Some Photos from the last few days of the trip...

From Nicaragua Randoms Pics 3

Here is the rest of the album: http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.kear/NicaraguaRandom3

Home in Arkansas- Safe and Sound

We flew into Little Rock this afternoon safe and sound. The trip went really smoothly. Our flights back from Managua today were good. We had a great trip, the bible institute went wonderfully, the guys did a phenomenal job. God knew what he was doing when he put our team together... I was extremely impressed Seth, Todd, and Josh this week. Thanks for all of your prayers, you are a vital part of this ministry. Thanks again and God bless. I'll try to get some more pictures loaded soon.

We are back in Managua!

We had a great morning in San Juan del Sur and just arrived back in Managua safe and sound.

The Bible Institute has come to conclusion

Well, this week has flown by and we wrapped up the insititute today. As Josh was going through the summary of the story of Israel he was asking the Niccas to fill in the story. They were doing really well. I don´t know about all of the details, but it seemed like that they grasped the overall story. That is great! We had a wonderful time with our brothers and sisters here in Nicaragua. Our fellowship together has been sweet. After we wrapped up this afternoon, Cairo suggested that we go see a beautiful spot on the river near Costa Rica that the local pastors had told him about...so we headed off down the road. the short of it is that we spent and hour each way on some roads could really use improving (!!!) only to come to semi nice river crossing the road. It was nice...but not an hour into the boonies nice, but oh well. You live and learn. We got to see some more of the country. We rolled into San Juan del Sur just as the sun was setting over the cove on the pacific. It was beautiful. We have already noticed something about San Juan del Sur...the gringos- they are all over the place. We have named this place gringo land. I think that Todd was genuinely upset to see other gringos. It was pretty funny to see him getting angry about there being other north americans. We will spend the morning here in this beach town and head to Managua shortly after lunch. Please pray for safe travel. Thank you for your prayers this week! They mean everything to this ministry.

Forth day of teaching complete

We just wrapped up our forth day of teaching in the bible institute. We learned that hot weather is simply the absense of the wind here. One of the young ladies that has been attending came up to us and thanked us for our teaching and told us that it is helping her to understand the bible better. It has helped her to see that the God of the Old Testament is not a mean and cruel god, but instead he offers Israel repeated forgiveness and redemption. That was pretty cool to hear. That is exactly the kind of truth that we are trying to communicate. The students (pastors and laymen) have been contributring good questions to the discussion and seem to be eager to learn. We are looking forward to our last day with them tomorrow. Please continue to lift up the teaching, the pastors, and the relationships being formed. Thanks.
p.s. Bendiciones y dios te bendiga.

Hump day

Wednesday was good. We have good attendance again...we haven't scared them all off yet. Josh came strong with some great illustrations today. I think that they are grasping most of the material. The translators are wonderful (as they have been on my previous trips as well). We truly could not do this without them. They are a vital part of the team and true blessing. Not only do we appreciate their hard work we appreciate their friendship and fellowship. We are having a good time together. I have not laughed this much in a while. After the bible institute we went to a town about 5 miles away on the coast of Lake Nicaragua. They had a nice beach. Seth joined some local boys in a game of soccer in the sand while I took lots of pictures. Todd made a comment the other day about wanting to drive a motorcycle (a popular local form of transportation) to Cairo...well Pastor Philemon got word of this and brought his motorcycle out to the beach and let Todd drive in up and down the sand. It was great. I kept thinking of the movie "The World's Fastest Indian". We found some monkeys in a tree and feed them mangoes. They came and took them right out of our hands. Check out the pics that I posted on my last entry...

Random Rivas photo album 2

Here are some more random photos from the day. http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.kear/Rivas2

Thanks for your prayers

I just wanted to thank you for your continued prayers. We praise God for blessing our trip this far. Please continue to pray for our teaching, the translation, the pastors traveling here each day, the relationships that we are building with the pastors, and that they would grasp the story of Israel and it would enhance their reading and teaching of God's word.

Second day down...

Our second day at the bible institute went well. We have approximately 98 people. All of the teaching went well. Todd taught the Niccas how to play Simon Says in an illustration of obedience. The Rivas Bible Insitute is off to a good start, we are learning taking note of ways that we can improve it further in future trips. The weather has been hot, but tolerable when the wind is blowing. It is supposed to get hotter tomorrow...we'll see how much hotter. The wind is a gift from the Lord though. The team (both gringos and translators) are enjoying each other and having a good time together. We are laughing a lot. Thanks for your prayers.

