Featured Story
August 2005
Words Cannot
Express the Blessings in Nicaragua
Written by Elizabeth Dawson, a short-term volunteer at
the Arms of Love Children’s Home in Nicaragua.
It’s hard
to believe that I just spent a month in Nicaragua. The
lessons are insurmountable, and I still continue to learn
and apply more and more each day here in the United States.
I
became a Christian this past March. My life during the past
six months has been filled with complete change: no job,
none of the old friends, a new church. Those are just a few
things God did to bring healing into my life. I came to
Nicaragua expecting one thing, and but I left with something
different. I never could have asked for what was shown to
me.
I came to the girls’ home with the expectation of giving
myself to the girls, and hence seeing the change in the
girls’ lives. It didn’t take me long to realize that the
home being self-sustaining and an already established home
environment- that would be quite a difficult task for me to
undertake. So to put in mildly, I was quite disappointed and
quite humbled at the same time. I quickly learned that God’s
agenda for me was different than my own.
God brought me to Nicaragua to heal me. Much of my life I
have lived frantically and in a state of anxiety. There was
little to feel nervous over in the girls’ home (other than
the occasional mango dropping on the roof). God really
brought a sense of peace into my life. The hardest thing for
me was that I had no source of comfort. No part of life was
the same for me in the
girls’ home. Many of my insecurities were revealed. It was
quite scary. It didn’t take me long to learn that the only
constant in my life is God. As painful as days might have
seemed, He always brought me joy.
I realized too, how much I relied on the use of words to
gather knowledge and discern things. Coming into the house
the first few weeks, I was amazed at how smoothly things
seemed to run. It was almost like I had this idealistic
image of how things were. I wondered how girls with such
tragic pasts could operate so normally. Then I began to
observe more, and realize that things weren’t quite what
they seemed. Yes, many girls had a tremendous amount of
healing in their lives, but it was still evident that they
all had deeply planted pains. Had I stayed for just a week
or so, I probably would not have seen that. (I am thankful
that I had the opportunity to stay for a month for this
reason.)
Along these lines, my views of life always have been quite
idealistic. I’m sensitive to pain and hardship, and always
had a hard time dealing with such things. My experience at
the girls’ home and in Nicaragua truly opened my eyes to
seeing life as it truly is. I’m young, so I’m sure that will
continually change, but I finally was able to view the world
as a fallen world. Prior to this experience, I had a “grass
is greener on the other side” approach on life. I kept
waiting for things to be ok and to be perfect. Being in an
environment like Managua, you truly see life: filled with
pain, poverty and worldliness. Because of my new view, I
placed a huge burden placed on myself for really
experiencing life: To really see the truth in things, and
finding healing there. Instead of running, I now desire to
see the world, to experience different cultures. I no longer
want to settle for living “the American dream.” There is so
much you can learn from others different than yourselves,
and I feel that my life would be incomplete had I not had
volunteered in Nicaragua.
In regards to the girls’ home, it is a great place for a
female to “get away.” It is a great place of rest. In the
past, I have been quite the workaholic. It was a great place
for me to find a proper balance between rest and “work.” My
morning routine involved reading, exercising, and spending
time with the Lord. My evenings were spent with the girls.
With proper balance, I was really able to face some hard
issues in my life that I couldn’t face in my home
environment. Gladys and Emilio were both an incredible
counsel to me. They provided me with a lot of prayers,
wisdom, and insights on life that made me trip a complete
Godsend. They made my trip that much more heavenly perfect.
It’s really hard for me to express in words how much of a
blessing the Arms of Love ministry was to me. The ministry
in Nicaragua has changed lives far beyond the thirty or so
boys and girls. It has definitely changed my life, and I
have been blessed with the opportunity to share my
experience with my family, friends, and fellow church
members. I thank God for all the staff and the children at
Arms of Love every day!! I will keep them all and the
ministry in my prayers.
^
Top
The Dream of
Love, Laughter and Soccer Unfolds in Nicaragua
Written by Stephanie Xavier
The dream of a new campus facility is now a reality for the
first group of Arms of Love children in Nicaragua. The first
home for boys has been completed and its residents have
recently moved in. The short-term team facility, designed to
accommodate up to 50 individuals at once, will be completed
in September 2005, but was sufficiently finished to host its
first short-term team, which arrived in July. The new campus
is in a medium-sized town called Jinotepe, conveniently
located an hour from the beach, Managua and Granada.
