In December of 2017 about a week after we had returned to the States for furlough the pastor’s board of Masatepe celebrated the opening of Luke’s Inn. Luke’s Inn is the name given to the recovery program that our agency with the help of the local pastors and a couple partnering churches are setting up on our farm property. What is amazing, is that all there is on the property is an empty shell of a building. No infrastructure at all! And yet the pastors have this big celebration of the recovery program with about 400 people celebrating God’s goodness. We (most Americans) would wait until the ribbon cutting before we celebrated the opening and praised God. There is really nothing there and the Nicaraguans are giving thanks and praising God. We see and praise God; the Nicaraguans don’t see (at least not with their physical eyes) and praise God! Amazing faith!

This last week we visited a recovery program in a small town by the name of Santa Teresa. Here we met a pastor who used his money to buy, along with two other people, a property. The property has a partially completed building and a couple small out buildings. The main building was to be a disco / brothel, but it failed to be completed.  By the drive through entry at the front of the building they are burning a few pieces of charcoal with a pan sitting on top of them in a raised flower bed. There they are cooking up a little food. Over 18 men are living on the property. No support. The pastor is unpaid. So what is the program running on – the belief that God will provide. Amazing faith!

My faith has been challenged by these examples. It reminds me of George Müller. So when things are thin for us, we want to be reminded of these examples.