On Mended Wings - Excerpts

Moments of Light

I still see the burdens. They touch a pastor's heart. You can't fix them instantly or at one time.
-- Pastor Tomás Ruis

We are the vision of seeking this outrageous goal-the transformation of Nicaragua. Outsiders might say it is absurd, but we are seeking the restoration and transformation of all things.
--Kim Freidah Brown.

"The farmers are smart. They don't need our help. They know how to farm. Now I go every year to visit my friends Jennie and Maria Luisa," Mary said.

Yes, Jennie's house is a tenth the size of Mary's. It has a dirt floor. But the view out her kitchen door is magnificent. "You would have to pay a million dollars for it in the U.S.--and it is there just for her," exclaimed Mary. "When I step out her back kitchen, I think, 'Only God can do this, and it is here just for her.'"

We used to see things as either "secular" or "spiritual." Now we see that everything is from God and for God.
--Alejandro Espinoza

It is hard to hear about biblical worldview and not fall in love with it.
--Reyna Chavarría

Daniel glanced at Darling and asked, "I wonder what we would do if we ever own land again."
Without a moment's pause, Darling responded, "We'd probably give it to the church!"
They both laughed uproariously.

There was lots of joking and laughter, but when Nixon started talking about his week, silence fell and the men listened carefully, responded gently, sharing his pain. "Christian life is not just glory and hallelujah, but blessing also in the valleys," said Carl Most.

"This is our Mountain of Prayer," Diómedes said.

He has great dreams for this seven-acre parcel. He wants to convert the Sandinista trenches into houses for prayer--perhaps erecting small buildings atop those trenches where people can go for prayer and meditation. He wants to put a radio tower on top of the mountain and triple the reach of the radio station.

From Carol's Journal: Different Eyes

When I ride the streets of Nicaragua's capital city, Managua, I see block after block of poverty.

Then I visit El Limonal.

It is two hundred huts filled with residents who eke out an existence rescuing bottles, cans, and cardboard from the dump.

I assess it, walking the dirt streets with Maria Saeli of Food for the Hungry, and find a new category: extreme poverty.

Maria hugs three children selling from a food stand. She admires a puppy one woman is grooming. She asks a woman hand-laundering clothes how many days' work are on the line behind her.

"Tres días (three days)," is the shy answer.

She says El Limonal now has electricity and water. She stops to ask a man what plants he is watering in his new garden.

Where I see poverty, Maria sees progress.

While I despair, Maria hopes. She also fosters hope.

Lord, give me Maria's eyes. For they are your eyes, too, I think.

And let my hands, like hers, be yours as well.

From Carol's Journal: Transformation Past and Future

In April 2011, my church service-and-learning team tells our Pella, Iowa, congregation what we have seen and heard in Managua and Chinandega.

It was an intense week for us the previous February-watching, listening, and learning. We learned about youth leadership training and the Nehemiah Center's healthy church program. We walked with Nicaraguans to houses in a destitute neighborhood, praying with and for some of the residents. We attended a Wednesday evening outdoor service and were asked to lead two worship songs. We met students who had attended arts camps.

The theme of the DVD in which we now share our collected impressions with the congregation goes beyond "I learned how good we have it here." It has inklings of transformation. Our pastor, Gary Hanson, says he came back with the overwhelming question: "How much do I really need?"
Kathy Groenenboom, a grandmother who especially enjoyed the children of Chinandega, says she sensed a less-uptight quality in Nicaraguan life. "I laughed in Nicaragua more than I have in a long time."

Harley Janssen, a young engineer and father of four, says, "The type of community we had there felt right, but at the same time to get there [to this kind of community] requires you to not be defined by your possessions, by who you know, or by the jobs and goals you have. All of a sudden we've given up an awfully lot of what we cling to. And consequently we found community. That's scary!"

Ed Spoelstra says he saw a willingness to take risks. "We saw an after-school Compassion program with a hundred fifty kids. . . Here, we have to have our t's crossed and i's dotted, the coffee made, and the cookies ready [before we take action]," he said. "They [the Chinandega Compassion program founders] didn't do that. They started the program with sponsors for only three kids. We probably would have said it's not worth it."

And retiree Claude Zylstra prays for the church universal, in Nicaragua and North America, "that beautiful things will happen. That we may adopt the same principles. . ."

Our two-way transformation has begun. Our team has named our congregation's long-term relationship Friends of Chinandega, and--with church council approval--is moving ahead with a six-part program we drafted in the hot and humid lobby of Don Mario hotel in downtown Chinandega.
That plan includes ongoing communication with Nicaraguan companion churches, mutual prayer support, value-add projects for sales of Nicaraguan crafts, sponsorship of children through Compassion International, ongoing support of Nicaraguan arts camps, and launching arts camps for at-risk children in Pella.

It is an ambitious launch; we are not assured of success.

When we had doubts as we sweated out a plan in the hotel lobby, our pastor reminded us of the Nicaraguans we had seen. "We need to give ourselves the freedom to fail." he said.

The freedom to fail.

In the months to come, I want to keep walking the path of that new-found freedom.