Bluefields Update February 14

Please excuse my double entry - we had an action packed first two days!!!

February 13 After two long days of travel, we finally arrived at our home away from home in Bluefields, The Caribbean Dream Hotel. We had a little delay in Newark for wind - man it was very windy on the runway - but after two hours, we departed for Houston and left there without any issues!

We met Mike Najjar and Rigoberto Reyes in Managua and headed to our hotel for the evening where we just crashed. Breakfast was served and we boarded a bus for a 5 hour trek to El Rama, the port town where we embarked onto boats on the Rio Escondido. The ride down river was wonderful and we arrived in Bluefields where a short walk to the hotel ended our 2 day journey. We were welcomed by Claudia (Rigo’s wife) and Lesly and Jeremy (Mike's wife and 13 month son!) as well as Francisco, the pastor of Strong Tower Baptist Church. We have enough time to get cleaned up rest and walk in town before we head out for dinner.

Tonight, we will have our orientation meeting and prepare for our first full construction day tomorrow... Saturday evening will also be our welcome service - not sure what is in store for us - we will see the members of the Strong Tower congregation, but our main "mission" this week is to build a church for the new congregation of El Buen Samaritano, which is a church plant of the original church.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Thanks to all for your prayers and support for our team!

February 14 Last night we spent some time with Rigo as he shared his testimony and also his vision for the ministries throughout Nicaragua – it is inspiring to hear how God is using Rigo and his family to serve the poor of Nicaragua! Day one on the worksite is over – wow, the reception by the new congregation was wonderful and we are plugging away at a rather nasty worksite – there is a lot of cleaning of major debris needed in order to start digging the footings… some digging commenced today – tomorrow we will grab picks and shovels again and really make some progress! The entire team worked very hard today – and the in-town conditions weather wise are much hotter than the previous site on top of the hill on Coco Terra. We miss and long for the steady breezes!

The church will be nestled into a neighborhood – funny story Rigo and the church association bought the land from a former pastor that was leaving Nicaragua. His dream was to one day build a church on this site, so when Rigo told him that he was going to build a church on that site, he was elated and reduced his price by $ 3,000 USD! Praise God for Rigo’s given talents of being able to work with all sorts of people. Once again, I am blown away by his passion for the ministry and his ability to serve God with humility! I look forward to spending this week + with him and Claudia! I am also going to be with him later this month when I meet up with a vision trip from Jackson Baptist Church – we will tour other ministries that Rigo and his association has begun – the welding school in Chinandega, the carpentry school in El Crucero as well as many churches that have been recently planted. Since 2001, Rigo has planted 13 churches!

Children are starting to warm up to the team and already have stolen our hearts! We are working side by side with the nationals and already, it is obvious that we do not all need to speak Spanish to communicate God’s love! The women under the leadership of Claudia Reyes and Lesly Najjar have prepared wonderful meals for us so far – as usual, we eat very well and we appreciate their hard work on our behalf!

We have seen three kids from the Strong Tower congregation – Simone and the twins, Juan Carlos and Juan Daniel. We were warmly received at the Strong Tower church tonight – we had so looked forward to worshipping with them! The bond our congregation has with the ministries in this area is so cool – for all parties! Rigo was telling e today how much of a blessing it is for the new pastor to be the recipient of so much love! A group had gathered with us as we talked and we all told him how much of blessing his ministry and the people of Bluefields were to us! We are blessed!

We heard some sad news about one of the Bluefields children – Misha (Nashaley’s sister) was killed a couple months ago by a car at the top of the hill where we walked down to the Strong Tower church. Nashaley’s family situation was bad enough (her mother is a prostitute)… we will pray for her as this will be a trying time.

I say goodbye for now – thanks again for your prayers! We serve an awesome God!

Here we go - Back to Bluefields!!

The team met for the last time on Sunday - bags are packed and questions (most of them!) answered - all are ready to go - on Thursday, we are heading southwest to Bluefields, Nicaragua.

This cold weather sure has made it more desirable to be in warm Bluefields! The other day, there was a 98 degree difference between Oneonta's low and the afternoon temperature in Nicaragua (-10 here and 88 there!)

