Long overdue update on the Folsoms!

Hello to you out there reading this! I genuinely hope this blog entry finds you in good spirits and firmly resting in the will and favor of the Lord! I sincerely apologize if you have visited the website previously and have been patiently awaiting an update on how things have been evolving for us and the ministry since late 2023. Admittedly, I have been exceptionally busy with a whole host of responsibilities and tasks since God revealed to us the calling to relocate back to the U.S. during that time. To be honest, 2024 was kind of a blur—filled with both challenges and blessings—but in a very positive and uplifting way! Well . . . I am writing this blog from Clayton, NC, where we have been happily residing since late October when we made our long-awaited and highly emotional departure from our beloved Nicaragua. We were preparing to leave Nicaragua for the better part of a year, which involved a significant amount of psychological preparation as well as spiritual and physical adjustments to what was ahead.

Psychologically, you can truly imagine the significant shift in mindset that needed to occur, now fully understanding that at some not-so-distant moment in the future, Nicaragua would no longer be the cherished place that we called home. With this realization, we began to feel a deep certainty that we needed to start viewing our last year in Nicaragua as even more precious and undeniably limited than we had ever done before. In pursuing this perspective, we found ourselves appreciating the small, yet meaningful things about living there that we had, perhaps too easily, grown accustomed to, such as the remarkably low cost of living, the ease of finding inexpensive labor for our daily needs, and the close-knit nature of public life within Nicaraguan communities. To be completely honest, we also started looking forward to leaving behind a few aspects that we didn’t love quite so much about living in Nicaragua, including the oppressive heat that accompanied the absence of central air conditioning, the constant noise reverberating from our bustling street, and the frequent requests for money from random individuals in need who approached us throughout the day. Thus, for us, it became a complex and mixed bag of emotions; we were caught in the delicate balance of trying to appreciate all that we were soon to leave behind while anxiously awaiting the exciting changes we would be stepping into in the following year. For me personally, I felt a profound sense of peace regarding the impending change, recognizing it as part of God's plan and the right time for us to make this important transition. In essence, I was ready. I truly felt that I had served God faithfully during my time there in Nicaragua, to the best of my abilities and understanding. While I do acknowledge that there are indeed a few things I would choose to change if given the opportunity to go back, I was ultimately content with what God had accomplished through me and the ministry, having positively impacted lives for His glory and the growth of His church.

One of the many details that we had to get lined up meticulously before we could finally call the U.S. our new home was my wife’s Green Card. We began the slow and long process in the year 2023, and after almost a year of anxious waiting, we received official word that we could enter the second half of the approval process in mid-year 2023. It took us another full year to finally get her Green Card officially approved. Throughout this period, I was trying to avoid spending thousands of dollars on immigration lawyer fees to navigate the complex process, which unfortunately stretched out our journey considerably. This decision probably led to many more moments of frustration and uncertainty than I would have had to endure had we taken a different path. However, in the end, we did manage to submit everything that was required, and by God’s grace and provision, it was ultimately approved! Ironically, during the years of my wife’s Green Card processing, we observed an unprecedented influx of Nicaraguans migrating to the U.S. both illegally and legally, often with practically no cost or background checks needed. This was due to a new law that was ratified after we had already initiated our approval process, which labeled Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela as countries of risk. As a result, as long as a Nicaraguan had someone stateside to vouch for them, they could enter the U.S. with minimal hassle at all! It was undoubtedly very frustrating at times to be walking through this lengthy 2+ year process, which cost us between one to two thousand dollars in fees and many months filled with waiting and wondering. Meanwhile, others were being approved and entering the U.S. much more quickly and affordably than we were, especially considering that we were a family with a U.S. citizen spouse and three children who were also citizens. Anyway, I’ll step off my soapbox now and return to the main focus of the blog…

