4-8 ------------------------------- Colors of hope 8-27----------------------------- Pictures 28-30 ------------------------ Day to day 31 ------------------------------------ Poem 32 ---------------------------------
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Inside jokes
12 days, 15 people and 1 goal: to bring the love of God to the people in Nicaragua. This short magazine is for our mission trip team. That team involves the 15 people who went to Nicaragua, but also all the people who made it possible for us to go. Through financial support, prayer or encouragement, you’ve become a part of our team too. In this magazine, we want to thank those people who supported us by reporting what we’ve 2seen God do this trip, as well as capture the many beautiful memories we’ve made as a team. So take a cup of coffee, sit back and let us take you on our journey to this beautiful country in Central America.
Abundant blessings, Eline
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Green, yellow, pink and orange. Balloons in all different colors and shapes are floating through the air, accompanied by soap bubbles and the sounds of many excited children. Some team members are painting the kid’s faces while others are carrying around little babies. We are at a daycare of El Faro, a church in Managua, Nicaragua. This is the church we serve these 10 days of our mission trip. The church has a daycare and school for children from the trash dumps and the surrounding neighborhood. Every morning we get to help them serve the kids breakfast and play with them afterwards. The future of this nation lays in the little hands of these children. It’s our honor to invest in them, because we realize that each of them has the full potential of becoming a world changer. The pastors of the church have already proven themselves to be world changers. Pastor Ramon and his wife Miriam lead the church El Faro, the school, the day care, the ‘sowing machine ministry’, the partnering churches in the dumps and the family of their 2 daughters and 5 adopted children. They live in genuine integrity and love in every area of their lives and the results are following their heart’s attitude. It’s just a small church, but their impact on the community is massive. They are God’s heroes, and became ours too.
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Green, blue and orange. The houses beside the road are painted colorfully. We catch glimpses of the city as we drive out of Managua towards the trash dump Tipitapa. The colors of the city fade away quickly into shades of grey and brown of dirt and faded colors of poverty. We arrive at a little village looking out over a large piece of ground full of trash, dirt and burning tires. The houses of the village are made of material that’s probably coming out of the same trash dumps. These people live and work here, they collect pieces of plastic for almost a week to sell it for less than 2 dollar. These are the circumstances that the newspapers would label as extreme poverty. We enter one of the houses and meet a family of three: Mario and Teresa and their son Domingo. We get to pray for the hernia of Mario, and his back pain completely leaves as we release the healing power of Jesus! We love on them, hug them, pray for them and prophecy life over them. After she dries her tears, Teresa proudly shows us around in her garden where she grows a couple of trees and plants for food. We are all just as excited as she is and are amazed by how well she stewards the little she has. We bless the ground and the plants to be supernatural fruitful before we continue our ‘freestyle treasure hunt’ in the trash dump. A couple of precious families, many prayers and a pair of healed knees later we are on our way back to the city. As we drive through the village, I no longer see the devastating, despairing state of the village. I see many people who know the value of family better than we do. I see Gods precious children being hungry for more of Him and better living circumstances, but being trapped in the vicious circle of poverty and a poverty mentality. My heart breaks as I see that their living circumstances are way below what they should be for precious, royal sons and daughters of the King. But my heart rejoices together with Gods heart in who they are. They are not pitiful, hopeless, sad beings,
they are people with great potential and who will run with whatever is given them. If success is measured in character and relationships instead of accomplishment, our Western world might be less successful then these people. Perhaps we should listen to them more and learn from them instead of labeling them as helpless without our help. I try to take off my Western glasses and look at them from a Kingdom perspective. All of a sudden I see this village in the dumps becoming green. Green is the color of hope, growth and fruitfulness. I see the ground of this village becoming fruitful and producing enough food for the families to sustain themselves. I see the ground of the heart of the people becoming soft and fruitful for the seed of the Spirit of God and creating an atmosphere of harmony, love and community. All of a sudden I’m overwhelmed by this sense of hope for this place. There’s more hidden gold in the dirt of the trash dumps than I expected to find. Green, yellow and blue. Colorful little chairs are set up for the kids of the church. Their moms and dads and our team take their seats behind them. We are at the church in the village in the trash dump Tipitapa again,
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but this time for the Sunday morning service. Luckily the Presence of God is not dependent on whether you know the language of the worship songs or not, so we dance, hum and worship with them as good as we can. One of our team members gets up to preach and afterwards our team calls out prophecies to different people in the church. Surprised looks on their faces, tears welling up in their eyes or big smiles shaping their mouths; their reactions to the words of God are beautiful. The same beautiful responses is seen on the faces of the church leaders when we meet with them after the service. We call out different words of knowledge and pray for healing for many of them. God the Healer touches their lives as back pain leaves at two people, peace comes over anxious hearts, a neck can be fully moved again, headache left and pain in the knee left and could be bended completely again. These miracles of healing are seen all through our trip, because the God Whom we read about in the Bible is still the same today. The leadership meeting of the church ‘El Faro’ ended in prophetic ministry and ministry in words of knowledge and healing.
