But now she radiates with JOY!— Butler Team Update
HOLA FROM NICARAGUA! Libby Powell and Audrey Gleason here. We both just finished our first year at Butler and God has blessed us with taking our friendship to Nicaragua! We have fallen in love with this beautiful country and the people.
This morning we went to breakfast and Ron told us one Juan Carlos, a man that works on the project as the gardener, has a brother-in-law that is dying of kidney disease. For those of you who do not know, the kidney disease in Nicaragua is found in some of the men who work in the sugar cane fields. Our group was presented with the idea to go pray over him. Without any hesitation, we felt God leading us to go pray. So we went.
Right when we arrived we could feel the somber atmosphere. We walked in to a house with a dirt floor and there was Felix sitting on a cot, hunched over. We laid hands on him and prayed his wife and family. It was very emotional and hard seeing someone dying in front of our very own eyes. In James we are told to go pray faithfully for the sick and He will lift them up. This man was a stranger, in a random country we have only spent a few days in and we went to his home and prayed for him. It has been so amazing living out God’s will here. We invite you to pray for Felix and his family as he fights kidney disease.
This kidney disease also affected our “Nicaraguan Mother” Thelma. Anyone would fall in love with this beautiful woman and her contagious laugh. Her husband died in 2008 of the kidney disease and Derek tells us that she did not smile for months after his passing. But now Thelma radiates joy. We felt really challenged by how full of joy she is and the circumstances she lives with. She is a single mother of 8 and living in the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere but has so much love for her life. We are inspired by her perseverance to trust God in all circumstances.
Today we were surrounded by joyful people at a private orphanage and special needs school. We barely get a glimpse of their life and are astounded by how much joy they have. We have already been so blessed this week by being surrounded with such beautiful people.
In Him,
Libs and Aud