Random Rivas photo album 1

Here is an album of some random pictures from the last couple of days. http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.kear/Rivas1

The first day of the bible insitute was great

Our first day went great. We had 95 people show up, which is a wonderful turn out for the first day. We began the story of Israel today. Josh, Seth and Todd did an amazing job teaching today. It was a lot of fun to watch them. The people are being responsive and are a pleasure to teach. After we wrapped up the institute for the day we headed out to the shore of Lake Nicaragua which was on 7 kilometers from Costa Rica. It was beautiful. We went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner...it was a cultural overload to try to order Chinese food in spanish.

Please continue to pray as we build relationships with the pastors and for the teaching in the institute.

Pics from Bible Institute day 1

Volcano pics

Our "pre-institute" meeting went great!

We just got back from meeting with the head of the pastors' council, Pastor Joshua. It went great. He said that they are expecting a very good turn out of pastors, so we'll see tomorrow. He also told us that just in the preparation for the institute that it has brought unity amongst the churches of Rivas. That is very cool. We thought that we were coming to teach the OT Story...and God is already using this with unity in the body. Thanks for all of your support.

Please pray for our first day teaching tomorrow. I will be doing an opening explanation of the institute then Josh will kick of the real teaching with an introduction to the Old Testament Story. Then follows me, Seth, and Todd.

Estamos en Rivas (We are in Rivas)

We made it down to Rivas safe and sound. We stopped at an active volcano on the way down. It was smoking up a storm...pretty cool (from the proper distance). We are settling in at the hotel and will be meeting with the head of the pastors' council tonight to take care of any details before we start the institute tomorrow.Thea weather is warm and humid, but the breeze is heavenly. Rivas is a good size town of approximately 60,000. Our hotel is very comfortable, we are blessed.

Please pray for our continued preparation of the lessons we will be teaching as well as communicating effectively across cultural and linguistic barriers. Please pray for the pastors that will be traveling here tomorrow and the rest of the week.

We are in Managua

We made it Nicaragua just fine. Our layover in Houston was a nice chance to get focused on our teaching material and we had some time to read and discuss our lessons together. The flights here were pretty non eventful. We met up with Cairo at the Airport and got across the street to the best western and are settling in for the night. Tomorrow we head south to Rivas. We will stop and the Market and possibly a Volcano that are on our way to Rivas. We will meet up with the head of the Rivas Pastor's Council tomorrow night at 6pm to go over plans for the Institute. Thanks for you prayers and please keep them coming.

Less than 24 hours...

Our flight leaves Little Rock at noon tomorrow. Less than 24 hours and everything is coming together.

4 days until Niacaragua

Thanks for all of the support both through sponsoring a pastor and through your prayers. The material is completed and translated so that is a very big burden lifted and an answer to prayer.

Seth, Todd, Josh, and myself met up in Benton for dinner last night and I think that we are all excited about the trip. My prayer request for today is that you would lift up the teaching and the preparation as we are getting our lessons ready for the Bible Institute.

Prayer Request

Right now if you please pray for the finalizing and translation of the institute material it would be greatly appreciated. Time is growing short...we have faith though.

Support A Pastor Update

As of right now we have 36 pastors sponsored...we are planning on 100 pastors at the Institute. So thanks to everyone that has partnered with us so far and if you haven't yet then please consider doing so...we still need to support 63 more pastors. For more info check out my support a pastor post.

Why this bible institute is different from other short-term mission trips.

As someone that has been on a fair amount of short term mission trips let me tell you how the Nicaragua Bible Institute is different from other short term mission trips. (I am not knocking other short term mission trips...just pointing out something that makes this one different)

Even though we are only in Nicaragua for one week, we are going to be able to build some long term relationships because we have committed to come back twice a year for the next five years. We are really earning the trust of the locals by continually investing in the same place. Just last week I got an email from the pastors in Rivas saying that they were very excited that we were keeping our word (from my scouting trip in October) by coming this March.

Another difference is that we are not coming in as the "missionaries", but as brothers and sisters in Christ to serve the Nicaraguan church. We are not there to evangelize the country... not that we are going to shy from the gospel, but the Nicaraguan believers are more than capable of sharing Christ in their country. It is our desire to equip them to minister to their own countrymen. We happen to have been blessed with an above average amount of Biblical training and want to share our blessings with them. How cool would it be if one of these pastors caught a vision for taking the gospel to the rest of the world and ended up as missionary to some country that as a white American I can't get to like the Arab world?