In my last post, I shared how we have decided to stay longer in Nicaragua. Many friends commented that the choice was inevitable, and while there was a large percentage of me that wondered from the very start, I can honestly say we wavered often, sometimes hourly.
Nevertheless, we felt a very strong pull to devote ourselves two three key areas here. The first two — Campo Alegría and the sewing project — you’ve heard about before. Wyeth’s dad started Campo in the late 90s. Although another family spent three wonderful years building up the program, they were eventually called back to the U.S. and the facility was largely unused for the two years following their departure. A significant part of these past nine months has been rebuilding the name of Campo Alegría here in Nicaragua. We are so thrilled to see the camp used often now. In fact, we have several American youth groups traveling here in June to hold camps for lots of local children. It will be an extremely busy time for us. We can’t wait. 🙂
But our work is not over. It costs approximately $1000/month just to keep the facility running, which is much more than we currently have coming in. We want to increase our monthly donations, but we also feel a responsibility to decrease our financial burden as much as possible. We have plenty of ideas on how to lower that cost (solar panels and a windmill are high on our list!) as well as how to make the program self-sustaining (such as with lots more rentals and groups), which we hope to put into action over the next 12-15 months.
The sewing project is also well underway. We actually have our first team coming in less than a month. This group of Americans will bring the funding, supplies, and knowledge needed to teach a group of pastors’ wives and church members how to create a product capable of being sold to foreigners. Some of those coming know how to sew, some understand how to run a successful home business, and others can help with “putting it all together.” We now have three prototypes… a string backpack, a purse, and a phone pocket. If all goes well, the U.S. team will be able to buy the finished products from the sewers, then sell the items in their churches and communities back home. There’s still a lot of work to do, and we’d love to find a few more teams to come before Christmas. (Hint, hint 😉
And yet, there’s something else. At first, we tried to ignore it, but the idea kept creeping back into our daily lives, over and over again for months. By the middle of last week — the very day we had to let the school in MD know whether we were returning — I practically begged God to show us what he wanted us to do. I needed to write the email turning down my daughter’s acceptance into the magnet program, but I was overcome with fear. What if we’re making a terrible mistake? Why would God possibly want us to stay any longer in this country? I cried out to him to show me the answer.
The response came into my spirit as audibly as I have ever heard it: I already have.
At that moment, I finally realized just how many times he had. For example, on each of the five preceding mornings, I had received daily reminders of the plan he has for us — an email here, a conversation there. I saw them individually as pieces, but hadn’t really put the entire puzzle together. And by continuing to ask for answers, it was as if I was completely ignoring those he had already given. There was no longer any way to avoid it: God is calling our family to adoption care, or more specifically, to care for families traveling to Nicaragua to adopt orphans.
I’ll talk a whole lot more in the next few posts. But in the meantime, I will let this video serve as an introduction to the issue:
Next: Why adoption care?
Note: This was originally posted on my personal blog in April of 2013.
Encourage and discuss here