Church News

VIM Team Report from Nicaragua

August 26, 2008

The Volunteer-in-Mission Team returned home Wednesday afternoon, August 27th. Here are some journal entries from their trip:

DAY 1 Wednesday, August 20, 2008
We departed from the FUMC parking lot at 3 a. m. this morning. Everyone was sleepy but excited about the trip. The flights went off fairly well and we were very glad to see a familiar face meeting us at the airport when we arrived in Managua around lunchtime. The weather was HOT AND HUMID! Checked into our "hotel," had orientation and several of us fell asleep sitting up during a meeting. We had our first beans and rice at dinner. It will be our staple during the trip. We had a short devotional and decided to turn in early. Charlie, Mark J. and David almost had to crawl through the ceiling to get into their room 'cause their key wasn't work so we had an emergency locksmith call. No AC in 3 out of 4 rooms. Luckily a big rainstorm "cooled" things down a bit. It was a great feeling to be in Managua ready to begin our mission.
- Betsy Dement

DAY 2, Thursday, August 21, 2008
Greetings to our brothers and sister in Christ at FUMC from Nicaragua. Our group awoke today all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to a beautiful day. Rob arrived after most of us had retired for the night and we enjoyed getting to know him over breakfast (definitely related to Catherine). After breakfast we had an introduction to CEPAD, the Council of Evangelical Churches in Nicaragua. Some 29 different denominations comprise this community development organization and we are staying in Nehemiah Place which is one of their offices in Managua. They are working in 42 communities throughout the country with various community development projects.

At 9:30 we traveled to Laureles Sur to visit first with Rosa Capella and be introducted to NITCA (Foundation that works with street children). We had seen something about NITCA on the internet and wanted to learn more about them because they are in the same neighborhood as the church. NITCA was started 9 years ago to work with the many children who were out on the streets trying to help their families find a way to survive. They began first with a pre-school, then developed a school scholarship program, have built a clinic, organized the community and got the government to build a primary school in the community, started a sustainable gardening project, and most recently have started a sewing class to teach women how to sew so they can earn a living. They have gotten the Ministry of health to provide a doctor and 2 nurses for the clinic. NITCA provides 2 health educators. The clinic sees 40-50 patients a day. They have a real emphasis on building self-esteem and helping persons discover their own worth and seek to establish justice not simply charity. People who benefit from the program are expected to provide services back to the community. We were very impressed and we were shown royal hospitality during our morning there. The New England Annual Conference is involved in their work.

From there we went to the church on the other side of Laureles Sur. The inside of the church looked much bigger than it did when we left almost two years ago. The floor is beautifully tiled and the sanctuary had a corner office that had been built for the Compassion Program (School Scholarships - 150 children). The children attend school in the mornings and then 3 afternoons a week come to the church for tutoring in their weak subjects, lessons on values, Christian education, and family relations. They have added 3 classrooms on to the back of the church in addition to a kitchen so that they can have a feeding program for the children who come there in the afternoons. For those of us who had been here before it was moving to see what additions had been done since we were here!

Mark Owen (our construction chief) and Alvaro (the church's construction chief had a brief meeting to determine what we were to do. They had already begun work on 3 of the ditches for the 3 classrooms that are to be added. Our task is to complete the digging of the ditches so the footings can be poured. Alvaro has recently completed his electrical engineering degree and has been hired by the electrical utility in Managua. He works there all night and worked all
day with us without any sleep! After lunch most of the group began work digging in the ditches. I'm sure Bill Burnett can relate as well as Leigh Ann. Yours truly decided that there was no way I was going to be much help there. Betsy and I spent some time with Douglas, one of the members of the church, who came to welcome us in Pastor Perez's place because the pastor was teaching at the seminary. After lunch the teachers for the tutoring program began to arrive to get ready for the classes. There are 6 teachers and most of them are members of the church. In addition, there is a part-time director of the program, an accountant, a treasurer, and a cook who are employed through the program. All are church members and most of them were unemployed when we were there before so it was so good to know that now that have jobs and can better support their families.

