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Newsletters - Feb 2004
Alongside Ministries en Nicaragua
Evangelism Through Relationships
Halle and Kathy August, Missionaries
amen@ibw.com.ni
www.alongsideministries.org
Feb 2004
Dear Friends,
Well, 2004 has started off with a bang! The biggest event of this past month was the move from the apartment to our house. We were supposed to be out of the apartment by the 15th of January but the morning of the 15th found us sitting amid piles of boxes sipping a store bought cup of coffee (because everything was packed) apparently in no rush to go anywhere or do anything. Kind of like being all dressed up with no where to go . . . The house wasn’t quite ready. We extended our stay at the apartment by a couple of days to give the sawdust time to settle (it’s easier to sweep up that way) but eventually made the move and are now sleeping at the house and spending our waking hours trying to get settled.
Life continues outside our house, too, and this new year brought a new location for our feeding program. We have officially moved into the ministry center, officially called Centro de Ministerio El Farito or The Little Lighthouse Ministry Center. After a short break over Christmas we’ve started the program again and have used this new beginning to instigate some changes that we have been thinking and praying about for a while. First, we’ve increased our program days to three times a week (our goal being five) and have teams of neighborhood moms who are doing the cooking and cleaning. We are also providing all the bowls and utensils for the children and therefore requiring that the children stay and eat instead of taking the food home. We plan on using the time while the children are eating for fellowship and relationship building but it will also be a time to present a story and/or short Bible lesson, to hear memory verses, acknowledge birthdays and present awards for attendance, Bible memory verses, etc. A lot like a Sunday school class. We are initiating another program within our feeding program that will ask the children to give to the ministry center and not just receive. For each of the three days of the program the children will be asked to bring something. One day will be a piece of firewood to be used for cooking the frijoles. Another day will be a piece of trash from the neighborhood – an effort to increase their awareness of how they can make a positive effect on their environment. And the other day will be a monetary offering – not obligatory, but we will use this opportunity to teach the importance of giving to others since we have been given so much. It is not unusual to see these children sucking on an “helado” (a frozen bag of juice) or eating some other small snack. The cost of these snacks is minimal, usually about 50 centavos or about 4 U.S. cents. It is our idea to encourage the children to, perhaps once a week, decide to take that 50 centavos and place it in the offering basket instead. As the offering accumulates we will discuss how and where to best give this gift – probably to a needy family outside the immediate neighborhood. In so doing we hope to increase their awareness of others less fortunate than themselves and also to provide them an opportunity to experience the joys and blessings that come from giving to others. Please pray for this feeding program ministry especially during this time of changes. It is not unusual for change to be met with some resistance but we want to discern what it is God wants us to do, not just what the neighborhood moms want, and we want to be strong, but loving, in doing His will.
With construction slowing down at the house Halle has been able to resume his involvement with baseball. The boys have all been anxiously waiting for this time when Halle can fit in a midweek practice with each team and games on Saturday mornings again. In addition to baseball Halle is heavily involved with the development of the Christian sports center. Along with the obvious development needs (property improvement and construction) there are many ‘behind the scenes’ activities that take time and attention. One of these is the formation of a foundation in whose name will eventually be the ownership of the property. We will be forming a founding board of five to seven members, writing a constitution and completing all the paperwork to fulfill the requirements for this foundation here in Nicaragua. This will allow future donations to be given directly to the foundation for use in the development and maintenance of the sports center. While this process is taking place (we’ve heard it will take anywhere from one to two years) we will be working closely with Amanda Van Deman, our sports center partner, hosting work teams who will help us begin the process of developing the sports center into more than scrub brush, dry grass and weeds.
We are all very excited about our vision for this sports center. Each development that has brought us to where we are today has been an affirmation that we are following God’s path and experiencing His blessings. We have a shared vision for this sports center and while we each have different ideas and opinions we continue to come together in heart and mind in the details and decisions. We desire to see this Christian sports center be a place for those who want to grow in all aspects of their lives. The churches of inner-city Managua lack a place for clean, healthy fellowship. We believe this sports center can provide such a place. The local community needs a place where the children and youth can hang out, be off the street and sheltered from negative influences. We want the sports center to be their hang-out. While we will promote it as a sports center it will be much more. We want to effect changes in more than just the physical lives of the people; we want to provide a place for spiritual growth as well. Sports activities may be what they initially come to the center for but we anticipate they will come back for relationships – with one another, with the sports facilitors, and with Jesus Christ. We want them to find a different environment at the sports center than they’ve ever found anywhere else – a salty bite of life amid their diet of rice and beans. Jesus exhorted us to flavor the world, to be salt and not to be flavored by the world, so we’ve decided to name the sports center El Salero – The Salt Shaker. We want to sprinkle their lives with the love, light and truth of who they can be as chidren of God.
This is a huge project and we will need lots of help. We need prayer support for guidance and direction on the decisions that have to be made concerning facilities, choosing board members and working with the neighbors. There is also much work to be done repairing the baseball stadium, building fences, digging water lines, planting trees, building basketball courts, and so on. In addition, there is the cost of the materials to build these things and the cost of the actual land itself. We need to raise $100,000 to repay a loan that was used to purchase the 6 ½ acres. If 100 groups or individuals could raise $1,000 each or 50 groups or individuals could raise $2,000 each, then it becomes an easily attainable goal. Some of you may have contacts in the professional sports world that would be interested in helping out with a project of this kind or others of you are part of a home fellowship group that would be willing to get behind this idea and could make this part of your group’s activities. Maybe even come down for a week or two and do some hands on type of work. We would love that. Whatever your involvement, it will be greatly appreciated. This will truly be a team effort and appropriately so as we are using team sports to build team unity in the body of Christ.
Pray about your involvement. Think about it. Talk about it amongst your friends and family and consider being part of the El Salero team here in Nicaragua and help flavor the lives of Nicaraguan kids.
Serving Together,
Halle and Kathy August
AMEN
Alongside Ministries en Nicaragua
Thank you for supporting our ministry in Nicaragua.
Your gifts, sent to Eastside Development (formally The NEO Foundation),
will be used for our general ministry activities or wherever you designate.
Eastside Development
PO Box 301471
Portland, OR 97294 |