Summer Full of Friends…

Posted on August 21, 2023 by Chachi

As the summer comes to an end and everyone heads back to school back home we wanted to take some time here on our blog to share about some of the happenings down here in Nicaragua this summer. It was a summer full of friends from North Carolina, Colorado, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, California and many cities in between! The past few years of a global pandemic made travel to Nicaragua very difficult, but this summer we were so blessed to have friends return and serve with us! Quinta Havilah was busy again and we loved every minute of it!

The global pandemic and downturn in the US economy has certainly had an effect on life down here. Nicaraguan people are amazing, resilient, and hard working. Everyone is doing their best to make ends meet, but living in poverty is very difficult. One of the ways we have found to be God’s hands and feet is to pack up a months worth of food supplies and deliver them to families…it was an amazing way for groups to help the families we serve!

When a family would invite us into their homes to deliver the food packs, the Lord always used that time to minister to them in a special way. We know that our physical needs are only temporary, but the needs of our souls are eternal. At each home, we took time to listen to the families tell their stories, often through tears. We shared the Good News of Jesus, and individuals from the teams shared testimonies of how God moved in their hearts to bring them to a place to serve like this. Then, most importantly we laid our hands on the families we were visiting and we prayed for them…any need or concern or heaviness on their hearts, we lifted up to the Lord and asked Him to take care of it. These home visits were some of the sweetest moments of the summer.

Speaking of prayer…we had some amazing times of prayer together with the teams that visited. God is so good, that even when we come to serve others He always shows up in our lives personally and gives a special touch of encouragement, edification, or consolation to us while others pray and prophesy over us. Mrs. Ruby’s House of Prayer is one of the sweetest places in Nicaragua and it was such a blessing to be there with so many friends this summer. We worshiped the Lord, prayed for each other in the upper room and God showed Himself to be real and always present with us. Such great times!

Our times of prayer were not limited to Mrs. Ruby’s house though. We had our friends from PA down praying for a building down at Club Esperanza. We are asking for it to be donated to us so that we can use it as the permanent home for our church there. It was pretty wild…as we prayed ants attacked our feet, some construction work started and the walls were shaking, and then a giant transformer blew up at the power plant next door…God was at work in the heavenly realms!!!

We also had some amazing times of prayer out at Ruby Ranch on Chapel Hill! Gathering together under the wide open sky and worshiping God up there is such a beautiful experience. It is almost like your can hear God whispering to you in the wind!

Speaking of Ruby Ranch…these teams came down and gave the children from our ministry centers some of the greatest experiences of their lives! Our first camp of the summer was with the sixth graders from Club Esperanza. This was the first time for our kids to have a sleep away camp, they had so much fun! Every amazing thing at Ruby Ranch was at their disposal…the horses, the playground, the bonfire pit, the futsala court, the baseball field, the giant water slide…it was so amazing! Even more amazing was the friendships they built with the team from Colorado that put the camp together for them.

Camp can be such a special time for kids. I know my life was changed forever when I accepted Jesus at Camp University in Miami thirty years ago this year. I have been walking with Jesus ever since. That is what makes these camps worth it, we get to see God move into a young person’s life and change them forever!

Throughout the summer we had many more camps with local ministry partners. It was so amazing! If you would like to sponsor camps for the future you can check out rubyranch.org and make a camp happen!

The teams got a really amazing cultural experience at Ruby Ranch too. Henry is the manager of the ranch and on the last day with the teams he picked them up on his ox cart and took them to his home. His wife taught them how to make tortillas by hand and then they got to listen to Henry’s father tell the story about digging their well. Decades ago when no water was found, his dad started digging. He dug by hand until he hit water. It took him several months, everyone thought he was crazy. But 300 feet later he hit water!

The teams also did some good manual labor at the ranch. They built the pathway out to the new bonfire area and built some new benches as well. This was important work for one of the best gathering areas at the ranch…it is so cool to have a giant bonfire under a billion stars!

Speaking of work projects…one of the biggest blessings you can ever do for someone is to build them a home of their own. The team from Florida came down to serve with us in the Club Esperanza community. We had the idea of helping families that needed their roofs replaced. We often have young mothers write to us and ask for help because during the rain their house floods. We went into action for a young family of four. When we visited the house we realized quickly the structure of wood and old tin with a dirt floor was not going to handle new roof tin…so the team build an entire new house!

We were so blessed by the time spend with Crisbel and her family. There was lots of sweat and lots of labor, but thankfully nobody got hurt even though we may have had a chainsaw on top of a ladder once or twice to level off the roof beams! This is the type of projects that teams can do year round so if you want to get a group of friends together and make it happen….Let’s goooooooo! You can email us and we can start putting the trip together losfarringtons@gmail.com