“It’s a blessing to watch the boys playing soccer,” said
Doug Effinger, chief facility director and overseer of the
facility development. “This is the first time they have had
open air to play in for over a year, but this time in a safe
and controlled environment. There is a feeling of abundance
and it brings hope to us all.”
The completion of the first boys’ home is the first major
milestone for the Arms of Love campus facility. In October
of 2003, Doug and Julie Effinger joined Arms of Love from
the Vineyard in Vancouver, Washington. Doug and Julie
envisioned a large campus in the suburbs, away from the
problems of Managua. With financial help from the GO Fund,
Doug and Julie have been working diligently overseeing the
development of the 20-acre property. When completed, there
will be a large commons green encircled by six houses for
the children, house parents and staff, a team house for up
to 50 visiting missionaries, a swimming pool and changing
room, and a basketball court.
 |
|
 |
“The Jinotepe campus embodies our vision of providing
the Arms of Love children with the same or greater
opportunities relative to other children,” said Robert
Benson, president, Arms of Love. “Our mission is to
break the cycle of poverty, abandonment and abuse,
ideally to help our children to become leaders in the
local church and in their community.”
The boys’ house, with four large bedrooms, a kitchen, a
dining room, a small laundry room and an office, will be
home for 8 to 12 children along with house parents and one
to two assistants. The ranch style house with a Spanish tile
roof features an interior garden and a large front patio
facing the common green located in the center of the campus,
which is situated on 20 acres of tropical rainforest. At the
moment, the building team is planting an orange tree in the
center of the interior garden, surrounded by green hedges.
Arms of Love deliberately bought a large enough property so
they could grow their own food for self-sufficiency and
expose the children to the relationship of growing,
preparing and eating their own food. Presently, the property
is filled with fruit trees, banana plants, coffee, and local
crops such as beans, corn and squash. “We hope to diversify
our offerings as we plant more varieties of fruits and
vegetables,” said Effinger. “A measure of self-sufficiency
is important to us. We designed the plumbing of the
buildings and infrastructure to pipe the grey water
generated from our own facility out to the garden. Without
irrigation, there would be no crops during the
six-month-long dry season. With our grey water system, we
can irrigate up to six acres of land by gravity feed,
depending on our water usage.”
An arched doorway, flanked by seven windows on each side, is
the central feature to the entrance of the team house. The
building, approximately 9,000 sq. ft., has 12 bathrooms, two
large sleeping rooms for 14 persons each, two medium rooms
for 10 persons each, and two smaller suites for up to four
people each. All rooms have attached bathrooms. The kitchen
and laundry room are extra large as they are designed to
handle the team load as well as the children's homes. A
large dining room is large enough for 50 people and the open
area adjacent could also function as an open air, covered
eating area, a meeting area, or a lounging space.
To the south is a long covered porch approximately 90
feet long by 13 feet wide, perfect for relaxing while
checking out the view of Mombachu, the volcano some 30 km away.
“Visiting short-term teams are an integral part of our
vision,” Benson said. “We have found that the church teams
can make valuable contributions to the development of our
ministry. We do not underestimate God’s call to the
missionaries and the impact they have on the children and
our mission. We build the teams’ house in hope that one day
we can facilitate dozens of short-term church teams on an
annual basis.”
One of the primary components of the Arms of Love vision is
to train and equip Nicaraguan believers to staff and to lead
the ministry, so its children’s homes become a ministry of
the Nicaraguan church to children at risk in Nicaragua.
However, short-term teams and long-term volunteers from
abroad can contribute to this goal in significant ways, and
the current campus creates an environment where both
Nicaraguans and foreign missionaries are comfortable and can
work together in a bicultural setting. In addition to
short-term teams, Arms of Love hopes to attract missionaries
who can commit for a year or longer as teachers, ministers
for local church planting, and support workers. Long-term
volunteers will naturally establish a bilingual environment,
which help the children learn English along with their
native Spanish language, a major advantage in the
marketplace as an adult.
 |
|
 |
Without a doubt, missionaries are a financial boon as well.
