While we were still in Rio Grande we found out we would being doing an ATL month. None of us were overly excited for it but some of us were at peace with it. ATL stands for Ask The Lord. Meaning we would be dropped off as a squad somewhere in Nicaragua and decide in our teams where we would be going and what type of ministry we would be doing during the month rather than being given a host to work with. We felt like we had pretty much already been doing that in Costa Rica. We decided that what we really wanted was to be partnered with a ministry that would have plenty of work for us to do. Truly I would not have minded just walking the streets asking God which way to go and who to talk to and pray for. Gwen and Jacob were of a similar mind but without everyone on board it would be difficult to do. So we started doing research and found a couple of places that looked promising and that we might want to partner with and got in contact with them. We were solidifying our plans with the ministry partners in our last couple of days in Costa Rica when our partner for the first 12 days backed out. Oddly enough at this point our team became unified. Rather than worrying about where we would go or sleep we sat down and prayed and decided to stay in Granada (our drop off point) and just see what there was to do. We checked ourselves into a hostel and made some plans to join up with a dump ministry. It was so refreshing to go out and work with a ministry that cared about the people and not just the message being spoken. We helped give the message on the fly and then helped serve lunch. It was just so satisfying to be able to do something tangible for the first time in a month. We also went house to house with them the next day, in a neighborhood where they were building relationships and making connections with the people there. Going out with them rather than going out for them is a much better way to do evangelism because they will be there to continue the relationships after we are gone.
We made sandwiches one morning and passed them out to people as we felt led. Jose, Jacob, and Lindsey went together to the main plaza across from our hostel and ran out of sandwiches in seconds. Gwen and I turned down a side street and just started walking and we met so many interesting people. A man losing his eye sight, a man that had recently come to Christ and was a year sober, the son of the man losing his sight, a mother leaving work on her lunch break to go home and cook for her invalid husband and her kids, and a security guard that works 24hr shifts and is trying to figure out what he believes. It was quite the morning. That afternoon we went and babysat some kids for another mission group.
We also made a friend at the hostel who joined us for a couple of days of ministry. He had grown up Christian and wasn’t into the party scene and thought what we were doing was really cool so we brought him along. He joined our morning bible study and asked lots of questions that we had recently asked ourselves.
I stayed up late one night and met a guy who claimed to be a communist and spent several hours chatting and debating with him on whether or not the bible was true and if communism was really the best way to do things. I’m not sure if I got through to him at all but he had a friend with him that wasn’t high and drunk like he was, who just sat and listened. Maybe he got something out of the conversation. That or he just thought I was crazy for talking so long to someone in that state of mind.
God put so many people in our paths and let us speak into them and help them in practical ways. The doors closed to us there in Granada though and so we had to move on.
