Friday, July 10, 2015

We had a wonderful church service with our Hebron Baptist Church family on Thursday night! It was also very sad because we had to say goodbye to our friends there. They were all so very sweet to us this week! It was a blessing to serve with the church members. Thanks to Allie Curvin, we were able to present a picture as a gift to the church. It was embroidered with a cross and had both of our church names. It also had Romans 1:16 which tells us to not be ashamed of the Gospel! We thought that verse would be special since we use it as a theme at Leatherwood. Here's a few pictures from the night: 

These are the precious ladies who cooked our meals this week. They worked very hard and the food was delicious!

Just a few more pictures:

Here's the pastor's wife speaking:

Today we drove back to the Capitol city of Managua for a fun day. It was a little over 2 hours of a drive. Once we arrived, we went zip lining over a lagoon, had Mcdonald's for lunch, and shopped at the market. We are now settled in to our hotel that's right across the road from the airport. We have a very early flight in the morning. We are praying for a safe flight to Atlanta and a safe drive back to Calhoun County. We will see you back in the U.S. very soon!

Thursday, July 9, 2015- Construction Update

Our fundraising this year has gone towards raising the money to build a bathroom facility at Hebron Baptist in Juigalpa. The church currently has what looks like an outhouse--- basically a hole in the ground. Here's a couple pictures of what it looks like now: 

The church has a goal to construct a men's and a women's restroom with toilets and showers. The reason for this is that the church is starting to host a lot of outside visitors. They are hosting meetings of the Nicaraguan Baptist Convention, pastors' meetings, etc. they are working very hard to be united with other churches to further spread the Gospel. They would like to provide a nice facility for all of the people coming through. 

The cost to dig for the septic tank and construct the bathrooms is $6200. At LBC, we've been doing a few fundraisers with our missions team and had enough money to send $3100 a month before our trip. Two weeks before we left, we had VBS at LBC and the children raised $1300. Praise the Lord! Then, we only had $1800 more to go. The week before our trip, we had a special offering at LBC and that brought in another $3100! So, we were able to send the remaining construction money and have a start to our next fundraiser project. 

Construction should start next Monday. They will begin digging then. It sounds like it will be a pretty involved project because the church sits on top of a steep hill. They don't have a lot of machinery here, so it's pretty much all done by hand. I believe it may take a month or two to complete everything. 

Our daily ministry is still going well. Allie and I taught about being disciples last night. We discussed studying the Bible, praying, and fellowshipping with other believers. 

After a busy week of ministry, we had a surprise morning of rest. It started out with a surprise birthday cake for me (my birthday is Sunday.) 

Our friends in Nicaragua are so sweet and thoughtful! Then, we drove around to see a few of the sights in Juigalpa. We even got to visit a camp that is run by the Baptist churches. People can rent it out for events and things like that. It was very interesting to see! 

This afternoon, Melonie and Shelby will continue teaching on discipleship. After that we will have our last worship service with Hebron Baptist for the week. So, sadly we will be saying goodbye to our friends here in Juigalpa tonight. After the worship service, we will come back and pack because we've got to head to Managua on Friday to be near the airport for our early morning flight on Saturday morning. 

Please pray for a great worship service tonight and that we will have a safe drive to Managua on Friday!

In Christ, 

Page

Tuesday, July 7, 2015 and Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Tuesday was quite a busy day! We went back to one of the barrios we visited on Monday, Rey Jesus, to continue door to door evangelism there. We saw 6 people who put their faith in Jesus Christ while we were there! We also came across a few people who said that they just wanted to wait until later. We know the seed has been planted, but we are still just praying that they would open their hearts to the Gospel. 

Tuesday afternoon, we had a VBS at the church. Here's a few pictures of Melonie teaching about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the fiery furnace:

She had the kids act out the Bible story, so I think they had a lot of fun learning. Afterwards, they made a fiery furnace craft to go along with the Bible story. These crafts were from our LBC VBS, so we are very thankful that we had exactly enough to share with the children in Nicaragua! 

Later in the afternoon, we had another women's conference. Allie taught about Jesus meeting the woman at the well. It was a really sweet time with the ladies. 

At the end of the Bible study, we were able to give each lady a bag of toiletry items as a gift. We had several Sunday School classes at LBC come together and donate toiletry items like toothpaste, soap, shampoo, tissues, washcloths, and more. The ladies really appreciated this gift! 

Later that night, we had a movie night. Pastor Omar brought the screen and projector and we were able to show God's Not Dead (in Spanish with English subtitles of course!) 

Thanks to a wonderful family at LBC, I was able to bring a laptop computer to Nicaragua. About a week before we came to Nicaragua, Pastor Omar emailed and asked if I could find a good used laptop to donate. There was someone in a neighboring town of Juigalpa who is going to seminary and really could use a good computer for word processing and some internet use. I just want to say a special thanks to Craig Baird for helping us make that happen! We have such giving and caring people in our church family! I gave the laptop to Omar Tuesday night. He was going to deliver it on Wednesday and send me a picture of the young pastor who would be using it!

Wednesday morning, we had another VBS at the church. Melonie taught about Saul's conversion and then shared the plan of salvation using an oil and water example. The oil represented sin and the water represented God. She explained that the two cannot be separated... Which represents our sin separating us from God. 

At the end of the lesson, 4 children put their faith in Jesus Christ! Praise the Lord! 

The children then did a craft where they painted crosses. It looked like they really enjoyed it! 