To go along with our green card journey I also began a new job in remote high-ticket sales in late September of 2024. Yeah, not a small change! When the Nicaraguan government stepped-in and stole the ground from beneath us in the sweet corn business I had been co-leading with a brother in our church, I was left wondering what was next for me. As I mentioned in my last blog post I was preparing to accept a role offered to me by a dear brother in the Lord as an appointment setter on his sales team. I had never worked in sales before so this was completely new for me. I went through some sales courses he made available to me to be familiarized with as much as I could before starting but nothing could really prepare me for the first few months of returning back to the 9-5 world, which really for me was 8-6 if not longer days. I had never worked a job where I was literally sitting at my desk for 9-10 hours straight. And not only that, I was also learning from scratch everything. New systems, terminology, processes, software…everything. Those first few months of working in remote high ticket sales as an appointment setter, the only and 1st appointment setter on the team at that time mind you, was completely draining! I arrived to the dinner table completely spent for months and could not get myself to wake up early as I was accustomed to doing to pray and exercise, due to the mental exhaustion I was experiencing from work. By my 3rd full month on the job I was doing well and began setting records that are still unbroken to this day. Since I did so well the team brought on others to work alongside with me that had much more experience and know-how than I did, which made the environment more challenging and stressful and I actually got to a point of almost quitting in April of last year. I took my 1st full week off from work and went to Chicago to celebrate my dad’s 70th birthday with family and really left it up to the Lord if I should continue with the job or not. My 1st day back to the job after returning to Nicaragua I had several confirmations from the Lord that it was His will for me to stay with the company, so I did! I was promoted to the team manager around July of 2024 and began overseeing anywhere from 6-13 other appointment setters. I didn’t realized how quickly I had ascended roles within the company until I heard the stories of so many others and their sales journeys and it was then that I realized how blessed and favored I had been to have been afforded this opportunity with basically no prior experience! Not only that, the as of January 2024 and for the whole rest of the year we no longer had to receive support from donations to the ministry to provide for our personal needs! With my pay from the job I was able to provide for all of our personal needs and even save up some money for the coming move to the U.S. along with an emergency fund to cover a few months expenses should we need it. Jehovah Jireh provided above and beyond what I had hoped for!

So earlier in the blog I had mentioned the psychological shift in mindset that we needed to process for the coming move; now I want to speak to the mindset shift that we also needed to walk through spiritually. In my last blog I posted back in September 2023 I mentioned our concerns for the church in Nicaragua and how our leaving would affect our beloved brothers and sisters. Well, I’ll have you know that God showed up in a big way! One of the main ways in which he revealed to us His plans to care for the church in Nicaragua was in bringing our dear brothers/sister in the Lord, the Van Der Kaaij family, back to Nicaragua in 2024 to support and encourage the church. The Van Der Kaaij’s coming back to Nicaragua after their initial visit a few years earlier when God used them to help birth and grow His church in Nicaragua was such a God-send! If you’d like to read a bit more about their first visit to Nicaragua and all God did through them that impacted our lives and ministry you can click here to be taken to that blog. By doing this God very clearly showed Jessica and I that we didn’t have to worry so much about the church in Nicaragua now that we were leaving; He was going to take care of them! Now that I was working 40-60 hours/week during 2024 I didn’t have quite as much time to minister to the needs of the church as I used to. So having the Van Der Kaaij’s walking alongside us was such a blessing in taking some of the burden off of our shoulders and helping the church prepare for us to eventually move on from our time there in Nicaragua. Along with the Van Der Kaaij’s being in Nicaragua to invest into the well-being of the church Jessica and I also began speaking and challenging our brother and sisters in the church to begin looking at themselves and their role in the church outside of us always being there to lean on. We started actively making more of space and opportunity for our brother sand sisters to step-up to serve and lead gatherings and outreach opportunities, as well as meeting physical needs that would arise in their lives. We were very encouraged to see many of those in the church begin to develop and step into their God-given roles as the body of Christ; truly loving and caring for one another as family, not just church members.

One of the main practical “meeting needs” goals that we had as well before we would leave Nicaragua was to see one of our dear families in the church with their own home. This was also a very long and drawn-out journey but after many months of searching and arranging details God made a way for us to purchase a home for the Kabistan family with the help of generous and loving donors to the ministry! This was their first home and man . . . it was such a blessing to be able to do this for them! For all of them to be able to live under one roof together, safe, secure and confident that this was their’s and nobody could kick them out or force them to leave for any reason! To be honest, there was numerous times during the purchase process of this home that it looked and felt like the devil was actively working against us getting this deal through and took perseverance, faith, and just staying the course until the deed was signed and the keys were handed over! After we purchased the home and the Kabistan family moved in we then needed to begin construction on the property to add an additional room onto the back of the home to give space for another dear brother in the Lord to live there as well. This took another 2-3 months to finish and we had to manage sending the funds and overseeing the job from the U.S., but we got it done and were able to move Kenner into his little apartment on the property to also provide him a safe place to be after moving out from our home where he lived with us for the better part of a year.

