“Come and see what God has done, how awesome his works in man’s behalf!…Come and listen, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me.” – Psalm 66:5, 16

The above verses speak perfectly to what the Lord has impressed on my heart over the past year.  It is with a full, yet light heart that I can share with you about what the Lord is doing in Nicaragua and what he has done for me!

            About three weeks ago I returned from my second trip to Nicaragua to work with the people there to access clean and abundant water and to fellowship and worship together with the believers there.  My thanks go out to all of you for your prayers for me, the team and Nicaragua and for your financial support to enable us to go.  I can tell you that your many prayers were answered as the Lord sustained us through some very difficult times on the trip.  The Lord worked so awesomely on this trip that I have trouble knowing where to begin to share with you all.  You know that when we went in August to Hato Grande #2, we had no trouble at all drilling and installing the well and we had a marvelous time witnessing to and fellowshipping with the villagers there.  The trip was easy and although we were thankful for God’s provision we were perhaps too quick to think that what we did was the result of our own actions and own capabilities.

            This trip we encountered many difficulties in the drilling from the very first pipe!  We were using a hydraulic rig, the LS 300, instead of the hand-cranked LS 200 which we used in August.  This should have made the going easier in our minds.  The first layer of soil we drilled through was a sticky clay that clogged the bit numerous times.  We had to put the pipe out and clean the bit I think 3 times and the going was slow.  Deeper layers revealed formations of clay, gravel and sand that slowed the drilling to a near standstill.  One afternoon, drilling through a hard layer we had all of us standing on the rig to act as ballast (a combined weight of us plus the rig and pipe of maybe 2 tons) and still the drilling crept at maybe 5 feet an hour!!  The strain of the drilling eventually snapped one of the welds on the gear assembly and we were stuck with over 100 ft of pipe in the hole in the late afternoon with no way to get it out!

            I drove back with Richard and Phil to get an LS 200 to pull the pipe out manually.  Leaving the pipe in the hole overnight was not an option as a cave in during the night would have ruined the well.  As we left, the other drillers and villagers prayed fervently that we could pull the pipe and finish the project.  We got back and pulled the pipe out by hand in a dark only pierced by one lonely light bulb!

            The next day, as we tried to put the casing down, it jammed on either an outcropping or a swelling clay that had swelled the hole so our screen was about 30 feet off where we wanted it.  We packed and cemented the casing in right there as we couldn’t do anything else.  And we prayed again for the Lord’s blessing on our efforts.  The mood was very frustrated those days and the team was quite stressed out.  We had all the best equipment, a good location, good team…why was there such a problem!  It was very disheartening.

            In the end, we put the compressor down the well to clear out the water we had put down whilst drilling and to finally see of the well would produce on its own.  For those who don’t know, water drilling is not an exact science.  Up until this point when the compressor is put on you really have no idea whether you have hit water or not.  Under normal circumstances you can have a degree of certainty, like we had in August, but after so many things going wrong none of us were sure it would be a producing well.  The team and villagers all gather around and prayed over the well asking for the Lord’s blessing on it.  We turned the compressor on…and water gushed out!  We left it on and the water continued to pour out…maybe 50 or 60 gallons a minute, much more then they would ever be able to pump out!  It was amazing!

            The lesson I took out of this experience is of God’s ultimate control.  So often I half-heartedly acknowledge that God is in control when my actions and my mind indicate that I rely on my own powers and own action to accomplish things.  I say with my mouth that God is in control but I would rather rely on my own abilities to achieve things.  The Lord did not allow us that opportunity on this trip.  All our human efforts were thwarted by things out of our control.  The fact that Abangasca Norte has a new well is due solely to the Lord’s goodness and mercy on our human efforts to make a difference and his grace at answering our prayers.  It was also a great reminder that, although the well is great and will make a real difference in the lives of the people there, the well is not the end result.  The well is a vehicle to sharing Christ’s love with others and demonstrating our obedience to him and love for him and other through action.  That is the ultimate goal and it is comforting to think that, even if the well had not been successful, the real success of the trip is loving the people in word and in action.

            Anyway, that was a long rambling ‘lessons learned’ section, although if you will bear with me there are a few more things I wanted to share and then I can tell you a few funs stories.  The Lord showed me a few more awesome things which I will describe, in hopefully fewer words then I did above!

1)      Sacrificial love – Pastor Luis and his family were amazing examples of living out Christ’s love in their lives.  They possessed tremendous spirits of encouragement that blessed us so much through the difficulties.  Their family lived in a hut probably 10 foot square.  The walls were basically black trash bags nailed to tree branches.  They had practically nothing and yet every day they would come bring us food and offered us whatever they had.  On top of this I can share with you about Pedro.  He was a young man with Down’s syndrome.  He had been homeless and an alcoholic.  Due to the lack of social services there, Pedro was destined to live his live struggling to survive alone on the streets.  Pastor Luis and his family took Pedro into their home to live with them (that’s like 7 people in their hut) they helped him with his struggle with alcohol and shared the Gospel with him and Pedro gave his life to Christ!  That this family, already struggling with poverty would take in an alcoholic with Down’s syndrome into their home and care for him…that broke me.  I don’t think I have seen such love lived out before.  And on Sunday morning, Pedro worships and sings to the Lord with all his strength in praise for what the Lord has done for him.

