2021

Greetings in the Peace of Christ. We are excited to report that we made our Phase 2 fundraising goal! We eclipsed the $16,000 mark with a little room to spare, which is great considering that material prices have gone up since the initial quotes we received in November. Thankfully, I discovered that we won’t actually need any machinery to clear the land, so our budget remains the same. One builder said we would need to do some earth moving, but others have confirmed that won’t be necessary. Our primary land clearing tools will be machetes!

My brother-in-law mentioned that I should explain the need for the wall. In the cultural context of Nicaragua, there is no explanation needed. But in the cultural context of the US, perimeter walls are not customary, and even prohibited most places! This wall will be for security purposes. It will be a concrete wall made out of interlocking cement slabs stacked up on each other, reaching a finished height of 2.70 meters. We will add a layer of serpentine razor wire on top, giving the total structure a height of 3 meters, or about 10 feet. Such a site in a US suburb is unimaginable, but we’ll fit right in here 🙂 Theft is by far the most common crime in Nicaragua, and without the wall, there’s no end to the number of things that would disappear off the property. Praise God we haven’t suffered a serious robbery, but we’ve literally had a garden hose and a trash can stolen that weren’t properly put away. Hopefully that gives you a clearer understanding of the need for the wall!

The children were all ready and excited to return and start another ministry year. Perhaps the most excited child was Jeruahel. It was about two weeks before they returned when she turned to me and whined, “Daddy, I don’t have friends to play with.” My offer to play with her appeared to only emphasize her point. The first day we were all together, she made a card and read the “letter” she had written the children, thanking them for playing with her and being her friends. She is just now grasping the reality of Jan no longer being with us. I told her that he decided he wanted to be with his family all the time. It was clearly sad to her the moment she understood he was going to be with them forever. She’s come up with several scenarios where he returns to the house, and has said multiple times that she hopes he and his family will visit us. I have spoken with him a few times, and his mom did get him registered in a new school for this year. We hope he finishes these last 4 years of school, and continue to pray for him and his heart.

From what the children have told us, they had safe vacation time with their families. Bianca, Jeremy and Vanessa stayed almost exclusively at their house, with the highlight being a trip to stay at an aunt’s house and be with their cousins for a few days. Otherwise, 14 year-old Bianca classified the time as “boring”. Teenagers…one cultural context that seems to pervade national boundaries!

Margine’s mom also took their family for a visit with relatives, which was a highlight for her as well. At her house, Margine has more freedom (for better or worse) to wander the neighborhood while her mom is at work. Due to some communication issues with the other three children’s mom, Margine spent a week in the house by herself with Doña Victoria and Doña Angela. It seemed to be very good for her. Since there was no one to argue or get in trouble with, it was all positive attention. Part of her insecurity comes out in trying to please others. Since the other children weren’t around to please or make laugh, she seemed more at ease. Instead of bouncing around with energy and struggling to respect personal space, she was calm and collected. It was good to see the sense of peace and rest knowing she is loved by us adults. It is also a good teaching point to help her learn to self-analyze, recognizing the difference in how she felt as the only child compared to being all together. Please join us in praying for Margine to believe her self-worth comes from being fearfully and wonderfully made by her Loving Father.

Switching gears here, I want to share the last element of our emotionally challenging Fall. We were able to go and visit Diana for the first time the day after Thanksgiving. She and her brother Elias were removed from Casa Libertad y Sanidad by their father in June 2017. In the 3+ years it had been since we saw her, she has experienced 3+ lifetimes of suffering. She could not have been more rejected and degraded by her father. After running to her mother, she experienced more rejection and suffering. Left to her own devices, she was living on the streets in a town called Granada for few months. A young man took a liking to her there and she now lives with him and his family. She has two boys. The first one was born September 2018 with multiple disabilities, one of which is cleft palate. His name is Jeremy. Little baby Moises was born November 2020, and is her son with the young man she lives with. He was a big, healthy baby, weighing 8lbs at birth! Diana might have weighed 80 lbs before getting pregnant, and understandably she had a hard time at the hospital until they finally decided to do a C-section. She will turn 16 this April.

I can’t properly describe what it was like seeing her that first day and listening to her tell the whole story, starting with the day we last saw her. Elias had told her they should run away, right then and there before getting on the bus with their dad. Hearing that cut right to my heart, and the story only got worse. I’m crying right now as I write this. Diana sat there and told us the whole story without any expression on her face. There was only one moment in the entire visit where I saw the girl I knew. She kept referring to Elias as the “little boy”, and I finally said to her that she was still a “little girl”. The same cute, quaint, bashful smile flashed across her face and then quickly disappeared as she continued retelling the events. When we hugged good-bye, she literally tucked her head under my arm and against my chest, and held on for whole minute.

I can’t describe my own feelings, much less Jessenia’s. She was extremely emotional leading up to the visit, though she needed some coaxing to allow herself to cry. When we first pulled up to the house, little Jeremy was playing on the porch. He looked at this group of strangers approaching his house with great hesitation, but when Jessenia said “hello my love!” with her arms open, Jeremy immediately ran up to her and threw himself into her arms. She picked him up, weeping instantly, and handed him to me to try to collect herself. We went into the house to greet Diana, and they both cried as they embraced. While there, Jeremy was a great distraction for Jessenia, giving reason for joy and laughter as she played with him, despite so much pain and suffering being recounted. As we drove away, we cried. She turned to me and told me that when Jeremy first ran up to her, she felt in her heart like he was saying, “I’ve been waiting for you!”

We’ve since been in touch frequently over the phone and were able to visit in January. We’re praying about how to support Diana and her children, as well as for wisdom and insight into the young man and his family. Jessenia and I are very thankful to be in relationship with Diana again, and are hoping we might get to see Elias as well, who is reportedly living with his mom now. It’s hard to fight the urge to whisk her away and try to fix all the damage that’s been done. Of course I know I can’t actually fix it, only God can. So we seek patience and trust in Him, to follow His leading as He unfolds His plan for restoration.

I suppose those last two sentences sum up the entirety of this ministry…for these children, these families, these communities, these cities, this country, this region, this continent and the world over. We are part of His Eternal Purposes. You, too, have an equal place in His Eternal Purposes. We all do. Let us come to Him and come together in Him, that His Word be spread throughout all the earth, restoring all creation unto right relationship with Him. Hallelujah!