For me it was so exciting when the children began to arrive because many of them I recognized and some of them I could even remember their names. Jeffrey (nicknamed trouble by last year's group), Juan, Jose, Martha Irene, Cinthia, Micheal, and several others. Carmen is now the cook for the program and Little Carla is the Treasurer. Big Carla came with her children.

What a blessing to see how the children have grown and to feel so much at home there. Eduardo also came by and he remembered all of our names and asked about those that were here last year. For almost two years, since just after we left last time, he has been working in Acahualinca (the city dump): He is working on arrangements for us to spend part of a day there visiting his ministry there! I'm sure that will be a very moving and overwhelming experience.

We worked hard, greeted old friends, introduced the new folks on the team to our friends and came home very, very tired and dirty! But one of Martin's good meals refreshed us and we had a chance to debrief and everyone shared his or her impressions and reactions to the day. It was a very good day. God is so good. I am so humbled by what has been taking place here. We have so much to learn from the Christians here. The Holy Spirit is very much alive and active in this place. So I pray that God's spirit will rest on you today and you will find your hearts stirred by the Spirit as ours have been stirred this day. Que Dios les bendiga.
- Tharon Kirk

DAY 3, Friday, August 22, 2008

Today was another day of diverse activities. We started off the morning by meeting with one of the school program workers--Alicia. Alicia greeted us with a warm smile and told us she had no front teeth because she could not go to the dentist. The team adores Alicia--she is a woman very short and small framed in stature yet has an illuminating personality that lights up a room. She refers to herself as the pastor's "first hand woman" and will be happy to tell you how the women of Laureles Sur are very efficient and useful to the community.

Alicia showed us all of the files for the children in the Compassion program and proudly told us how organized her program was. Each file had a hand written social and academic history of each child.

After visiting with Alicia for a while we got to work on our favorite project......ditch digging. There are a group of young men ranging in ages from 10-adult males who graciously watch us attempt to perform construction tasks. We did our best and made some progress, yet, a young boy of 12, Juan, gently kicked some of us out of the ditch about every 10 minutes so he could make progress. Tharon, Marilynn and I got a lesson in wrapping metal wire around a foundation mold. Took us a few tries, but we got it. The construction site is a very crowded one, but we all seem to manage.

During the afternoon, the ladies and I decided to give an English class to the children per their request. We decided to make a game out of learning colors so Marilynn was a Latina Vanna White and pulled colors out of a bag while we played a musical chairs game in English.

What we thought was going to be an English class for a few children turned out to be a chaotic game of about 50 teachers and students running around and yelling for about a half an hour playing musical chairs. The students and teachers did a great job learning their colors! The teachers were just as motivated to play and wanted to win!

We were all about exhausted by now when Alicia tapped me on the shoulder and said Marilynn, Tharon, Betsy and I needed to "talk to her" for a minute, so we followed her into this small classroom and to our surprise, there was a group of 25 or so females of all ages holding hands in singing. They surprised us by playing some old gospel songs in English and singing to us. We sang and prayed for about 30 minutes while the guys on the team had no idea where we had been swept off to. Tharon shared some beautiful words to the ladies about how blessed we were to have them in our lives and how our connection through God and the project has created a special bond. It was a special moment of women's kinship and fellowship that I will never forget.

It has become obvious over the last few days that the friends we have been working with from Laureles Sur appreciated greatly our financial and labor contributions, yet what has become more evident is their appreciation for the human connection that has been formed about our faith in them to be leaders and role models for their community. One of the ladies from the program told me we "have helped their community gain self-esteem and faith." I am impressed with the level of inspiration the members of FUMC have given to the citizens of Laureles Sur by allowing them to grow and be self-determined in a way that has benefited their spiritual, financial and emotional needs over the years.
- Lisa Norgard

DAY 4, Saturday, August 24, 2008

Our day began as usual with breakfast at 7:00 AM. Martin, our cook, did an outstanding job with beans & rice, fried eggs, toast, and pineapple.

