Nicabenhams

05/04/2026

As you spend time with family today enjoying the festivities of the day, don’t forget that it isn’t about the bunny or the eggs. It has always been about the greatest day in the history of mankind. It is about the day our Savior defeated death and the grave so we could have life and an eternity spent with Him!

11/03/2026

21/02/2026

Hello Nicabenhams family! We pray that you are all doing well and getting into the grove of a new year. We are doing well. Eddie is holding steady. Praise God, we are on track with getting his diabetes under control. His surgeon referred him to a GI specialist that he works closely with to talk about some temporary fix options for his stomach issues. On April 2nd, he is going to go in laparoscopically to inject botox in the muscle in the lower part of his stomach. This will relax those muscles and help food move out of his stomach easier. Please be in prayer for him about that. We will update again post procedure.

We continue to be blessed with opportunities to serve here while we are in this season of waiting. I have been blessed to be able to mentor a lady from the Hope Center here in Wichita Falls. We have weekly meetings to do a bible study and talk. It has been so good to walk through her journey to sobriety and watch her grow in her walk with the LORD.

Praise the LORD, the team just got back into the states from a good trip into the village. There will be another team go soon, so please be in prayer for their travel and for a good productive trip. Continue to pray for the Rama people.

As always, we want to thank each of you for your love, support and prayers. We could not have made it through to where we are without those prayers. We love you all very much.

24/12/2025

Hello Nicabenhams family!
Here we are just hours before Christmas and days before a new year! Where has this year gone? This is my favorite time of year, with the decorations, lights, gifts under the tree, family time and most of all, the time spent celebrating the birth of our LORD and Savior; what could be better?Christmas celebrations will look a little different for us than we had hoped this year though. We had hoped that we would be packing things up and saying our see you next year and getting ready to head back to Nicaragua. However, that is not what God has in mind for us. Eddie has had to have some more tests run and we are 99.9% sure that he will be having another surgery in the near future. This could mean months, or even another year of recovery, and while our hearts are still in Nicaragua, Eddie's body won't be ready to go for some time yet.
With that knowledge, we have been in talks with the FIA leadership and we are all in agreement that Eddie and I need to step back from full time ministry and focus on his health for now. Once he is past the surgery and he's recovered and has regained the strength needed for what is ahead, we will reassess with the mission about when we can get back to Nicaragua. And trust us, you will be the FIRST to know! This is one of the hardest decisions we have ever had to make, but the LORD has been preparing us and we have peace with this decision.
We want each of you to know how much we have appreciated your financial support as we have served, and especially your prayers during this difficult time. We have needed you and we still need you praying with us. Our plan is to continue to send out our updates via email and newsletters, and via Facebook on a monthly basis.
With us stepping back from active service, we have set December to be the last month to receive financial support. We will continue to be associates with FIA and will stay involved in the ministry as much as we can while being stateside, but we will no longer be taking a payroll. The financial support still in our account will remain there for our use in ministry, and will wait until we are ready to head back to the mission field. Once again, we thank you for being partners with us in this; please don't be strangers!
As you all know, I (Dawn) have been working at the rehabilitation hospital and the LORD has provided for Eddie and I through that job financially but more importantly by way of medical insurance. We do have a large deductible but once that is met, the balance of all medical bills will be covered, praise GOD! So please be praying or us, as over the next few months we will be facing those large medical expenses with his surgery, and I will need to be off work during this time and for the first few days once we are home. Knowing that you are praying for us is such a blessing. We appreciate each of you more than you can imagine and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the love and support you have shown us.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Benhams to you and your famil

27/11/2025

I can't believe today is Thanksgiving. Christmas is only a month away and the new year is running up on us in a hurry. As we look back on the last year, it has been full of some unknowns, waiting, trusting the LORD in all the things we don't understand and a time of just relearning to be still. But, it has also been full of family, friends, fellowship and growth. It has been a year of reconnecting with family and old friends and of making new friends. While it hasn't all gone according to what we had hoped, it has gone according to God's plan and through it all we are thankful and blessed.
Eddie and I want to say thank you to each of you for continuing to follow us through this journey, for continuing to pray for and support us. We are so grateful for each of you!
Happy Thanksgiving!! Love you big!

25/10/2025

Pennsylvania in the fall is a beautiful sight! The trees are turning colors, the temperature is a cool crisp 50ish degrees, which we Texans appreciated very much, and banquet season. We had such a wonderful time reconnecting with familiar friends and meeting many new ones, spending time in fellowship, breaking bread together and hearing about what God has been doing and continues to do in other parts of the world. It was also very sobering to hear from the Joshua Project about how many unreached people groups there still are in the world. We as believers were given the mission to keep doing what Jesus started, "go and make disciples of all nations." 2,000 years later and there are still so many people that have not heard the Gospel, who have not been made disciples. We have to get out and do something!

Eddie and I are still stateside at this time, but we are continuing to stay involved in the planning of work in Nicaragua. We had a great meeting with our leadership team to plan out work teams for next year. God has some great things in store. We will be finishing a couple of homes that have been started, drilling a few more wells for the village, finishing the ceiling in the new kitchen/dining room, doing some repairs on our home and doing some work on the new storage area on the shop and most importantly, building and strengthening relationships with the Rama people. It is going to be a busy and exciting year.

