One Score

Greetings in the Name of the LORD! I pray we are learning to depend more and more on the Living God, the Fountain of Living Waters, the Rock of Ages, the Ancient of Days.

I’ll begin this post with a few updates:
-Thank you to all the generous people who gave in response to our need! We have reached our goal for 2025 and greatly appreciate the continued support of so many people.
-We had a wonderful visit from my sister and her family in July. We are so blessed to have such incredible family members!
-Jeremy, Vanessa and Ezequiel are doing well in school and have finished three quarters of the year. They have just over two months left before their school year ends.
-School started for Jeruahel and I on August 12th. It has been a good start so far. I am both enjoying the role of high school principal and feeling affirmed in taking this position.

Jeruahel was recently talking about how 100 years is called a century, 10 years is called a decade, and so she asked what 20 years was called. I almost said it didn’t have a name, but then remembered the old term “score”. We all know “Four score and seven years ago…” from the Gettysburgh Address, and I can now say that “one score ago I moved to Nicaragua.” Part of me celebrates reaching this milestone of living in Nicaragua for 20 years, but it has been accompanied by a wrestling in my heart and mind.

What comes to mind first are the “good things that I have done”. People who have come to salvation, lives that have been transformed, intercessory prayers made in obedience to God, my family’s growth in relationship with God, etc. But I put that line in quotes because even as it crosses my mind, I know that those are good things God has done. Next my mind turns to the bad things I have done. Selfishness. Pride. Self-righteousness. Comfort-seeking. Going after the ways of the world and the desires of the flesh. Why have I wasted so much time on entertainment? Why do I still want to fit in with the world? Why do I fear man? Where is the self-sacrifice I told the LORD I was willing to make? These thoughts are weighty. To get rid of them, I’m tempted to let myself off the hook because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” While it’s true we all fall short, I don’t want my response to be ok with sin. God’s holiness is weighty, and my attitude towards my sin is rarely weighty enough.

So what do I do with these messy reflections? I find peace when I remember one important thing: it’s not about me.

It’s about Him. Romans 11:36 has been on my heart a lot the past few months. “For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen!” I can’t write it without singing along to the tune my friend Brad wrote, a tune I have sung so many times in Spanish and English, declaring the deep, deep Truth of that verse. Brad wrote that tune nearly a score ago, and God has been reminding me of His Words as I have been clamoring to Him to lead me. It’s a message I shared briefly in church, and it’s a message I shared with the secondary staff and students as this school year began. The way I framed it was like this: “My Deep Hope is that staff and students receive God’s unfailing love from Him, that our relationships be transformed through Him, and our lives be sacrifices to Him. To Him be the glory forever, amen!” Another way to say it is that we must receive from the Father, that we be able to share through Jesus, and by the Holy Spirit offer all back to Jesus, that the Father be glorified.

This is God’s love for us: that He sent His one and only Son to die in our place, that whoever believes in Jesus be made a new creation through Him, by the power of the continual work of the Holy Spirit. He longs to see new creations walking in the truth of who they are in Christ. With greater fervor than I, He longs to see Jeremy, Vanessa, Ezequiel and the many we have walked with along the way, know their place in Him. I imagine what my school, NCA, would look like with staff and students secure in their identity in Christ, chasing after Him with hearts truly enamored by who He is. It’s a weighty hope, a weighty thought, a weighty thing to imagine. But it’s not merely an empty thought. Ephesians 3:20-21 tells us, “now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or imagine, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

May we stand on His Word. May we stand on the Words He has spoken to us recently, and may we stand on the Words He spoke a score ago. And more. Thank you for standing with us here in Nicaragua, and for the many ways you stand where you are and with the Body around the world. May our spirits be stirred up by the Holy Spirit to walk as new creations, surrendered to Him, that His power be at work in us to make all things new. To Him be the glory forever, amen.