“Short term team members often want to commit to sponsoring
a child, which an important component of our financial
plan,” said Effinger. “Another component is our agriculture.
From our land, we hope to grow many or our own staple foods,
which will offset our food budget, the second highest
expense in the ministry. Finally, teams like to participate
in the development of the project. Every project funded or
partially funded by the teams is a help financially to our
program.”
When the campus is completed, Arms of Love hopes to be able
to support 60 to 80 children living on campus, with a
significant flow of short-term teams which will help support
the ministry. With this in mind, Arms of Love designed the
project to enable the volunteers to naturally integrate into
the lives of the children.
Arms of Love will begin construction on the second
children’s home this month and the third a few months
following. The long term plans include a basketball/soccer
hard court, a large swimming pool, a nice grass park with
swings and slides and possibly even a series of zip line
stations. (A zip line is a cable ride that stretches from
tree to tree. The property has numerous giant trees and
elevation drops that could make for an interesting zip line
experience.) An amphitheater, baseball field, and school are
also part of the campus.
With the completion of the team house so close, Effinger is
taking reservations now for the coming months. “We are
capable of receiving more than one team at a time. We invite
you to help rebuild the fabric of family in Nicaragua
through the love of Christ.”
^
Top
Love Transcends
All Barriers
Short-term ministry volunteer Jessica Rivera shares the
path that led her to Arms of Love Nicaragua and what God has
revealed to her thus far.
The truth of the matter is I never wanted to be a missionary
or do “short term mission work” that would involve more than
a week of my time. In my childhood and teenage
years, I had
a very strong notion that missionaries were frumpy; they
gave up American comforts and luxuries to live a life of
hardship in a foreign country. Not fun. Not to mention the
fact that as far as I knew missionaries had a specific
“Missionary Calling.” I was quite certain that I did not
have this “calling.”
In my early twenties, six months into my first “real job”
working at what appeared to be a glamorous, public relations
agency in Silicon Valley, I took a baby step in rethinking
my notions about mission life. I discovered that my job left
me craving to find something more spiritually and
emotionally fulfilling. Surely, I thought, there has to be
something more to life than this seemingly endless cycle of
work-sleep-eat-work?
Then in 2001, just before 9/11, I was laid off from a
start-up company. With my new-found spare time I considered
the possibility of an extended mission trip. The spare time
was an unexpected development and I figured, “why not?” I
began my research and compiled a sizeable folder of
information on missions’ organizations. I was particularly
interested in Africa or South East Asia and came to the
conclusion that it would be “cool” to work at an orphanage.
Things though didn’t come together, but my heart was
convinced that “going on a short-term mission of two or
three weeks was a worthwhile goal. I even surprised myself
by putting it on my list of “Thirty things to do by age 30.”
Then, in the next three years, life happened. Big LIFE. I
experienced concentrated life, like eating a big spoonful of
in-the-can frozen orange juice. In the wallop of intense joy
and pain, disappointments, victories, and survival, I simply
didn’t think about missions work. Roller coasters though
don’t last forever and at last, life stabilized. It
stabilized to a point that I realized I didn’t want to stay
in my job for too much longer (in spite of it being eons
better than the public relations agency) and that I would be
ready sometime in 2005 to take a quarter-life sabbatical.
(Okay, so I’m almost 28, technically I am past
quarter-life.)
Sabbaticals are not just for those individuals who put in
their 25 years of work and now want a little spare time to
catch up on good books and play a little golf. This is one
of the bigger misperceptions out in the working world.
Actually I think that sabbaticals can be taken at any time,
for any reason, and for any period of time. The only given
according to my definition though is that they should be a
place and a time of rest.
This is the part in the story when I’m supposed to tell you
that my decision to come to Arms of Love in Nicaragua
involved a significant
dream or a major epiphany. It did
not. I suppose therein lies amazing evidence of God’s hand.
It actually was the most natural thing in the world for me
to decide that the rest experience I wanted after four years
in the corporate world was living at an orphanage in Latin
America. Choosing the organization Arms of Love wasn’t too
dramatic of an experience either. It turned out to be a nice
“coincidence” that about a month before my departure I was
cleaning out some files and found a folder entitled “2001
Missions Ideas.” It was the very same folder of brochures
and articles I had compiled shortly after I was laid off a
few years earlier. In that folder, I found an Arms of Love
2001 newsletter with a large note scribbled across the top
saying “Think about this organization.”
