For the love of God...and music!

Steve has always had a desire to better equip each church with music. Often we have gone to a local service where they were singing without any instruments or very little. Over the years, he has outfitted some churches from everything from the microphones to drum sets. On this trip, we attended a service where singing and clapping was the way of worship. By the end of the service, the pastor was literally hoarse and almost without a voice from singing and preaching without a microphone. Both Larry and Steve donated their guitars to Pastor Wilmer's church, and Thrive Church donated a keyboard, microphones, and cords to support this church in their music ministry.

Womens' Conference - July 2017

While the men are away leading the pastors' conference, the women on the mission team are leading a women's event. During this conference, Yvette Maynard, our home church pastor's wife, shared her heart and created a beautiful day for these women. The focus was loving ourselves and seeing ourselves as God sees us. The workshop included a Bible devotion, several arts and crafts, a time to share, and a meal. (the one male in the photo was the interpreter)

Preaching and Teaching - July 2017

After the first few times we hosted mission teams in Nicaragua, I turned to the local pastors and asked them what our teams should and could do to help them and the people of Nicaragua. Often, as North Americans, we go to a third world country and decide what WE think they need. After speaking with several pastors, they ALL said they would like to receive more training to better serve their own churches. Out of the seven pastors we spoke with, only one had received any formal training and seminary. We decided that pastor trainings and conferences should be at the center of all of our mission team agendas. On this trip, our own home church pastor, Bobby Maynard, conducted a few day training with a group of local pastors and leaders. The picture below is from the night he went on to preach at a local service.

Cooking Lessons

The summer of 2017 was our 9th year of hosting teams in Nicaragua, and we are growing very close to many locals. This trip, we invited some of our church family into our home, and they gave us a cooking lesson of Nicaraguan foods. It was a great time of fellowship and the food was fantastic.

Tostones - fried plantains

No Nicaragua meal is complete without rice!

The final plate!

Cooking on the grill Nica style! 

Thrive Church - 2017

There is nothing more special to us when our HOME church

joins us on mission in Nicaragua. We love our church family!