We will be building a church for a new congregation that has been worshipping in a storefront near the central park in town - the name is El Buen Samaritano. It is a church that was planted by the church we have worked on for the past two years. Praise God for His mighty works in Bluefields! It is awesome to be part of such a dynamic ministry!


Stay tuned for more updates from the team - we thank all who have supported the team financially as well as our faithful prayer partners!


The reason why we do this...

Heading Back to Nicaragua!

It is official! I will definitely be going back to Nicaragua at least one time in the next year to help lead church building teams! From our church alone (Main Street Baptist in Oneonta, NY), we will send two teams... first a college/young adult team leaving December 26th and the second, open to anyone leaving February 14th. It is exciting to see how involved our smaller congregation is to the concept of traveling internationally to build not only buildings but relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ!

Our first team meeting will be Monday June 11th at Main Street Baptist - I am looking forward to seeing who will be part of the next building projects. It is fun to experience the excitement of the early stages of the team building process - but nothing compares to the actual on site experience in Nicaragua!

My goal is in 3-4 months to be finished the application and approval process for the field ministry position with Partnership Ministries, the short term missions "department" of Missions to the Americas. Then, I can begin the support seeking stage, then the mobilization stage will follow shortly after that! I also hope to begin language education... maybe starting here with Rosetta Stone on CD, then into an immersion program of learning and living in Central America.

My passion is to introduce as many people to the myriad of ways that God can use our ordinary talents to serve Him. If this concept interests you, let's talk!

Economic Development in Central America

On Thursday May 3rd, we ventured back up the Escondido River to El Rama, then headed west to Grenada for our free time. We stayed at the Casa de Vivaldi - a wonderful spot with fine rooms, central location and a beautiful pool! On Friday, we headed towards Volcán Mombacho, not too far from Masaya. This volcano offered a totally different experience than Volcán Masaya. This volcano is dormant and the only activity we noticed were steam shafts on our walk around the perimeter of an older crater. The hike around Volcán Mombacho uncovered many species of animals and plant life - it was noted that one one tree alone, there were more species of plants than in the entire country of England! How awesome is our God anyway!?!?


After the team left Managua on Saturday, May 5th, I was asked to tag along with Rigo & Claudia, Mike & Lesly as well as two representatives from Missions to the Americas, Aaron Palmatier and Illdefonso Ramirez. We stayed in Managua for two nights but ventured to Ciudad Sandino just outside the city limits of Managua and Chinandega to visit existing churches that Main Street had worked on. On Monday, we headed south to Jinotepe and Masaya to investigate future church building sites and economic development opportunities. It was fascinating to see the vision that God placed on Rigo's heart!

En route to Chinandega, I was the only person who could not speak Spanish... occasionally, Rigo would stop and review in English with me what they were discussing in Spanish. This just made it very plain that I need to learn the language to go to the next level of effectiveness in Central America!




As we made our way to the Costa Rica Highway along the Pacific Coast, we stopped briefly at the carpentry shop currently under construction. Rigo envisions this as an avenue for young men normally caught up in gangs to learn a trade that can legitimately earn them money to support their families. This is one aspect of Rigo's ministry that continues to boggle my mind... he is always looking for opportunities to engage himself into the lives of those he meets. But paramount in all his discussions and projects is the underlying motivations... "to introduce more people to the Good News of Jesus Christ"... he has repeated that he does not wan to run the carpentry shop or micro-manage any of his proposed endeavors... he just wants to create as many opportunities for "divine intersections" so Jesus can make a difference in the lives of as many people as possible... it is awesome to be round Rigo - his passion is infectious!

