Fresa

Hey everyone! I know I have not written in a while! I have had such a busy week! Last week, I was sick and did not work at all. I was diagnosed with pharyngitis. It was so different for me to be at home everyday. The first couple days of being at home, I seriously laid around and rested. By Thursday, I was able to attend the normal devotion the CFCI group has every week. I arrived late, and was able to listen and pay attention in between the couple episodes of coughing I experienced. We discussed the planning for the next year and I am so excited! I get to work with at least 3 medical brigades next year! People, CONTACT ME, COME ON, HELP THIS COUNTRY OUT, ANY SUPPORT WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED! I have been reading a lot of interesting passages in The Bible and picking up more spanish here. The verses and stories I have been reading have been about following God wholeheartedly, gladly, with your whole spirit, soul, and mind; with your whole life! I am listening to God's plan in my life and I have never been so sure that I am doing what I am called to do! Loving on the people at the clinic daily, and just smiling and waving at every little child that enters the clinic is what I live for! I was reading this passage in Philippians 3 that says "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus...our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." These couple of verses give me such a good feeling about God, how He loves His children and how in the end, we WILL surely be rewarded. I have also been reading about God's grace in a book titled Transforming Grace by Jerry Bridges. If you really want to read a DEEP book, please read this! God's grace is always and forever. The only thing that allows you to receive His grace is to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and you will naturally be given God's grace. I truly believe that you cannot exercise love unless we are experiencing grace. You cannot truly love others unless you are convinced that God's love for you is unconditional, based solely on the excellence of Christ, not on your performance. One of the main reasons I am here on this trip is because of God's grace. He has given me chance after chance and time to renew my mind through His son Jesus Christ. I have failed, sinned, and fallen short of His glory like every other Christian(it is human nature). I always think my sins are much more condemning, but then I remember the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I remember when we ask for forgiveness, our sins are remembered no more. I have been through many different situations where I thought, "I messed up big time", or "God probably hates me". But I am here, in Nicaragua, serving Him! I have been renewed and I feel like a new spirit in Christ! I have turned away from the world and listened to God! Some people have called me crazy, others say they would like to do what I am doing. People, the opportunities are there. You must take the leap of faith. The opportunities are in America! I can see my audience and where they read from and they are ALL from the USA. I know you think, you don't have the time, the money, or desire to do the same thing I am doing; but let me tell you how lucky you are to be in America (sitting in an air conditioned house, with running "clean" water, and food probably spoiling in the refrigerator). These blessings can be demonstrated as a curse by some Americans who exercise their rights to the point of exhaustion of their self, and make the rest of the world, look homeless. Homeless people in America have it luxurious compared to the average Nicaraguan here. The average earning a day is $2.00. I am blessed to be from America. You are probably wondering what the title of this blog post means. It actually means Strawberry, but here it is referred to people who have a "lot", usually Americans who match everything they have, or have things that are unnecessary. I am referred to as "fresa"(not an insult). I have either pink or zebra things and it is one thing I get made fun of on a weekly basis. I was discussing this with my mom today and she said "I don't know if we should take is as a blessing or a bad thing". I totally agree with her in the aspect that if we have things that aren't used, and would be used daily here, it's a bad thing, and that it is a blessing because we are answers to some people's prayers here. I realized how many things I do not need since being on this trip and will probably leave most, if not all those unnecessary things behind when I come back. This trip has allowed me to see more of my life unfolding right before my eyes. I desire and so badly want to live with people who aren't born in America and given freedom, but who grow up in countries where their life is worth being impacted by mine. I desire to learn about peoples hearts who live in areas where I would never think would exist in this world. I desire to especially reach out to women and help those who are hurting from physical, sexual, and verbal abuse daily. My soul desires to lift up those kind of women and just hold them with the love God has given me. Show them His grace and His love, and lead them to the best life ever; Christ driven. My verse for this week is "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will" Romans 12:2. It has really made me think of how awesome it is to be here and experience all that I have thus far. This week in the clinic, it was a very busy week. We had one lady that came in Monday, who had an infection on her foot that was so bad, skin was being peeled off by the doctor who cleaned it and the wound was then opened and bleeding and pus and white eroded skin covered the rest of her foot. The next day, the ambulance came to pick her up and rush her to the hospital. I think she probably had diabetes and didn't think to take care of it until now. It looked like it might end up as an amputation. Yesterday a man came into the clinic with a blood sugar of 380. He had all other normal vital signs, and a normal EKG. We had to hook him up to an IV and NS 0.9%. I laid my hand on him, prayed for him for about 5 minutes and 15 minutes later, he was up walking around and praise God! I had to give about 10 injections yesterday and clean a little girls wound on her inner thigh from a rusty park bench. I had a pretty eventful week after not being in the clinic for a week. I also went to Granada with my family this past weekend. We went on a tour of 30 little islands. There is a hotel on one island and it costs $200 for 24 hours (yes, American dollars). It is ridiculous! There is AC, cable, and internet. But there is nothing else on this island. No food, you must take a boat to reach anything else you might need besides a bed. And I am saying this meaning, you don't need AC, cable, and internet to survive. Those are just luxuries. I had a great day and ate the typical food from there that is shown below, on the huge leaf! It is a very touristy town and was the first place the Spaniards founded when they arrived in Central America. Thank you all for supporting me and keeping me in your prayers, I feel so blessed and loved! Keep up prayers for more money to come into support our base here in Nicaragua, for the man I mentioned who wants to go to college and my church I attend here to reach their goal to buy the property of their church. Thank you all!

My one month video!

One month has gone by and it was WAY to fast!

