Did you know I wear size 12 1/2 shoes?

            Anyway, I am going to fill you in on my thoughts as of late, how my ministries are going, and about the 5k!

            Well, first, I’ve got to spread the word about the 5k. I am still baffled and piecing together everything that happened. A friend on the team asked me, “Joe, how does it feel to have followed God and have everything work out.” He recognized the true power of God at work with the 5k. I still don’t think I am at that point. So, I stood up in my church eight months ago and told them that I might do some kind of 5k in Nicaragua. Four months later, I suggested it to my leaders and here is what I found myself in:

            IN a room with the President of Young life, representatives from the police, a translator, a representative from the head of the school board (over sixteen schools), the leader of the sports college in Granada, Sarah Kaye (head missionary here), Seth Barnes (my leader), Ismael (Christian Radio guy), and Sarah Morgan (my partner in this)-and everybody is looking to me as to how to run a 5k. JOSE!  How does a 5k work? How does it raise money? What was your vision? “Joe, we should have a segregated race, Nicaraguans and then Americans.” Usually, the meetings lasted for 2 ½ hours!

            Little old me who has run a ton of races but the race is always a blur of death and a swirling crowd, I don’t know anything, I’m a dumbhead (as my Grandmother puts it, ha). So I get a revelation from God and now everyone is looking at me to tell them the answers. Well, God gave me the wisdom to look to him for the answers and the humility to present them. I was prepared to answer every question and it was amazing because every time I spoke, every head in the room would turn to me. It was all God, through and through. 

            So here is some of God’s work:

-Permission from the Mayor

-Police present at the race

-Ambulance at the race

-Twelve of the best prize baskets I have ever seen

-Medals for the top finisher in each category (with inscriptions)

-Trophies for the overall Men’s and Women’s winner

-Art competition with Young Life at a studio to see who could make the best advertisement flyer.

-16 Christian Missionaries willing to help

-Sarah Kaye going all out to support this

-Sarah Morgan heard God’s call to help me and responded wholeheartedly

-Race rally in a fancy hotel three days prior to the race

-Opportunity to share my testimony at the rally and during the awards ceremony

-Spoke on the radio on three different occasions and they announced my birthday over the radio and invited the community to party in the main park-ha

-Every time I suggested something that was on my heart people immediately responded enthusiastically.

-We had a pace car

-We had clowns at the race

-We had a Christian worship band at the race

-All the prizes were donated, including a nice bike and 5 gallons of paint!

-A gift package of books was donated to 16 schools (the prenup. was they needed to enter at least 10 kids from each school)

-16 friends posted a support page, for Young Life, on their blog.

-We had two water stations on the course and one at the finish. A total of 953 bags of water were made by the kids from young life and our team (fo’ free).

-Each person that ran got a homemade number

-109 people ran the race including my Dad and an Amsterdamian-phenomenal for the first race in Granada in at least 20 years.  My father won the “Veterans” category–in other words, the “old mr. what’s his name” category, with a decent time.

-We successfully pulled off having a 2.5k for the younger kids as well.

-There is a donor in the states that will triple the amount we raised.

-We raised 1000$ just from the Nicaraguans (remember, this isn’t the richest country in the world) and we are still receiving money online from champions in the U.S.

-We had a start whistle.

-It was a relatively cloudy day (97 degrees though)

-No one got hurt

-75% of the girls that ran hitched a ride in the ambulance and didn’t finish.

-The Nicaraguan National Anthem was played at the race rally.

-We had a Repetadora Car go around Granada for 2 hours announcing the race.

-We have raised about 1/3 of the yearly budget for Young Life with this one event!

            Wheeewww, praise God! Thank you to all who gave, it truly has an impact on the youth here.  Well, the week before the race I think I had about 5 minutes of rest during the day-ask my parents and they will attest. Actually they would probably say that I have lazy bones and I just sit on the ground with my face hanging out. They don’t know the meaning of hard labor, of course. It was excellent to show my parents around the neighborhood, I even took them to the Death Zone. 

            Yep, so I can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that I am leaving and might not ever see these Nicaraguan guys and girls again. It’s really an awful feeling. Part of it is because I have been trying to pour myself out to the guys here and minister to them and know a lot of their problems. I have gotten really close with a lot of the people here.  For me though, I am going back to my crew back home-they are staying here and it’s not like they can turn around and have their own little posse there. Leaving is going to be awful, but coming back is going to be great-if that makes sense. I can’t wait to camp out with my friends on our upcoming kayak trip in which we will bring no sleeping bags or pillows, just bacon.