After breakfast we went to the city of Managua's dump in Campo Acahualinca to visit Pastor Eduardo & Francis Ramirez. They were members of Laureles Sur Church when God called him to start a ministry to the dump with the help of our sister church, Laureles Sur. Let me paint you a picture. Close your eyes and imagine the worst possible situation to be in and around. Then multiply it by 100. There are over 350 families living in cardboard shacks sifting through every piece of garbage and the waste from 1,500,000 people looking for food and to salvage things they can sell. As we drove through the dump, the windows had to be closed due to heavy smoke and fumes from the fires, decaying garbage, flies, dead animals including a horse with 20 plus buzzard on it that would fly off as we drove by. There was also a large tanker truck dumping thousands of gallons of toxins onto the mountains of garbage which runs down to the cardboard shacks. The teenage boys fight over the best locations for sifting through the new garbage dumped daily. The dump extends into Lake Managua as a peninsula and has contributed to the death of all fish and animals in the lake. It is totally polluted and toxic. The children born and raised here know no other life. Cancer and other disease are off the charts.

Now the good news of what God is doing in and around the dump neighborhood. The pastor has started a house church which is operating out of three separate houses:; one for worship, one for feeding (150 children/day) and one for special meetings and activities. The 25 plus children that we saw today have all accepted Christ as their Savior. The Pastor said that their goal for the year is for 50 children and their families to accept Christ. We gave them 50 Gideon personal worker New Testaments and some money during the worship service we shared with them in one of the houses. God is working miracles through Pastor Eduardo and this ministry!

We then went across the street to view the oldest known human footprints in Central American which date back 8000 years. We spend some time there under a beautiful Almond tree discussing what we saw at the dump and ways we might help and encourage this ministry.

We then traveled back to CEPAD for lunch (Corn, Rice, Chicken legs, salad and beet juice). After lunch we went to Laureles Sur to work at the church.

Today we mixed concrete, poured footings, leveled dirt, and worked hand in hand with our brothers and sisters in Christ. The women went on a tour of the neighborhood with Juanita, one of the women leaders and Martha Irene, one of the young adults. They got to use their newly learned skill of beating dogs back with sticks along the way. There are "mucho perros" in Nicaragua and one of the women shouted for them to quickly "Grab a stick!" On the tour they visited a beauty shop, and the homes of several members of the church and got a look at a larger area of the neighborhood.

Prior to leaving that afternoon, Pastor Perez and the women asked us to form a circle within their circle and they prayed for all of us. All prayed loudly at the same time. It was very moving and uplifting. It was a very powerful experience as we received those prayers and blessings.

It was wonderful to eat dinner after a long hard day but also sad thinking about what we had experienced today. No one should have to live like what we witnessed. Pastor Eduardo said that the FUMC team coming to Nicaragua and to visit them at the dump greatly encouraged them to keep on doing God's work and thanked us for our sacrifice in coming. I felt shameful. Mark Johnstone does not know sacrifice!

After dinner we gathered for our daily debriefing, devotion, and letters from home. This was the hardest day for me so far. It was emotional as well as pohysical. David Eblen led a wonderful message about the effort Satan had made to oppose and try to keep him and Marilynn from making this trip. What a powerful message. We then retired for the evening to get some rest before Sunday. Thanks be to God.
- Mark Johnstone

P.S. From Tharon the typist for Mark: Our apologies that for some reason this did not go through from Nicaragua. We tried sending it several times but it always came back so you are just now getting it. Also, thanks to Sue and her volunteers who so graciously took time to write those encouraging letters to us. We always received our letters at the end of the day after our debriefing and devotion time. They were a real highlight for us all. On difficult days such as this day was, it meant so much to know so many people were praying for us! Catherine thanks for the humor. We laughed alot together as well as cried together. We have experience koinonia in a deep way this week and drawn closer to our God.
- Tharon Kirk