An Unexpected Encounter

Hey this is Paul, I was asked by Jenny to write a blog post about an event that happened recently. This is my first time ever "blogging" haha, but this is an event that might give you an inside look at our time here. We had a church Mission Team that was painting the Ministry Center and we were making great progress. While Jen and I were painting, a few of the street boys I know from the community came to the gate and called out to us. So we took a break and went over, started talking to them and then began kicking the soccer ball around. While we were outside the gate, on the dirt road passing the soccer back around, this one big Nicaraguan guy came angrily walking down the road. The kids didn't notice him until he was passing by, and to our shock and amazement the man angrily kicked our soccer ball far away! He then gave us all a menacing look as he continued walking. We stood there kind of shocked, and confused and I asked him in spanish "what's up with that, man? why'd you do that?" He then turned and stared me down in anger and started walking over towards me! I thought for sure he was about to fight me, but I noticed as he staggered over, he was extremely drunk. He could barely even walk straight to me, so I thought to myself "good, this will be easy" haha. As he got close, I stayed relaxed and tried talking to him, I asked him how he's doing and offered to give him a friendly bump with my hand. He then stopped 3 feet from me, broke down in tears and sat down next to me! I asked him what's going on, and he began to tell me how upset he was! I invited him into the Ministry Center and there we talked in private about his life, his marriage, his drinking addiction and how he doesn't want to keep living this way. I got to pray for him, and tell him of a better way, with Christ as his direction and strength. It was a pretty emotional moment for him, and Jen got to see this big, burly Nicaraguan guy hugging me with both arms and crying on my chest! Quite the change from our initial contact where I was sure that he was gonna charge at me! I sent him on his way and told him I'll be at this Ministry Center if he wants to return again. It was a great, unexpected ministry moment the Lord let me be a part of! -Paul