Constructing a Future

God is at work in the community of La Esmeralda, Nicaragua, and it is time to follow as he provides for the future. 

This April Fox River Missions is sending a men's team down to partner with the church in constructing a building for their children's ministry and plans to get a bathroom built too.

Pastor Denis, his team, and a team from the Managua church have been hard at work getting the structure of this building up.  They have done all the the foundation work and just this week the team for Managua have been up there putting up the structure and roof.    Our guys will go in and finish the project up.  How exciting it is to watch the progress of this project! 

Let me share with you the importance and excitement for these facilities..

As of right now the children meet on the porch of Pastor Denis' home or in a home close to the church.  They currently do not have an inside place to hold Sunday school or any other children's activities during church services. 

This building will bring them inside so that in the rainy season it will not effect how they do children's ministry.  This building will give them a space that they can grow and have no problem having space for all the children who come.  It will also give them the capacity to have a nursery which has never been a possibility before.  A space that Pastor Denis and Karen's children and the children from the community can grow up and hear what Christ has done for them.  And so much more!  We are so excited to see how God uses this building!  

And for the bathrooms... currently the church has no bathroom.  This might seem silly, but having a bathroom on church grounds will be so beneficial.  I believe that this very simple thing will be used to grow this church.  This will be a huge blessing!

There are more projects on the list to continue to build up this church and just not enough time for our guys to get it all done.  But, we know Pastor Denis and his teams will continue to work towards the future, so that this church will continue to see lives changed.

We have called this project 'Constructing a Future' because this is all about the future of this church, the future of these children, the future of the Kingdom!  

Pray for this future with us!  

Katerin

I would like to introduce you all to one of my good friends.  Her name is Katerin and she lives in La Esmeralda, Nicaragua. Over the years I have had the privilege of getting to know her and watch as she has grown in her faith and in leadership. Somethings about Katerin that anyone who meets her would tell you; she is always laughing or smiling, she has a huge heart, she loves kids, she is a force to be reckoned with.  

When I first met Katy she was a Sunday school teacher at the church we (Fox River) partner with up in the mountains of Nicaragua. Over the years she has taken on more and more responsibility in the church, becoming the lead teacher for the children's ministry, leader in the youth group, leader of women, and starting a ministry that goes into the schools in the surrounding communities. She is also a crucial part of the evangelism that happens at the clinic.

I want to tell you a bit about this school ministry she is doing. Something I think that should be noted;  that these are public schools that have allowed her to take some time each week and share the love of Jesus with these children, most of whom do not attend the church and are having some of their first experiences in hearing God's word. She is bringing hope into a broken area of this country!  You see when these children are at school they aren't necessarily loved on or told how precious they are, but Katerin gets to go and be love and hope to these children and their teachers.  During her time there they hear a story, get to do a craft or game, sing a couple songs, and hear the gospel.

This ministry not only reaches the children and teachers at the schools, but it reaches beyond that into the families of each child and teacher. As I have been there and watched as she interacts with the students you can tell how much respect and love these kids have for Katerin. They lean into every word she says (as much as any kid does anyway). I love seeing this because it shows that they want to know what she is going to say, they know whatever she is there for is going to be great and they don't want to miss it. I wish you could all see what I am trying to describe because it is heart melting. We believe that children are the future and pouring into them is highly important because they will impact the world in just a few short years.  

Will you join me in praying for my friend Katerin? For her continued faithfulness to what she believes God has called her to do. For excitement to share God's word with children. For strength and endurance in the days that don't seem like any impact is being made. 

I have never had a dull moment with Katy. Even when I am crying she somehow gives me a reason to laugh. She pushes me to step out of my comfort zone and do things that I would probably not do without her pushing me. I wish you could meet her and see this amazing woman of God at work, I wish you could feel her passion. She leaves an imprint wherever she goes, you never forget how Katerin made you feel!  We actually have multiple opportunities in 2018 that you could go and meet some of the amazing people we partner with.  We have a construction trip in April, this is an all mens team and they will be building a childrens center on the church property (we believe children are the future people!), but ladies don't worry we have a trip you can come on too! We will have another team going in June in which we get to partner with the church leadership (Katerin and others) in some cool new ways!

And here we go!

Today is the day! Our team gathered this morning at 1 am at the church to pack all our bags onto the bus and head to the airport for the first leg our journey to Nicaragua. And we couldn't be more excited!! Please pray for our team as today will be a long travel day, for all members to stay healthy, and for all our luggage to make it with us! 

These are our 1 am faces :) 

We are at our gate and ready to board! Next stop Houston, then to Nicaragua. Keep up with our trip here on the blog! Thanks for following along and supporting us throughout our journey from fundraisers to praying. We love you church family!