Jessica and I had the unfortunate displeasure of witnessing Kenner and the Kabistan family live in such meager and threatening conditions over the years. They experienced deeply troubling, physically abusive environments, often at the hands of their own family members, and they were exposed to harsh elements as their living quarters decayed around them. This unfortunate reality created a general sense of insecurity and a profound lack of confidence that tomorrow would be any better or “okay.” Kenner lived with us intermittently over the years, as he was not welcome in his mother’s home, where she has struggled with alcohol abuse on and off for practically his entire life. She has been physically and verbally abusive, spewing forth the most awful and hateful things that no mother should ever say to her son. To make matters worse, she regularly invited complete strangers into their home to drink with her. Sometimes, these individuals would overstay their welcome and decide to make it their home as well; this made Kenner’s already precarious and uncomfortable situation even more unbearable. This was not at all an ideal environment for anyone to return to day in and day out, especially when personal belongings began to go missing, and his mother was frequently drunk and angry, creating a toxic atmosphere. We were genuinely happy to take Kenner in, providing him with a safe and secure place where he could experience the stability he desperately needed. This environment allowed him to focus on the Lord, his personal development, and to actively engage as a vital part of the body of Christ, helping him become all that God created and has called him to be.

The Kabistan family has been the family we had most walked with over the years through many hard and trying situations. Seeing both of them come to Christ years ago was obviously a HUGE moment of change for their lives, Baruc and Josefa’s relationship (they got married), and for their family’s trajectory as a whole. After they got born again life didn’t necessarily get any easier though; they had to endure many hardships due to their living situation. For starters, they lived in tiny room with 1 bed and there are 6 of them! How they ever made this work I never understood. I mean, i know what they had to do ( all of them sleeping in 1 bed), i’m just not sure how they managed day in and day out. Fervent Fire ministries was able to come in and renovate that small room a few years back and make it a little bigger, add another bed and just generally sure everything up so it would hold up against the downpours and not cave in on them. We rebuilt the room from scratch. That was a major improvement considering where things were before! You can click here to check out that blog regarding that rebuild for the Kabistan family. Obviously the improvement in living conditions did bring a measure of relief for a time, knowing that they were safe from the elements and had a bit more space to move and breathe in their newly upgraded room. However, as time continued on even the slightly better living conditions could not shield the Kabistan family from the constant verbal and physical abuse (mostly Josefa and the kids had to endure as Baruc was often out on site working). Simply put, they were hated in their own home; mistreated, stolen from, lied to, cursed at and blamed for everything that went wrong. They would endure such hardships often times never complaining or mentioning what they were going through; however since Josefa worked in our home throughout the week we could notice when things weren’t right. We had many conversations and prayed many times together for the Kabistan family, doing all we could to relieve the suffering and pain but in the end we always knew the real way out for them was through finding and owning a place of their own. Eventually things got so bad in the Kabistan compound that we made the decision that, with help and financial support form our brothers and sisters in our church, we would move the Kabistan family out of their room and into a small home to rent for a few months or more in order to get them a safe place to be while we pray and look for a more long-term solution. Fervent Fire Ministry along with the church support paid the rent for the home for a year until we were able to find the home that we purchased and moved them into in October of last year! God is so good! It wasn’t easy and it the probability of things working out didn’t always look so promising , but the good work that God beings He finishes! Praise Him for His goodness and faithfulness! Hallelujah!

