to all the people around. We finished sharing and prayed over all the people there. After that we hopped back in the truck and pulled up to the church just as the church service ended. 

All of that to say that many times a Sunday service or a Wednesday Bible study does not always only involve just singing, clapping, and preaching. Many times ministry happens outside the gates and sometimes at the most “inconvenient” time, at least inconvenient for us. I’m confident of God’s planning through it all as we had many newcomers to Wednesday’s Bible study this morning where Charles shared the way back to God, the importance of community, and then he invited everyone to take part in a Home Fellowship Group where we will not be alone and where we will find help from each other, holding us accountable and helping us through the mud."