Talk soon!

Commissioning and Packing

Are you ready to join us on our adventure!!  We now leave in just a few short days and are very excited to see how God uses this team.

Commissioning

Last weekend Fox River (all campuses) commissioned our Nicaragua team.  What a privilege it is to be sent and supported by our entire church body! 

Just to give you a glimpse of what a commissioning weekend looks like...  We start at our Waukesha campus for our Saturday night service and then again on Sunday morning, we then split our team to go to our Muskego and Waterford campuses. And do a little hopping back and forth.  3 campuses covering 6 services over the weekend! 

Two of the team members were willing to share about how it feels to know our church is praying...

Delaney- "The fact that we have so much support from our congregation and Pastors throughout our journey brings such comfort.  As we were praying the Holy Spirit really opened my eyes to the fact that complete strangers can pray for something directly for me and it still has impact.  I found comfort in this weekends commissioning and it also showed me how supportive a church family can truly be."

Heath- "Commissioning is important to me because it allows me to feel that the church and senior staff is supporting us and behind us. I'm excited to go on this trip and allow god to work through us aswe are there. Amen"

Packing day!!!

That's right, you heard me!  We are so close it's time we got our supplies in some suitcases!  

18 students and 9 adults!! 27 people = lots of luggage... and today we packed one bag of supplies for each team member!! 

As we have shared before packing day is a daunting task when you look at the piles of supplies we need to fit into our limited suitcases, but it always seems to work out!   

From bubbles to peanut butter we pack it all! 

As we zip up the final suitcases, and our trip approaching quickly, will you join us in prayer in this specific area? Prayers that all of our luggage makes the trip with us and is accounted for on the other side.

Doctora Mendoza

Thank you to all who have been praying for a Doctor in the clinic in La Esmeralda, we are so excited to announce that our prayers have been answered! 

Meet Bielka Mendoza Zeaz or as we will call her Doctora Mendoza. She is from Jinotega Nicaragua, is married and has four children.  She has six years experience in the Health Center in “La Colonia” in Jinotega, and 23 years in Rural Health Centers and Nutrition Centers. 

Since she was a child, she dreamed of being a doctor.  She saw in the television doctors saving people's lives after the earthquake of 1972 in Managua.  Her motivation for studying this profession was the need of the people for medical services.  She is willing to continue to give her services as long as God gives her strength.

Praise God for all that he has done through Doctora Mendoza and will continue to do as she takes on the job of the doctor in the clinic. Join us in prayer today for the clinic and specifically for Doctora Mendoza, as she starts her new job. 

Kerri

Fox River has had the privilege of sending out short term missionary interns to work in our strategic mission areas of Kenya and Nicaragua. Kerri Roberts is our newest intern and will be spending 3 months in Nicaragua this summer.

Kerri was in high school when she took her first Fox River mission trip to Nicaragua. It was during that first trip that God began to lead Kerri into missions. Since that time Kerri has taken three trips to Nicaragua and has become convinced that this is where her heart belongs.

The picture below captures Kerri's heart. In her own words, she explains what this picture means to her.

"On my third trip, I had the privilege of going out in the community to give mosquito nets to people who really need them. While we were walking around to some of the homes, my friend Jorvin and I were talking. He told me that most of the homes we had been to are never visited by others. As he told me this, he pointed to the tiny house in the middle of the picture and said that was one of the houses we were able to go to. We are reaching the unreached, and touching the untouched. This is what drives me to do what I do."

This short term internship is specifically directed at discerning God's will for full time missions in Nicaragua for Kerri. She will be living and working with our missionary, Donna Woodson. Kerri will have the opportunity to see and learn first hand about all of the ministries Donna touches in partnership with our missionary Brian Weed. Kerri has a burden to develop outreach ministries for the young women of Nicaragua.

Would you please pray for Kerri as she prepares for this next step in her journey of faith? If you would be interested in following Kerri's journey you can read her blog here.

Growth in Nicaragua

We love sharing what God is doing through Fox River Missions.  He is at work in many ways in the places He led us to invest in,  and we are so blessed to have a front row seat to watch His plans unfold.

God called Fox River to build and support the Medical clinic in La Esmeralda.   We are so glad He did, because we have seen the ministry that comes from that.  Through this partnership, we have come to love these amazing people and watching God move in the ministries they get to do.

Fox River is a part of some of those ministries, and has been called to help move them forward. 

Let us set this up for you…  La Esmeralda is up in a cloud forest in the Mountains of Nicaragua.  They are over an hour out of the closest city; very, very rural (you cannot find it on the map).  Very few of them have transportation, most all of them walk to where they need to go.   La Esmeralda is one of many communities up in the mountains.  People from these communities either come to La Esmeralda for church or they don’t go because it us just too far to walk. 