Now, here we are in North Carolina! We’ve been here for about 5 and a half months and wow has time flown! Our first 2 months here we stayed with my parents; just long enough for them to get a good dose of the Folsoms and encourage us to rent the place next door so they could keep their sanity! Haha. Of course i’m kidding….kinda. We do bring the noise and business though with our three energetic kiddos! But we thank God for our healthy and beautiful children! So yes, we ended-up renting the place next door that God provided in a kind-of miraculous way that has allowed us to live right next to my parents. What a gift! Although I am not a fan of renting (i just feel like its throwing our money to the wind), in doing so for this interim period until we are able to purchase our “forever home”, we have been so blessed. Early morning snuggles with Omi and Papa from our kiddos, date night babysitters, dinners together, and so much more! It really has been a God-send and we don’t take it for granted. God’s time really is perfect! One of the main reasons we felt the Lord moved us stateside is to be near family; to be able to serve and love on my parents who have done that for us so well during my time in Nicaragua. Also, my older sister and her family live about 30 minutes away; so our kids will actually get to know and form relationships with their cousins, something I never really had the chance to do growing up in a military family. My two youngest got to see and experience snow for the 1st time while we’ve been here and all 3 of our kiddos and my wife are getting to experience their 1st spring ever! It really has been great and we are very thankful. After 16 years of hot and humid, I was ready for seasonal climate changes. After 16 years of noisy city living, it was time to actually be able to hear the birds and rustle of the wind through the trees in the forest behind our house. I love Nicaragua and it will always hold a special place in my heart for all that God has done in my life while there; but I am content and thankful to be back in this beautiful and diverse country we now call home.

So, just to catch you up to speed if you’re still with me here on this rather long blog; right now I am currently between jobs. I stepped away from my appointment setter manager role with Springs Rejuvenation, which whom I had been employed for the last year and a half, due to downsizing. My role was no longer going to be needed and I was given the option of staying on with the team but stepping down to an entry level role while the company gets things figured out, or I could move on to greener pastures elsewhere. After much prayer and discussions with the Lord and other trusted friends in the industry I decided it was a good time to move on to the next step in my progression in my sales career. Additionally I hadn’t had a proper vacation in a year; so I felt it was also a great time to spend more time with family and get some other things done that I had not had enough bandwidth to get to. So that’s where I have been for the last week. I have also already been offered a role as a sales rep (closer) for an up an coming and quickly growing health and wellness offer that I will begin training for this coming Monday. I feel like this has all been perfect timing. Although it is never a fun thing to step away from something that’s been in your life and allowed you to provide for your family and connect with dozens of solid people, when the timing is right and the peace of God in the midst of all that is happening you know you must just keeping take the next step forward in faith. With Springs Rejuvenation, I look back on my time there and am thankful for how God provided for our move to the U.S., ministry needs, and sales experience I needed to learn quickly to be prepared for what’s next. I was also able to shine my faith brightly there with little hinderance or push-back. I was able to encourage others in their faith journey and boldly speak about the Lord and give testimony to his goodness and faithfulness. I saw one come to Christ shortly after our conversations and prayers over Zoom came to an end and many others thanked me for my willingness to go deeper and for not only being willing to discuss business goals and development, but spiritual matters as well. I can 100% say that God used me in that remote workspace to impact lives that I still have an ongoing relationship of trust with even though we no longer work together.

Right now, we are currently in the process of finalizing the closing on our Nicaraguan home, and once that is officially completed, Jessica and I will be flying down to sign the necessary paperwork, hand over the keys, and take full advantage of the trip to spend quality time with her family as well as our extended family in Christ who reside there. We are eagerly anticipating the day we find our “forever home” where we can truly begin to put down roots here in beautiful North Carolina. Our commitment to supporting our family in Christ in Nicaragua remains strong, and we have been actively involved in various initiatives since moving to the U.S. One significant way we are continuing to support the Nicaraguan church is by providing essential educational financial assistance for the high-school students within the church community. We are dedicated to supplying the necessary funds to purchase educational materials and to cover the monthly fee required for attending a semi-private school. Given that the public school system in Nicaragua does not consistently deliver quality education, for a modest monthly fee of anywhere from $30 to $50 a month, a student can access a private institution that offers a considerably better educational experience. Additionally, we are committed to providing financial assistance for food provisions and other basic needs within the church community as those needs arise. Every contribution made to Fervent Fire Ministries has been directed toward meeting the needs of God’s church in Nicaragua since January of 2024, and we have not taken a single penny for our own personal expenses. This approach will continue to be our guiding principle as we support the vital work of God in Nicaragua.

If you have any concerns or questions regarding the ministry, whether they pertain to potential ways you can help, provide support, or even pray for the church in Nicaragua, please do not hesitate to let me know. We are immensely thankful for anyone and everyone who possesses a genuine heart to pray for and/or support our brothers and sisters in Nicaragua as they faithfully run the race alongside us towards that heavenly calling. This is the place where we all long to hear our Father say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Wishing you all of God’s best in your journey!

Warm regards,
Michael