The thought of living with no hopes, no dreams of becoming anything important lies in the midst of someone I recently met. His father left when he was 6 months old and his mother passed away three years ago, leaving him with a grandfather who does not care what he does. He was ashamed to approach me about not being able to go to college. He knows I have my RN and went to college to attain my degree. He asked me to pray about going to school and a way to make this possible. I started asking him questions. He really desires to attend college and to learn english which is more money, but I found out the college he wishes to go to is $35.00 a month. How amazing is that?! I calculated the average my class was when I attended EMU and it averaged $45.00 per class! How ungrateful I have been for the wonderful education (desired by many) I have received and how blessed am I to have the opportunity to attend college?! I ask you to take this prayer request and add it to your list for this next year. This is a scholarship program with CFCI, but we need more money in the account at the Nicaragua base to make these available for people like this young man. I will give you some information about it at the end of this post. The thankfulness here in Nicaragua is outstanding. I offer to buy my family ice cream bars, not even totally $2.00 and they are so thankful. The price of food here has surprised me soooo much, considering it is all wonderful, fresh and not as greasy as American food. They don't have "value size" here; instead, since the food produced here is very desirable in the states and other countries and since Nicaragua is the poorest central American Country, we buy all the big fruits and leave this country with the smallest bananas I have seen and they take about 3 bites to eat. Being from the USA, and appreciate the fact that I obtain things I do, but my heart goes out to the people of Nicaragua as they strive to make a life for themselves. I average aged person here is a teen and the average person makes about $2.00 a day. Our minimum wage in America is $7.67 and we think we have it bad. The people living below poverty total about 48% of the population here. About 2-5% are middle class and the rest are wealthy. I ask you to consider what you have and how much you appreciate those things. I heard this past week a sermon from Church of the Highlands that Americans spend 137% of their income because we are consumed with thoughts that more and bigger is better. I was the exact same way, so I am not saying I am any better than people who desire these new, big, expensive things. Coming to Nicaragua has made me realize that I have far more than I need and I need to give what I have to others who lack even the necessary. I need to love unconditionally, no matter what disease or problem a person presents with, and most importantly, have a good attitude and God's word with me at all times so that I can refer to his ways when I feel lost. This trip has opened my eyes thus far and I can't wait for what else God has to show me. People often think that in this country, people can work, they just chose not to but rather commit crimes and rob others of what they have. But that is not the case. The fact is that people aren't given the opportunity or simply just don't make enough money to have the luxury of attending college, having a toilet inside their house, or having air conditioning. We all take these for granted each and everyday. Please take these things into consideration and if you consider you have a hard like, please come down and visit to take a glimpse at what these people experience everyday! I can't walk safely down the road without cautiously watching my surroundings because I could be robbed by anyone and at anytime. I am not scared though because I know God is holding me and I am right where I am supposed to be. Are you where you need to be? Are you doing what God has called you to do? Or are you making excuses because "it's not the time" or "I don't have enough money to do that right now. Maybe later." People there will never be a better time than NOW to take that leap of faith, listen to God's voice, and obey His word and do what He is calling you to do. He is your father and He will take care of all your needs like He has taken care of mine since I have been here. This week at the clinic I got to once again perform Leopold Maneuvers, listen to the FHR (fetal heart rate) with a doppler, perform ultrasounds, assist with a surgery, and do dressing changes to some pretty intense wounds. I decided to hand out many hair barrettes to the little girls this week and give little boys lollipops to the young boys. This week was so eventful. I went to the zoo yesterday and it cost me $100 cordobas which is about $4.50 here and my family each had to pay $20 cordobas which is less than a dollar. It was because I was a tourist. They can tell because of my blonde hair. I am so close to dying it! Thank you all for keeping me in prayer and supporting me during this trip! I love every second of it! I am home today because I am sick with a fever, cough, runny nose, and soreness in my ear. I am resting a hoping to be able to get back to work tomorrow. I ask you to consider the man I mention in the first part of this post in prayer and if you feel the desire to help support him, please let me know by shooting me an e-mail (mismiller08@yahoo.com). I will let you know more about him and some of his dreams. If not, there is another way you can support us here in Nicaragua doing God's work for His kingdom. This year, as an organization we have formed a partnership with a company called Liquid Highway. Through this partnership you can buy dark roast coffee, medium roast coffee, decaf coffee, gourmet double hot chocolate, creamy mint hot chocolate, original homestyle lemonade, or strawberry lemonade with a Christ for the City International private label. For each bag sold, $4.00 of the sale will go directly toward supporting CFCI Nicaragua in the area of administration (covering monthly expenses like rent, water, electricity, telephone, internet, and security for our office and hospitality house). Any money CFCI Nicaragua receives beyond those expenses will be used to provide scholarships to local elementary, high school, and university students. Last but not least, we are also hoping to be able to purchase the building that we currently use for the CFCI-Nicaragua office and hospitality house in the near future. Any extra money received through Liquid Highway will be put into a fund for that purchase. God has shown us that the time has come for us to buy a facility for our organization here in Nicaragua.And so, if you enjoy coffee, hot chocolate, or lemonade, we would like to invite you to support us by purchasing these drinks through Liquid Highway! You can click on the label below and it will take you to the CFCI online store where you will be able to order any of the items listed above. Shipping within the United States is free if you purchase over 10 pounds.If you are not interested in buying any of these drinks, please support us through prayer! We as an organization know the power of prayer and the effect it can have on our ministry. Please pray for God's continued grace and provision for CFCI Nicaragua and that His kingdom will continue to be advanced in 2013!May the Lord bless you greatly! http://app.ecwid.com/jsp/127219/simple-store#ecwid:category=0&mode=product&product=4632004 Christ for the City International app.ecwid.com