The church in La Esmeralda is growing and thriving. Pastor Denis and his team see this and are encouraged by this!  They also go into the surrounding communities and have bible studies with children and adults.  Las Nubes is one of those communities.  The church there is growing at rapid pace, and they have outgrown the homes they were meeting in. They are ready for a building of their own. By bus it takes about 30 minutes from La Esmeralda to get to Las Nubes, it takes over an hour on foot. 

Here is where Fox River gets to be a part… We are able to help purchase the land that they will be putting the building in the community of Las Nubes.  Over the years Fox River has made trips to La Esmeralda, and we have had the opportunity to spend time in Las Nubes.  Every time we go we see more and more growth in that area, this building is going to be a huge blessing to this community.

 It is exciting that God allows us to be a piece in this, and we cannot wait to see the fruits that come from this ministry!  Stay tuned, we will keep sharing!

Run for Love

We have a team heading to Nicaragua in June, both medical and a general.  Fox River Missions will be hosting the 5K Run for Love, to support our Nicaragua team. The run/walk will take place at the Waukesha campus on Saturday, May 21st. With every participant registration a hygiene pack will be funded. Each hygiene pack is a great benefit to the Nicaraguans because it allows them to have access to supplies that would otherwise be expensive and hard to get. And, it's a great way to support our team members as they prepare to go! We hope that you join us for this family-fun filled day. Registration is open, so grab a friend and sign up here!

We look forward to seeing you there!

Emily's Nicaragua story

I remember coming back from Nicaragua. Those few short hours and even sometimes days after returning can be so, so difficult to cope with. I hate to say, but I spent most of the trip home either crying or trying desperately not to. It hadn’t even been a day yet, and I already missed Nicaragua and everyone in it more than I could put into words. Just imagine; everything that happened and everything you witnessed during your time there is so fresh in your mind that it can be difficult to cope with the fact that the world that you’ve grown up in is now the source of your culture shock. All I wanted was to be back in the country and with the people that I had fallen in love with. Coming back from a mission trip can be a really hard thing to explain. Everyone wants to hear about the “fun” things that you did. They want to see all the pictures and they want to hear the stories. But sometimes the stories are hard.

I was challenged, just as my teammates were, to love other people in less than ideal circumstances. When you’re on the outside of a mission trip looking in, it can be easy to see only the polished version. I don’t think anyone really means to make it that way. But it can be hard to look past the countless pictures on social media of all of the beautiful kids the team is getting to know and the countless lives that are being touched and remember that the team is made up of imperfect people, who are imperfect at serving each other and even imperfect at serving the community they are in. Mission trips—at least for the two that I was on—are full of challenges and uncomfortable situations that force growth in people. And sometimes fighting that growth can be an ugly thing. Sometimes it comes out in impatience or a lack of mercy and grace for a fellow team member. Sometimes it comes out in moodiness or unforgiveness. Whatever form it takes, something I quickly realized on my trips was that things were not always as perfect as we like to make them seem. There were many times where I was less than thrilled with my teammates. I know for a fact that there were times that they were less than thrilled with me. However, it was in those times that Jesus could really work in our hearts and change us to become more like Him.

Despite these imperfections and challenges, I know that I wouldn’t want to look back on it any other way. I think that we have a tendency to want to take our stories and clean them up so that they can fit into a tidy and polished version. But that isn’t reality. If we take an honest look at the bible, we can see that God’s people have been a mess throughout history. Even some of the most notable figures in the bible have stories that are far from perfect. David, Moses, even Paul. Just like it is common with mission trips, sometimes the mess in these people’s stories can be overlooked. In doing so however, I think we rob ourselves of the true beauty that God can work from our mess and our imperfection. How could we fully understand God’s saving power in Paul’s life if we did not first understand where he came from? How would we be able to see the vastness of God’s grace if we didn’t fully grasp the weight of David’s decisions? How can we see the beauty that God works in cross cultural missions if we don’t also let ourselves see that we are an imperfect team of people trying to love an imperfect community with a lifestyle very different from our own? The answer is truly that we can’t. We won’t be able to experience the depth of God’s grace for us if we aren’t honest about the depth of our shortcomings.

I wasn’t able to go on the trip to Nicaragua this past summer. Even though it’s been a year and a half or so since I’ve seen the friends that I made there, I still miss them oh so much. There’s been a lot that’s changed in my life since the last time I was there, a lot of new places that my Lord has led me, and a lot of new things that He’s taught me. Even though many of the people that I went to Nicaragua with have gone their separate ways, it’s been amazing to see how our church’s partnership with the church in La Esmeralda has shaped some of my team members and their futures. I think there is something truly beautiful in serving cross culturally, and seeing Jesus reflected through another group of people. There was a lot that was challenging about being in Nicaragua, and a lot that was challenging about trying to love people who know a very different life than we do. In that though, there was so much beauty in loving and being loved by our friends in Nicaragua that has changed me for the better.