On Wednesday night we led a healing service and saw many miracles. Blind eyes opened, pain left and full movement and functioning of body parts returned. All of that happened just by praying in the name of Jesus. In the last church service, our team didn’t pray alone for the sick. We asked the church members to pray with us, because it’s important that they experience that the healing power of Jesus also works through their hands and prayers. And yet again, many people got touched by Gods power and were healed! Every miracle is a testimony of Him being alive and an expression of the light of His kingdom invading darkness. It’s in His very nature to heal and show His love to His children!
Green and grey. The grey walls are steadily covered in green as we paint the classrooms of the school at El Faro. Some are scrubbing the floor, others are cleaning the chairs and another part of our team is repairing the roof of Carolina. Carolina is feeding many children from the trash dumps every day in collaboration with El Faro, but her own house is about to collapse because of the bad condition of her roof.
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Our whole team came to Nicaragua to bring revival and minister in love. Bringing revival looks like praying and prophesying over people, but it also looks like serving practically in love and honor. Ministry is nothing more and nothing less than love. Love looks like something and has many forms to express herself. As sweat and dirt are covering our skin, the revelation that we are the (working) hands and feet of God is covering our hearts. We want to build the Kingdom and leave something tangible behind in the spiritual atmosphere and in the physical environment. Green, red, orange and purple. The market is filled with colorful products inviting us to buy souvenirs while we're enjoying the laid-back pace of our ‘fun-day’. We’ve seen the poverty of the country, as well as the beauty of her nature and culture. We find that beauty in a cup of iced coffee in Casa del Café, in the experience of a market inside an old castle and in the flavors of mango’s and coconuts that just fell of the trees. We find the beauty as we are floating on a boat past little islands in a lake with a volcano at the horizon and palm trees full of birds and monkeys besides the water.
It feels like we’re floating through a National Geographic magazine. Our leaders don’t jam our time full with ministry and activity, but give us enough time to rest, bond as a team and enjoy this trip. And since ministry is not something you do, but an overflow of who you are, there are always plenty of ministry opportunities. The security guard of a coffee shop had no more pain in his knees after prayer and a single mom who was begging on the streets full of tourists in Grenada felt loved and seen as we prayed and prophesied over her. Ministry is not restricted to church services, it’s a lifestyle of love! Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. All the colors of the rainbow are displayed in the rich culture of Nicaragua. Some were bright and shining, some were fading away in the dimming 7
darkness of poverty. But from all the colors we’ve experienced this mission trip, we will always remember how one color forever painted our hearts towards nations, places and people. Green, the color of hope.
