Faith Team Chronicles 1

On Wednesday evening we were excited to welcome the team from our home church, Faith Burlington, to spend 10 days with us. We are especially blessed to have Erik, our bro-in-law, here. Can’t even begin to say how happy we are to have so many familiar and warm faces here...it’s like home came here and now we have the best of both worlds!

For those of you who have loved ones here we’ll give you a little update on them. Thursday and Friday they were introduced to the work of the Nehemiah Center through a few different presentations and also how they fit into that work. A majority of the group spent some of their time on making a sidewalk which also acts as a water barrier while the others organized the bodega (tools “shed”) and painted.

A chunk of our time on Saturday was spent on cultural learning and contemplating over what poverty means and how these discussions might change our worldview. It was an eye opener for us all. We then proceeded to walk through the market for some time and tried to experience the culture by bartering, observing, and striking up conversations.

Today was far better than we could have expected. We went to worship with a church in Leon, ate incredibly delicious fish and sat in a circle to have a conversation with two churches from that community. The team shared about Faith church and the other two churches shared with us about themselves. It was such a beautiful display of sharing of lives across cultural and denominational boundaries yet having our Lord as the common denominator pulling us together.

We are getting to know each other quite well and enjoying everyone’s personalities! Willie makes washing his laundry priority every day, Wendy is a very laid back doctor but definitely not someone you would want to mess with, John has an incredible gift for one-liners, Erik is gracious in offering his gift in fixing mechanical stuff, Ron loves to sing and dance to YMCA, Anna gets a big kick out of bartering and always needs to win, Ken drinks all the coffee much to Kevin’s chagrin and Elizabeth might be quiet and small but she can definitely hack it with the guys.

We are heading to the mountains early Tuesday morning so we will let you know when we return how everyone manages!