It's Christmas, Everywhere!

Merry Christmas! 

We are glad you are reading and following along as we share how God is using Fox River in both Nicaragua and Kenya! 

Today some of our partners will share with us how they celebrate Christmas in their communities.  We all celebrate in different ways, but the one thing that we all have in common is the reason to why we celebrate!  We love how multi-cultural our God is and that we get to share in His ministry in both Kenya and Nicaragua! 

Nicaragua - Pastor Denis and Jorvin

Pastor Denis shares about how they celebrate in their community…

“lo que nosotros hacemos en navidad en la iglesia es una cena navideña, cada miembro de la iglesia aporta una cantidad de dinero para comprar los ingredientes de la cena, los niños de la iglesia hacen un coro navideño y como podemos decoramos la iglesia.en la casa de nosotros la noche del 31 de diciembre hacemos una cena con los muchachos lideres de la iglesia,y pasamos hasta la medianoche con ellos porque ellos no tienen otra distraccion ellos son felices pasar ese dia con nosotros,en las nuves lo que haremos este año es llevar unos regalos pequeños para ellos y un coro que los niños de la esmeralda llevaran.”

—“  What we do for Christmas at the church is we have a Christmas dinner. Each member gives a certain amount of money so that we can buy the ingredients of the meal. The children of the church have a Christmas choir. And we also try to decorate the church. On the 31 of December we have all the church leaders come to my house and we spend the evening with them until midnight. We do this because they don’t have anything else to do and enjoy hanging out with us. This year in the community of Las Nubes, we will be taking small gifts to the children and our children choir will sing for them.”—

Jorvin shares about the impact Christmas has for him…

“ES LO QUE ACA ASEMOS PONEMOS UN ARBOL DENTRO DE LA IGLESIA Y LUSES AUQUE NO MUCHAS PERO SEW HACE ALGO PARA RECORDAR EL GRAN REGALO QUE DIOS NOS ENVIO A SU HIJO CRISTO PARA ALUMBRAR AL MUNDO Y QUE PODAMOS QUIARNOS POR MEDIO DE ESA LUS QUE ALUMBRA EN LA TINIEBLA”

—“Here we put a Christmas tree up with a few lights inside the church, it is not much but it helps us remember the greatest gift when God sent his son Jesus Christ. He is the light of this world and we can share that light. Because of this light we celebrate by singing and sharing a Christmas meal together.”—

Most people don't have trees or exchange gifts. If they do get a small gift for someone they just give it to them during the month of December sometime and not necessarily on Christmas day. They save up all year and try to buy something new to wear on Christmas. In Nicaragua people typically celebrate on the 24th at midnight.

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Kenya - Jenna Horgan

What is important to know is that Kenya in itself is very diversified. What you see in the village is not quite what you would see in town. In fact, in town you might find a home that is celebrating Christmas that looks very similar to what you would find in the US. A tree, presents under it, decorations out and about, the works… but what I will describe is what a Christmas looks like for the children out in the villages and the children that you sponsor! 

 In Kenya, at Christmas, it’s all about the food….. Keep in mind that it is usually around 100 degrees or hotter with high humidity. While the USA has winter we are enjoying summer. It certainly feels different. While it is hard for this westerner to get in the Christmas spirit, for Kenyans, it is the norm. Back to the food. A family might save up a buy a goat to be slaughtered. Every part of this goat is used. And the mamas in the village will take time preparing it very specially to make a stew to put over rice where MANY people can enjoy. Another dish one might make is Pilau (which is like spiced rice with chunks of meat and potatoes in it). Or even Biryiani (which is rice that is speckled with orange food dye, and then a curry type tomato based stew with meat in it. This takes HOURS and is worth every minute). Then you’ll buy sodas for 30 shillings each (about 30 cents) and this is a big treat! Every child in the house will get one.

The grandparents may also buy you a brand new outfit that is hung on the wall and not to be worn until Christmas day. There are not toys typically given (that would be very, very rare) but rather new clothes or new black shoes for the upcoming school year.  They might even decorate their house with balloons or banners!

Families will attend church and spend a lot of time worshiping God in song!

That’s a Kenyan Christmas!

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How real and awesome it is to learn how people from across the globe celebrate Christmas! 

Thanks for reading and spending time thinking about our Missions in both Kenya and Nicaragua.  Join us in praying for them today?