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Day 1 (Friday): Our first day in Nicaragua! We visited El Faro for the first time. El Faro is the church with many connected ministries that we will serve this week. We met the pastors of El Faro; Ramon and his wife Miriam. We had some intercession time while walking around the place. We also visited the house we would repair later that week and met the owner of the house, Carolina. In the evening we looked around the city as a tourist in the richer parts of the city. Day 2 (Saturday): We visited the trash dump just outside Managua, called Tipitapa. We connected with the church there, played with the kids and did a
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treasure hunt through the little village close to the dumps. Day 3 (Sunday): We had a church service at Tipitapa. Melissa preached, our team did prophetic ministry and we served lunch to the kids. After lunch we had a meeting with the leadership team of the church leadership with prophetic time, words of knowledge, prayer for healing and prayer of impartation. Day 4 (Monday): Originally we would serve breakfast to the kids of the school of El Faro, but the government declared it to be a day off. So we decided to paint the classrooms and the other half of the
team went to Carolina’s to tear off the old roof. In the evening we had a meeting/service with the church leaders of El Faro, where Rebecca shared a message about hope and our team did prophetic ministry. Day 5 (Tuesday): A couple of people from the team went straight to Carolina’s to help build the new roof. The other half of the team went to the ‘sowing machine ministry’. We looked around, prayed and prophesied over the place. The team split up again, one part went to Carolina’s to join the others and the other half went to the day care of El Faro to help cook/serve lunch, clean and look after/minister to kids. In the evening we had pastor Ramon and Miriam over for dinner, 28
who shared their heart with some of us while others had fun connecting with their children. Day 6 (Wednesday): We went to the day care of El Faro again to help serving breakfast and play with the kids. Afterwards we went to a market in an old castle to buy some souvenirs. In the evening we had a healing service where Maria shared preached about that it’s always in God’s heart to heal. Afterwards we celebrated Mario’s (our interpreter) birthday. Day 7 (Thursday): From 8-10 o’clock we were at the daycare of El Faro again, helped serving breakfast and played with the kids. Today was our fun day, so we went to Grenada, the oldest city in the
Americas. We floated on a beautiful lake by boat, had a monkey in the boat and shopped in the old center of Grenada. While shopping, some shared Gods love with the people on the market.
Day 8 (Friday): In the morning our daily 8-10 at the day care again. Afterwards we went to Tipitapa to feed the children of the trash dumps and play with them. We also blessed the pastor of the church there. In the evening we had a missionary from Sweden and a Nicaraguan pastor over for dinner and we had a mini-Q&A in the evening. Day 9 (Saturday): In the morning we visited the sowing machine ministry again, where we heard about them supplying jobs for the women who would normally collect plastic at the trash dumps. We prophesied and prayed over the workers. After that we had time with the youth of neighborhood. We did a manicure with the girls and played soccer with the boys. We prophesied over almost every teenager, shared Gods love with them and led them in an encounter. In the afternoon we cheered on Mario at his soccer game. Day 10 (Sunday): Our last day in Nicaragua started with the Sunday morning church service at El Faro. Abe preached about going from glory to glory and we had time of healing prayer in the end. We activated the church members to pray for people as well. In the afternoon we went to a coffee place, packed our bags and had an extra-long debrief with the team about the trip. Every night: Team meeting debriefing the day. 29
Barefoot through the land she crosses borders not yet stepped over. Seemingly vulnerable she jumps and brakes down the enemies defences. Bare feet in warm sand, she always knew were she would land. Her feet are safe in her fathers hands. Walls crumble and fall down doors open in the hearts of the broken reality is revealed as she sees; Gold in the trash, rives through desert lands, she finds herself in secret places, she sees herself in their faces. The wind takes her were she needs to be in that moment of eternity. The rain porous down and new life springs forth, out of the ashes a flower grows still to be known, planted in their hearts by her fathers hands Barefoot yet again she stands, looking for a place to land, always in her fathers hands, Love jumps again. she knows no boundaries, she has no end. She is love 30
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Susanne got pooped on by a gecko Danielle got pooped on by a baby If you ever see a spy with the name ‘supbrowski’, it’s probably the alias of Eline. According to Susanne the only part about of her body that was dry was her hair (the rest was soaked in sweat). Paul doesn’t speak giggle. We got almost kicked out of restaurant because we laughed too loud and we got almost kicked out of a church because Paul rang the church bell (which was not allowed). Little rebels. We have one rule in our team meetings: don’t ever use the g-word. In the first hour in Nicaragua we got to know more about Mario's girlfriend than about himself. But of course we all fell in love with this loverboy. Abe asked Gabe why he always whispers. Our team included Abe, Gabe and babe. We want to thank Dusty for helping building the roof and building up our patience. Melissa got in touch with Gabe's dogsjaw Lorna’s face came dangerously close to a monkey’s butt. Amy and Danielle learned that you have to be careful with the surprises popping up out of little puppets from Nicaraguan markets. Also, be aware of boobie traps. Lo siento.
