September 19 we will be showing this movie from 6-9pm at CB West’s main auditorium. It’s a free event geared towards teens. [Parents: This is a PG-13 movie. Any parent wishing to view the movie prior to the movie event can join us on Thursday, September 16 from 6-9pm at River of Life Church for a free parents-only show.]

There will be free giveaways at the very beginning, so make sure you’re there on time. And bring a couple extra dollars for the full snack bar we’ll have outside the auditorium.

“My parents don’t trust me because of mistakes I’ve made.  I just wish I knew what to do.”

“I’m finding it harder and harder to control myself when I’m with my boyfriend/girlfriend. I just wish I knew what to do.”

“I don’t really feel close to God lately and haven’t for a while, I just wish I knew what to do.”

“I’m feeling like I’ve plateaued in my life and am really going nowhere. I just wish I knew what to do.”

It can be really frustrating in life when we find ourselves at a place where we don’t know what our next step should be and feel helpless. And the ugly truth is that…well…we’ve all been there.

But there’s something we kind of like about that place sometimes. It sounds strange to even admit it let alone for me to expect that you’ve felt this way before, but I have to believe that at least some of you have: I sometimes wish I didn’t know what I should do next because either I don’t like what I know I need to do or because it is easier to complain about not knowing than it would be to take action and do something about it.

Once you know what you should do then it’s all changed and now you actually need to do something about it. You can pretend that you don’t know or you can go on without accepting the solution to your problem, but what does that help?

So many times our fear and laziness allow us to find out what the next step is and yet not go for it. You can read another inspirational book. You can talk with more and more people to hear more and more opinions. You can continue praying and praying and praying and praying. But sometimes you just need to do what you know you need to do. It sounds so ridiculously simple that it’s not even worth saying, but then again how many times have we known what we needed to do and sat and waited and waited until it was too late?

So don’t wait a minute later. Think of what problems you’re facing. Do you know what you should do? Even if it is just a first step? Ok, now go do it.

Seriously, just do it.

But only slightly, because I know they’ve never asked you either. In fact, they never really care much about the review that anyone I know would give their movies. It’s all about Ebert and Roeper and The Los Angeles Times and a few hand-selected others. When you read their thoughts on some movies you know that there had to be a more illustrious and even more beautiful way they could use to describe it than the way they’ve picked.

So the obvious conclusion is that it must not be about exactly what’s being said as it is about who’s saying it. You could know so much more about what makes a good movie and could even be able to tell which movies really are going to do better than others, but that doesn’t matter when you don’t have the position. Those few names and companies you hear talking about movies and letting you know if they’re worth seeing have worked and strived to get there. And so we listen.

Why is it then that we sometimes listen to every voice in our lives without reservation?

The story of our life is being played out and we spend too much time listening to the critics instead of listening to the one voice that matters most. There are always going to be critics out there. And they can be harsh in their opinions of what you do or who you are. Everyone has an opinion these days and not many people worry about just opening up their mouth and sharing those opinions freely. Each of us know what it’s like to have someone talk down to us. We’ve had people call us worthless, stupid, ugly, annoying, boring or a plethora of other negative things. And maybe we’ve even caught ourselves sending these messages to ourselves.

The word is out there that we aren’t good enough, are constantly messing up, and can’t seem to get it right no matter how hard we try. But what does God have to say? See, that’s what really matters. You may fight against that idea and actually want to hear what others have to say, but it’s like seeing your review of a movie on a trailer for a movie – it makes no sense! Maybe God will even give you some encouragement to work on some things in your life, but it’ll always be surrounded in love. Because though the world can be a cruel place and we can even be our own worst critics, God has declared that we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).

You are critically acclaimed!

At one of the churches where we would later show the GodMan movie as an outreach tool to the community we were stuck in the van for a little while. Being that the people typically travel by bike or by foot we were subject to change with however the weather changed. Fortunately it slowed down and we ended up having a better crowd than we’d expected. P.S. The thunderstorms here are way better than the ones back home!

Matt and Allison are what you mainly are seeing here in this picture of our drama “Walk of Life” that we’re doing in a elementary school. The windows were actually closed in this room, so it won the award for hottest presentation for the day. Nevertheless the team gave it their all and were great!

Here at one of the preschools where we presented at Matt is working the crowd in a language-less way: the culture-free high five. You can see the kids with their books as well as the bracelets which we gave them too.

More to come later.

Tomorrow is our day off and we’re going zip-lining, shopping in the marketplace in Managua, and then climbing the volcano known here as Cerro Negro.

We also got the chance to go to a rather nice pre-school where we had an extended time to spend there. So we played around with the little tikes before we did any formal introductions and dramas. It really was a nice experience to play ball, dance, and just try to talk to them.

One of the things that shock you at first here is how not poor some parts actually look. Yes, I know, I said not poor. Sure, Nicaragua is the second poorest nation in the western hemisphere but the city (which is where we spend the majority of our time) is somewhat like some of the slums you’d see in America. But we got the chance to go out a little more into the country and see poverty that really shakes your world. It showed us what we’re really blessed to have.

We’re staying at a small hotel that has been very accommodating and has even offered for us to go to a roomier sister hotel for the rest of the time. We have not made that decision for sure, but will probably take him up on the offer.

So far this morning, after having a brief devotional time together, we enjoyed a good breakfast and then made our way to a couple schools to do the dramas we’ve learned and to hand out the Book of Hope. Our basic message to the students is that though people may say mean things about us and although we may feel like we are worthless at times, God has made us very important and loves us very much. Simple. But when don’t we all need to be reminded of that?! And so far we’ve been able to hand out 499 books to children from 3-12 with that message.

Personally speaking, it’s been very fun to reconnect with people we’d met last year on the trip here. You may not know Pastor Pedro, Scarleth, Axner or Melin, but I do and our team is beginning to. The team is doing great. Everyone’s healthy and everyone is very positive. Some students who I thought may have a hard time adjusting are jumping in feet first and loving it!

More updates and pictures to come tonight.