Our next destination was a small farming community outside of Jinotepe... this is where Rigo revealed to us a much larger vision! The western coastal area in Nicaragua is higher in elevation and also is influenced by the prevailing winds off the Pacific, so the weather is actually very nice and temperate, which allows for longer growing seasons. We drove off the main road down into a valley... which led us to a parcel of land that was being sold. The parcel is actually made up of two pieces of land - one, a 100 acre dairy farm complete with barns, cows, goats, pigs and chickens. Across the street is another 120 acres that could be used for crops of all sorts - oranges, papaya, mango, all sorts of other fruits and vegetables. The topsoil was almost 2 feet deep and at one spot where they had piped water from across the street there was a deep dark black soil. Most farmers in the area are not farming now as they are waiting for "the next rain", but Rigo is convinced that with irrigation, their land would produce a myriad of crops. The Dole Agricultural Engineer emerged at this pint and he was in his element... pretty cool that a job that just about broke him will now give him the expertise to venture into an opportunity that could potentially sustain his ministries throughout Nicaragua!

Do I need to repeat about how our God is so awesome!?!?

The Church on a Hill Has a Roof!

As we ventured down the Escondido River, those of us who had returned sat there reminiscing about our February experiences... the anticipation was too much. We arrived at the Caribbean Dreams Hotel with the inviting front porch - it was like we never left! Once we ate breakfast and unpacked we headed out of town to the work site. We were welcomed by children at the top of the hill... their excitement was briefly interrupted after they examined the smaller group that emerged form the 15 passenger van... yes, they were excited, but some of their good friends from February were missing! The got over it quickly but the kids asked a lot of questions - our broken Spanish was good enough because they were so eager to re-engage with us regardless of who was missing!

Pinky (Dr. Dave... in the right photos on the right) & The Brain (Jim aka Grandpa by himself grinding away!) returned to the work site and they were truly a blessing because of the engineering challenges that faced us. Along with Pinky is the EverReady sidekick Josh (next to Dave) who would have no fear when it came to walking across beams and walls without a net or ropes - his cat-like abilities made some impossible tasks possible - that's Biblical, because it was only God that could have accomplished all that! In the right photo above, instead of the traditional "Cheese", Josh and Dave are saying the Spanish word, "Queso"... we found out that in order to get someone to smile in Nicaragua, you have them say "Whiskey"... OK, that's not Biblical, but it makes better pictures!

It was amazing how much work was accomplished by the Nicaraguans since we left in February... and from what we have heard, after we left, many Nicaraguans stayed to help finish thing up! On our last day, we had completed the full foundation for that wall. As of last Monday, the wall closest to you in the picture below was halfway completed - we finished pouring the last foundation the day we left! The shots above show the progress we made with the roof - by the time we left, all of the rafters and purlons (cross pieces to which the roofing material was screwed to)were in place and one section of the galvanized roof material was installed. A slight engineering call was made and agreed upon... the roof rafters were joined together at the same place - this gave the roof more stability and also lessened the airfoil tendency of the split roof design.

Thanks to the diplomatic engineering discussions that took place! We can't wait to see the finished product! We should hear a progress report from Rigo soon as he is in Bluefields this week! Stay tuned!

The "Bluefields 8" Returns!

This sums it all up but it will take me a few days to get it all down in writing... needless to say, our team was welcomed with open arms by our brothers and sisters in Bluefields... it was like we left and came back after a long weekend... no formalities like our first visit - back to business and back to cultivating our relationships - it was awesome.

Stay tuned for more to come, including a report from my "economic development" tour after our project - WOW, God is and continues to be up to something in Nicaragua!

And We're Off!

Hard to believe that is has been almost 2 months since we returned from Bluefields... and it is now our departure day! This trip will be unique from our recent trip in February - instead of 44 members which was combination of teens and adults, we now have 7 members - with only one young adult! There will be more Nicaraguans there than North Americans... this is a good thing as the building project is not ours... it belongs to God and the people of Bluefields!

We departed from Main Street Baptist in Oneonta at 3:15 AM to catch a 6:00 AM flight to Atlanta where we will meet up with Greg from Tulsa... we then will fly to Managua, here we will be have a 9 hour layover before we board a bus to El Rama, then have three hours to wait for our Escondido river journey to Bluefields, where we will arrive sometime Friday morning.

Our February Nicaragua trip's retrospective service Sunday night was well attended and I believe our stories and photo and video presentations were a blessing to many who attended. I pray that God continues to move in all our hearts to to encourage us to step outside our comfort zones as we examine how God can use what is left of our lives. From young children to teens to senior citizens, He has a plan... we just have to tap into it!