//While we were painting two classrooms, a man came up to Gabriel, our team member who speaks Spanish. His name was Marti and he asked for prayer, because his knee hurt. So Gabriel prayed for the pain to leave in Jesus’ name, because we believe that God still does the same miracles as in the Bible. After a short prayer, Gabriel asked Marti if he could test it out if he could feel any improvement. The man smiled and nodded and told him that his knee was feeling 100% better. Some moments later, we saw him moving around, bending his knee in the weirdest positions and jumping up and down. When we asked him what he was doing, he said that he couldn’t do this before. Jesus had healed him! (Picture shows the man bending his knee in a way he couldn’t do before)//
//Danielle & Eline looked after some children in the school of El Faro. They were ‘the special children’ of the class, later we heard most of them had ADD or behavior disorders. In the beginning they were running around and we didn’t know what to do with 6 hyperactive boys. Danielle started sharing with them how much God loves them and prayed with them. We got to prophecy and pray over them. The stomach pain of a boy left, the pain in a knee of another boy left and the headache of another boy left too when Eline released the healing power of Jesus over them. At the end they all were really peaceful, laying on our lap and listening to our words and the words of God! The love of God can create such32 a difference in them!//
Gabe’s testimony: “When we went to a coffee shop, I got to pray for the security guard who was standing outside. He explained that he had pain from arthritis. We prayed and his pain completely left! We came back to the coffee shop a couple of days later and saw him again. The pain was still gone and he had no further problems with arthritis!” Another testimony: “After our team gave a word of knowledge about feet, a teacher raised her hand saying she had completely flat feet. While praying for her, a team member felt the bottom of the foot move. We saw that the Lord created arches in her feet! The following day, the teacher found the leader of the team exclaiming that when she woke up that morning, the Lord had made her feet even more arched. All pain from the flat feet was gone from her body!”
Noelle’s favorite testimony: “This all happened during a healing service on Wednesday night. Our team was calling out words of knowledge and prayed for healing for the people who stood up. There had been a word of knowledge about eyes and restored eye sight. Mercedes, the daughter of pastor Ramon, asked me to come pray for her friend's eyes. Her friend needed glasses to see properly. I prayed with the girl, I think her name was Maria and was probably 9ish years old. Her friends were laying their hands on her too. Nothing changed, so I told Mercedes to pray in Spanish. She did, and after that Maria noticed a little change. A different friend prayed for her, and then she was completely healed! She could read the Bible without her glasses! She shared her testimony in the service.” Amy adds: “In the same service, there was a man who needed complete assistant to get around because he was completely blind. When our team started praying for his vision, his eyes rolled to the correct spot and began getting clearer. By the end he could see! He came to church the following Sunday all by himself - no assistance needed. He even prayed for others during ministry time that Sunday.”
Summary of other testimonies: -A man had pain in his back caused by a hernia. Pain was gone after prayer. -Pain in kidney gone. Pain in breast gone. Lots of different knee pains gone. Lots of back pains gone -Stitching from C-section caused pain and infection on a woman's body, but was healed after praying! Same woman also had a deaf left ear which was healed! -Fever and pain in body of a young girl gone -Older man whose right ear was losing hearing was healed and his pain also left. -A woman who fainted often due to constant extreme stomach and head pain had visited many doctors in the area, but no one could find anything wrong with her, so she lived with the pain for years. While our team prayed, she felt a wave of heat in her body, followed by a wave of coolness, and the pain had completely left. -A woman had an infection in eyes, causing blurry vision. She was healed after prayer. She was also healed of having too little blood flow to her fingers, which had caused a feeling of them being asleep. -A woman who hurt her back in a car accident was completely healed. -A man who couldn't open his hand or lift his arm was healed after our team prayed. He could open his hand and raise up his arm!
Maria’s favorite testimony: “ The first thing that happened in the healing service was that when we were focusing on God's Presence, an older lady got healed in her knee without anyone praying for her. She had a scheduled surgery, but said she was completely healed. God is so good!!! Later that night I prayed for a woman' eyesight. I honestly did not have any faith for it, haha. I've prayed for tons of people in the healing rooms for healing of their eyesight and had seen no visible result. When this lady asked me to pray for her, I thought in my head: "oh, no...." But when I prayed for her and put my hands over her eyes, I literally felt power flow out of my hands and I thought to myself "this feels different". And when she checked she could see without her glasses!” Another testimony: “We prayed for a man who said that he had "air in his ear", causing deafness. He was prayed for and his ear got healed! The man explained it so funny, saying "I can now hear a kilometer away!"”
Magazine, design, pictures and writing: Eline Millenaar Photograph background on page 31: Noelle Viard Photographs 33, 34: Susanne, Bob, Noelle and Eline. Photograph page 29: Amy