2)      Kids – Although I enjoy the drilling, my favourite part of the trip is playing with the kids.  I got to teach them some games and play with them and tease them.  This was especially a blessing when everything in the drilling was going wrong!  The thing about kids is that (hopefully) they enjoy life.  They play, have fun.  Being a kid is about enjoying relationships (friends, family, even strange gringos who come to their village).  A kid, even kids faced with poverty in Nicaragua, can enjoy life because they trust that their parents will take care of them.  They trust that there will be food and shelter and don’t worry about all the necessities of life, they just enjoy it.  (I know that not every kid has this opportunity and that some kids are forced into debilitating poverty or responsibilities beyond their years, but you know what I am driving at).  Cannot the same be true of all of us, as Children of God?  You all know that I am a kid at heart but think about it for a minute.  God has already promised to take care of us and to provide for all our needs.  Shouldn’t that leave us free to enjoy life and focus on the things that really matter like relationships, first with God and then other people?  I am not saying that we don’t have responsibilities as adults.  We do, but I think, at least for myself, I need to be more child-like in my trust in the Lord.  He is faithful to keep his promises to me and he will provide and care for me regardless.  Maybe I need to worry less about things and enjoy life and what God has already blessed me with!

3)      Material things – And following on with the conclusions above, one thing you will notice when you go to a really poor place, like Abangasca Norte, is how cluttered our lives are with stuff.  There are so many things that we “need” for our lives to be complete.  We keep buying things; bigger and better things that we think will make life somehow easier and better.  We add more and more activities to our already crowded day.  The campesinos have nothing by our standards.  As I mentioned above, the pastor and his family lived in a plastic bag hut.  Owning a computer, car, CDs, multiple sets of clothing, indoor plumbing…this stuff isn’t even on their radar!  They don’t go to the movies, soccer practice or other activities.  They go to work and then come home and spend time with their family and friends!  And they are blessed.  The life of a campesino is much, much harder then mine but taking a deeper look I wonder if it isn’t better and richer then mine as well.

Anyway, that is probably more deep thoughts then you are willing to read and more then I am able to handle trying to put on paper!  I will tell you some fun tidbits. As I mentioned, I love playing with the kids.  I taught them the hand slap game.  You know the one where one person lays their hands on the other persons and the hands on the bottom try to slap the hands on top?  Yeah they loved that.  And thumb wrestling they liked.  I feel like I have made a lasting impression on the village with the slap game and I am confident that this legacy can be passed down the generations!  This one boy had a slingshot he always carried around.  I asked him to show me how to use it.  So we went out in the road and I found a bottle cap and set it up about 15 feet from us.  This kid nailed it every single time!!  It was crazy!!  I managed to get within 10 feet of it (rather sad considering we were only 15 feet away!) which they boys found very amusing!

I also got to ride, or try to ride a giant pig.  I made friends with a man named Roman there.  He had a pig that was probably 3 feet tall, 6 feet long and weighed in at probably 500 pounds.  It was a beast!  On the last day, the girls from our team challenged me to ride it!  So after asking Socorro if I could I walked calmly up to the pig.  My initial strategy was to calm him by petting his back then jump on his back.  Well, as soon as my hand touched his back he bolted!  I chased him around the enclosure for a while, unsuccessfully trying to get on him!  One of the boys brought out some peanuts and threw them down.  The pig ambled up to them and started eating.  I tried walking up but he was watching me warily out the side of his eye as he ate.  So I circled round in his blind spot and vaulted onto his back.  As he took off I managed to cling with my legs to the last several inches of his rump and rode him for like 10 seconds before he pitched me off!  It was pretty fun!

Well, I have lots more stories I can share but if you want to know them just ask me and I am happy to share but this letter is long enough!  You can read more of the day to day activities on the team blog (http://venture-online.org/blog/january-2007-nicaragua/) and see photos here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/venture-online/).  You can also check out my personal blog which I update periodically with what’s going on in my life and my thoughts (http://dwblack.wordpress.com/) and check out my photo site here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidwblack).

Thank you again for all your encouragement, support and prayers for me and for the team.  Please continue to lift up Pastor Luis, his family and our brothers and sisters in Abangasca Norte in your prayers.  They are beautiful people.  Please also pray for me as I seek direction in pursuing missions on a long term basis.  Know that you are a blessing to me and that I remember you continually in my prayers and it is my hope that the Lord has blessed you through our trip as he has blessed me and you will continue to know his goodness, love and grace in your lives!

Love, David