We want to say thank you to all of you for continuing to pray for us and for continuing to support us through what has been a difficult season. Knowing that we have such an amazing support group standing behind us praying for us has made this a little easier. We know God's plan and timing is perfect and we are trusting him throughout all of this. We appreciate each of you more than you know!

In Christ,
Eddie and Dawn

30/08/2025

Hey there family! We pray that this finds everyone doing well. We are doing pretty good here. Eddie's health is improving a little bit everyday.
Even though we are not on the "field" right now, we have been doing some pretty cool things to continue promoting our work in Nicaragua and mission work in general. We were able to share about Nicaragua with the women at Hope Center Ministries here in town and they were so excited. A couple of them said "how do I get a passport" and said they would love to go on a trip when they graduate the program, (future missionaries in the making). I have the amazing opportunity to mentor one of the women from the Hope Center and it is so rewarding. I love being able to encourage her in her walk with the LORD and her journey to sobriety, while deepening my walk at the same time.
I have had the opportunity to talk with Ruth and with one of the Rama ladies this week via text. It was so good to hear from them and to keep those connections strong. Everyone in the village seems to be doing very well.
This weekend we have the opportunity to visit one of our ministry partner churches to do a check in and give some updates on what is happening in the field and we are so excited. We will be doing some more partner visits in the near future as well and I will update more about that later. Lots of cool things happening.
As always, thank you all for your prayers and your support. We appreciate each and every one of you more than you know.
Love you big!

02/08/2025

Good morning family!

Can you believe it is already August??? It is crazy how time slips by so fast!

There has been a lot of progress made in Fuente de Agua Viva over the last few months! There was one team in March/April and one team in May/June and with the help of the Rama people, they got the work done! The first group got the floor poured for the new kitchen/dining room and a slab poured for the water tank. The second group got the outside and inside walls up and got the well for the kitchen/dining room drilled. So many prayers have been answered through this. God continues to be gracious and continues to provide those that are willing to go and dive in to the work that needs to be done. There may possibly be one more team go down this year to get some more work done. Please be in prayer for that potential trip, for that team and for the time they will have in Nicaragua.

Now an update on Eddie and his health. He has finished physical therapy and is doing well. He is still not back to his pre-illness self, but he is making progress. We ask that you continue to be in prayer for his healing and for guidance for us on this part of our journey. We are continuing to trust in God's plan and His timing for us. We may not understand His timing or His reasons for what is happening, but we trust that He is way wiser than we are and He will use all of this for our good, the good of the Rama , the good of the ministry, and ultimately for His glory and honor. So for now, we wait, trust and serve where we are.

We love and appreciate your prayers, your friendship and your support more than you know.

23/05/2025

Y'all can I just say that our God is so gracious and so faithful to His children! We have gone from the first picture to the second (this is his happy face ) in just 7 weeks!! Eddie had his 6-7 week follow up with the surgeon today. We actually saw his Nurse Practitioner today, but she is very impressed with the way he is healing. She is going to do a physical therapy referral so he can start doing some strengthening exercises. He is very happy about that. He is ready to get out and start doing a little more and start getting some of his strength back. It is going to be a process, but it is forward progress! He has been slowly advancing his diet and the NP told him to continue with that and to try whatever he feels comfortable with, but to continue to eat slow and eat small meals. So again, it is a process, but it is forward progress. Unless he has problems, he does not have another follow up until January!!
We continue to be very thankful for each and every one of you and your prayers and your support. Knowing that we have such an amazing support family out there has made this journey so much easier.
I don't have pictures yet, but I know that the last team that went into the village was able to accomplish so much work and they were able to spend some time worshiping with and encouraging not only the Rama people, but also Ruth and Carlos. Thank you for praying for that team and for continuing to pray for the Rama, Ruth and Carlos.
There will be another team headed to the village next month and we ask that you begin praying for them and for the work they will do while they are there.
Again, thank you so much for your love, your prayers and your continued support of us and the ministry in Nicaragua! Love y'all big!!!

26/04/2025

Hello Nicabenhams family! We have some good news...Eddie had his follow up with the surgeon on Wednesday. He got all 35 staples and his drain tube removed and he gets to advance his diet. He was so excited to eat something besides pureed food. He can now start building his strength back up. He is making progress. Thank you for all of your prayers, texts and calls. We appreciate each of you so very much! We ask for continued prayers for his healing.
We have a team headed to Nicaragua this weekend to continue the work there. We can't wait to see everything that takes place over the next couple of weeks. Please be in prayer for safe travels for the team and all of the work that will be taking place in the village. Please continue to pray for the Rama people and their daily walk and life in the village. I will be updating as I get updates from the team.
As always, thank you all for your prayers and your support! We love you and we could not do what we do without each of you!

02/04/2025

What a ride the last 24 hours have been. Surgery was about 4 hours and Dr. J said it was long and complicated. Sadly, he was unable to do the surgery robotically, so he had to open, so he has a big incision. He did not have to remove any of his stomach like we originally thought, which is a good thing, but he did say his stomach was not emptying at all. Right now he has a tube in place to help drain the stomach. Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy will be coming by later to get him up moving and he is ready. If you know him at all, you know he is not a sit in the chair or lay in bed kind of guy, so even with the pain he's having he is ready to move. He is having to wear some oxygen for now, but I suspect that he will be able to take that off by tomorrow.
Thank you for all of your prayers and support. Please keep praying for a quick and full recovery. I will update more as we find out more.
Love you all!