Wednesday afternoon, we are going to have a sports afternoon with the youth. We'll be playing volleyball and soccer with anyone that shows up at the church. Then, Page and Allie will be teaching at the church Wednesday night on what it means to be a disciple. We've just got a couple more days left in Nicaragua, so please keep praying that God will continue to move the rest of the week! In my next blog post, I'll try to give an update on the bathroom construction project that we raised money for. 

In Christ, 

Page

 

Monday, July 6, 2015

What a wonderful day in Nicaragua! This has been a day full of door to door evangelism. We went to two different barrios today to share the Gospel.  (One in the morning and one in the afternoon.)

 

Here are just a couple stories from our day: 

This morning, Shelby and Allie were a team and Melonie and I were a team. Shelby and Allie stopped to play baseball with a few young people. After they played, they had the opportunity to share Christ and 3 people were saved! 

At the same time, Melonie and I were off in another direction. I had a chance to talk to three women at one time. There was a guy nearby with a machine that was spraying for mosquitos. (It looked like a cloud of smoke and the machine was really loud.) During our conversation, I think we had to move three different times, because of the noise and the stuff being sprayed. I kept feeling like I was losing my place in what I was sharing, so I kept thinking that all of this must sound so confusing to these ladies. At the end, when I asked them if they wanted to put their faith in Jesus, they all three said yes! That was just yet another reminder to me that it's not about what we say, it's all about the Holy Spirit moving in people's hearts and lives. The Holy Spirit spoke to those ladies and they put their faith in Jesus Christ!

In all, we saw 11 people come to know Christ as their personal Lord and Savior today! What an exciting day! 

We've been having a great time working with the members of our partner church. As we go out to share the Gospel, they take lots of notes on who we visit so they can follow up after we leave. Here's a picture of me with the church's pastor, Jose Luis: 

After our morning door to door, Melonie and one of our translators got out some balloons and a few kids walked up to us. They made some balloon animals and our translator, Maricela, shared about Jesus while they made the balloons. 

I found out about 4:30 this afternoon that they wanted me to go on the radio in Nicaragua at 6:00 tonight and share a message from the Bible. Of course we couldn't pass up that opportunity! In what seemed like very little time, God provided the message that His power is made perfect in our weakness, so I was able to share about finding strength in the Lord: 

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 

It's been another great day in Nicaragua! I don't know if I'll get a chance to post tomorrow. We've got a long day ahead of us with door to door evangelism in the morning, VBS and a women's conference in the afternoon, and movie night at the church tomorrow night. Please be in prayer that God will continue to touch lives tomorrow. If I don't get to post on Tuesday, I'll try to update again on Wednesday! Thank you all for your prayers! 

In Christ, 

Page

 

Sunday, July 5, 2015

We made it! We had a great flight on Saturday. We even landed 30 minutes early! Once we got through customs and picked up our luggage, we had a 2 hour drive to Juigalpa. I'm so thankful for a good day of traveling!

Sunday has been wonderful! We led worship with our partner church, Hebron Baptist Church (Second Baptist). Shelby and I led a few songs (we both sang, and Shelby played the guitar). After that, I introduced our team to the church and spoke for a few minutes. During the church service, Melonie and Allie took the kids for children's church. They learned about Daniel and the lions den and then did a craft together making bracelets. 

After lunch, Shelby did a fantastic job with our first women's Bible study of the week! She talked about the lies that women believe about themselves, and how God created us and calls us beautiful. God spoke a great message through her! She then showed the women how to make bracelets out of yarn. It represented how God designed us and knit us together (Psalm 139). 

After the Bible study, we took a break to go get smoothies. Then we had another great service on Sunday night. 

Monday is a full day of door to door evangelism in two local barrios. Please pray that people's hearts will be open to the Gospel. We are praying for a great day of ministry on Monday! 

In Christ, 

Page

Less than 48 hours to go!

In less than 48 hours, our Leatherwood Baptist Church mission team will be on a plane headed to Juigalpa, Nicaragua in Central America! We have been praying and preparing for this time for months, and it's hard to believe that the trip is finally here! 

These last few months, God has been doing such a mighty work in all of the fundraising and preparations. I just want to share one quick story. Our partner church in Juigalpa, Hebron Baptist, was working towards building a bathroom facility. They currently have something that is basically like an old outhouse. It would cost approximately $6200 to build what they needed, dig/install the septic tank, etc. Through our fundraising at LBC, we sent $3100 about a month ago. At our VBS just last week, the children raised over $1300! How awesome is that! To top it all off, our church had a special offering on Sunday to help raise the remaining $1700. We collected over $3000 in the special offering alone. I am completely humbled by the generosity of our Leatherwood Baptist Church family! God's plan and His timing are perfect!

Please continue to pray for our team: Page Trantham, Melonie Jones, Allie Curvin, and Shelby Epps. We will be leading worship, teaching women's Bible  studies, teaching discipleship classes, sharing the Gospel of Christ door to door, leading VBS, and building relationships with the people of Nicaragua. We've also been blessed with some donated clothes, toiletry items, and even a laptop computer (I'll share more on that later) to give away while we're there.  Please pray for safe travel for our team, and most importantly, that the people's hearts will be open to the Gospel. 

Our team will be on a plane this Saturday afternoon! I'll try to keep this blog updated throughout the week, so please be sure to check in with us. Thank you to everyone who has supported this trip, whether it be financially or through your prayers! Most importantly, I'm just so thankful that God would give us the wonderful opportunity to serve Him in Nicaragua. It never ceases to amaze me how He works out every detail for what He's called us to go and do! 

Isaiah 6:8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” 

We love you all and we can't wait to see what God is going to do this week! 

In Christ, 

Page