Five weeks have passed since I arrived at the girls’ home in
Managua. Within the first week I knew this was one of the
best life decisions I could have made. I do not even think
twice that I quit my job or that my future is uncertain. The
baby steps of faith have led me to a season of time when the
yoke feels easy and light. Arms of Love just fits for me.
It’s like coming home after a long trip and smelling the
unique smell of your own house. You are home and you know it
and it feels good.
Before arriving I made two commitments to myself: 1) While
in Nicaragua, I would try to live and experience life in a
way that is completely different from my California, type-A
craziness. 2) I would put aside any planned expectations
about HOW my experience here in Nicaragua would be life
changing. This latter commitment is particularly important
because I have seen one too many Hollywood movies and I
often find myself looking for dramatic, extreme
circumstances to create life-changing moments. However just
as a tiny rudder has more power in steering a sail boat over
a gust of wind, so can quiet, daily occurrences in life
change us more than shining moments of glory or a sudden,
dramatic epiphany.
So what have been the rudders? What are the lessons that I
am learning in a new way?
-
Recognition that our human capacity to love and connect
with each other transcends all kinds of barriers. It is
enormously helpful that I am fluent in conversational
Spanish. However, I continue to be touched and surprised by
how I am connecting with girls and the two live-in teachers,
woman to woman, girl to girl. It really is a small world
after all. We share the same emotions, responses, sense of
humor, and fears, and at their core, we share similar dreams
for ourselves and the lives we hope to have. The laughter we
share when a rogue belch escapes after drinking a coke too
quickly, the butterflies we feel when a handsome guy is in
our midst, the sincere satisfaction we feel after buying a
new pair of shoes or cute clothes—it is life changing to
know how much I have in common with young women whose
backgrounds are vastly different from mine.
-
Confirmation that a program is only as good as the people
who implement it. The staff is extraordinarily kind. At a
quick glance, they make running a children’s home look easy.
It is sort of like watching Olympic figure skating, those
double axels and dizzying spins seem like mere strolls on
the ice, until you put on a pair of skates and find that it
requires massive effort just to stand up straight and keep
your ankles from turning inward. In reality though, whether
you are a champion ice skater or an Arms of Love staff
member, there are countless hours of hard, unseen,
unglamorous work. Day after day I see the girls being taught
the vital life skills of structure, self discipline and the
knowledge of how to care for themselves. There are good days
and there are bad days. Nonetheless, it is life changing to
see healing and wholeness built piece by piece.
-
Time builds trust. A few weeks ago a good, rolling
earthquake came through Managua, just before bedtime. All
the girls were frightened and so they hauled down their twin
mattresses, pillows, and sheets into the patio for an open
air slumber party. One of the older girls who had been
cautiously aloof and distant with me asked if I would share
her mattress and sleep with her. For me this was a golden
opportunity since sleeping on a twin mattress is kind of a
close and cuddly activity and not one that you usually do
with someone you distrust. We both awoke with bed head
looking at each other, giggly and feeling refreshed. Since
that slumber party more weeks have passed and it is with
utter delight that I am seeing a growing, genuine bond
develop between us. We have even come up with nicknames for
each other. Their former lives of begging in the streets or
living in horrifically abusive homes have given these girls
every reason in the world not to trust anyone. Crushing
disappointments from friends and other things gone wrong
have given me a few good reasons myself. Is it not life
changing that as we begin trust each other, together we are
re-learning how to trust?
There are many more lessons I have learned and probably a
greater number that I am learning and just do not recognize
them yet. The children have a very structured, simple,
constant rhythm of life. I want to fit seamlessly into this
rhythm, caring for them, loving them and building
relationships with them as best I can. Ultimately, I am just
another square in the quilt of support that is being woven
into the lives of the children at Arms of Love.
Editor’s Note: Jessica Rivera arrived at Arms of Love
Nicaragua on June 13, 2005. For an up-to-date account of
her “short term missions trip sabbatical” check out her blog
at
http://thoughtsfromelj.blogspot.com/
