The past two summers I've spent a week of my summer vacation in the sweltering heat of Nicaragua. I went with a burning desire to share the gospel and love on the people of León. We spent our week in different villages passing out tracts and having VBS for the children. Each day we made time to walk around to houses in the villages. We would introduce ourselves (with the help of a translator) and ask if we could spend some time talking to them. We went in praying that we would ultimately touch the hearts of these people and hopefully change their lives.

One lady completely changed mine.

As we were walking towards the end of a street in this village, we saw a lady and her son doing chores outside. We had our translator ask if we could talk with them for a few minutes. She agreed, and let us onto her property.

As we walked inside, she quickly quit her chores and grabbed chairs for each of us. As we sat down, she was speaking with our translator. She ran inside her house and grabbed money. She instructed her son to do something, and sent him off on his way. We were curious as to what she said, but we did not question it.

We talked with her for awhile. We learned that many members of her family were faithful to Christ, while others were struggling with their faith. Many of her relatives were sick. We learned about her relationship with Christ and ended with a prayer for all her needs.

As we were getting ready to leave, she insisted that we stayed until her son returned. We were confused, but obeyed her request. We continued to talk about life until he returned. When he returned, he had a bag of drinks.

She had sent her son out to buy us drinks.

To most, that probably seems like no big deal. You try to make guests feel welcome when they come over, right? To us, this was a big deal. We were in the poorest country in Central America. Most people live on less than $2 a day. Her selfless act of buying us something as simple as a drink was a huge sacrifice.

We went to Nicaragua to serve others, and yet this lady served us. She showed us God's love in a way we never imagined we would witness. I am so thankful for this lady. Some houses were a struggle because we did not accomplish our task. We would run into people of different faiths or no faith at all. Some did not want to hear what we were called to say. It wasn't easy.

This lady made me forget all about that. Someone doesn't want to listen? We leave broken hearted and pray for their hearts to open to the Gospel. People know God, but choose not to have a relationship with Him? We leave a tract and invite them to the local church. Many times we left broken hearted, wondering what why we kept running into so many obstacles. And then, we saw the heart of Christ in this lady. Yes, I still feel heartbroken and pray for those who don't believe, but this lady showed every struggle and battle we faced was well worth it.

The Nicaraguan lady with drinks changed my life more than I imagined I could change anyone else's.