We want to thank the many churches, businesses and people who are partnering with us to serve the people of Nicaragua.
We will be stateside August 17, 2011, through January 17, 2012. This is our first real furlough since we moved to Nicaragua almost 10 years ago. We will be using this five month furlough to get our boys back into college, address some medical needs that have came up with Lola and traveling to many states sharing and giving reports to our great partners and friends. God has been faithful to New Life and we are excited about sharing with as many of you as possible, as well as meeting new friends and partners. The ministry is growing rapidly as are the needs but we are continually amazed at Gods work and provision. He is faithful!
We have started getting our travel schedule in order and would love to hear from you if you are interested in having us come and share with your church or group. You can contact us as always by email or Facebook or by phone before August 17 at 864-641-1116. After August 17 at 864-497-8300. We look forward to hearing from you and most of all loving on so many of you for your faithful sacrifices to the people of Nicaragua and our family. We also look forward to meeting new people who may have a heart for this Nation. Please pray for us as we travel to share what God is doing here and pray for the ministry and projects that we have left in good hands.
You are always in our prayers and we are eternally grateful for all our friendships.
Since our last update was in November, this will be a long update. To be honest, the latter part of 2010 and the first part of 2011 has been a mixed bag of good and bad. One of the highlights of the last few months is that New Life has been chosen by the San Damiano Foundation as the subject for their upcoming full length feature film documentary. The working title for the film is "Beauty from Ashes...Search for a New Life in Nicaragua". Back in March, Dina Demetrius, the producer, and a professional film crew followed us filming our interactions with the Nicaraguan people. They are coming back in June to shoot more footage and historical background on Nicaragua. We are excited about the posibilities for this film. Not just for New Life but for the San Damiano Foundation and their vision, to harness the power of film to make known the plight of the poor. Below is one of the trailers for the film.
The Nutrition Center & Orphanage
On the good side, we've seen God's hand work mightily on behalf of the children that we love and care for. Many of the children that were in our orphanage have been adopted to loving families and homes. Some of these children have been with us since birth. While we are very attached to the children God places in our care, we know His perfect plan is for these children to be in loving families where they will be loved and cherished and given every opportunity that this life can afford them. We thank God for the time we have with them and the opportunity He has given us to sew His seeds and demonstrate His love in very practical ways. A number of children have also been placed into foster care, mostly with North American missionary families. This government has taken some very positive steps toward getting children placed into homes with families and that's a good thing.
Relief & Development: Cristo Rey
The ministry in Cristo Rey has grown dramatically over the last year. Since we've began we've served approximately 84,000 meals feeding on average 175 children per day. These families live in extreme poverty and for most of these children it's the only meal they have opportunity to eat each day. Another aspect of our ministry is building homes for families living in tents made from black plastic and tree limbs. To date we've built 43 homes in Cristo Rey. When you can bless a family with any one of the basic necessities of life; food, shelter and water, it is life giving and life changing. These families are so grateful and overwhelmed with God's goodness that we've seen that the majority of them make first time decisions and re-dedications to Christ. We've also been buying beds for some of the families there. To be honest I've lost count of how many we've bought but I know it's quite a lot. We are also noticing a disturbing trend taking place in Cristo Rey. As the dump in Managua is being closed and the families living there are being relocated to Cristo Rey, we are noticing the dump in Cristo Rey is growing by leaps and bounds, meaning that the people that live in Cristo rye will be going back to the only source of income they know - picking through the garbage for food and anything of value. Please pray for the people of Cristo Rey and that the Lord will give us wisdom as we go forward with ministry there, because the needs are great and the opportunities are many.
Our Ministry Property
Last year, Nicaragua received the most rain in decades.The total amount of rainfall exceeded the amount that fell when hurricane Mitch devastated the country. Entire communities of people were flooded out and left homeless. At one point over 16,000 people were living in shelters. Everybody was affected. The only way to get our food and building supplies into Cristo Rey was on horseback. Also, our ministry property and warehouse was flooded and we suffered a huge setback there. We lost about $25,000 dollars worth of donations, appliances, furniture, etcetera. It was a huge mess, but thank the Lord, he sent a small army of hard workers from NewLife Community Church and LifeWay Community Church to help us clean up the mess and take stock of our losses.
Thankfully, good things are starting to happen again on our ministry property. After years of waiting on city hall to approve our building project, they have finally given us the go-ahead. And while the flooding was horrible, we are thankful it happened before we put children on the property. Our architect is modifying the master plan after to accommodate changes we've made for the orphanage and guest facilities and any future flooding issues we might have to deal with.
Medical Missions
The medical missions aspect of our ministry continues to grow under the leadership of Dr. Jeff Link. Jeff has a license to practice now and he and a Nicaraguan doctor have opened a clinic where they see patients. Jeff and Kristi continue to make trips from their home in Michigan and they are spending more and more time in Nicaragua. We so appreciate them and the commitment they have made to New Life and the Nicaraguan people. Jeff continues to lead teams of medical professionals to Nicaragua bringing health care to people living in very rural communities. On three occasions they've brought their teams to Cristo Rey and given away thousands of dollars worth of health care and prescription medicines. He is also teaming up with other organizations performing cleft-pallet surgery on needy children. This is meeting a tremendous need for the poor who can't afford decent medical attention.
Bagwell Family
A lot to tell about our family. Our family is quite large now - Tim, Chis, Brad, Abram, Jacob, Jennifer, Lola, Mercedes and Gabriela. If you had told me when I was younger that I would one day have a family of nine, I would have laughed at you. I guess the Lord is having the last laugh because now I wouldn't have it any other way. Brad owns and operates a small business in Bluffton, SC. Abram has just finished his sophomore year in college in south Florida. Jacob is graduating high school and leaves in a month for South Carolina School of Leadership. After a year there he will begin university. Jennifer, the oldest of our four adopted girls is just finishing the seventh grade. Lola, our six year old became a US citizen last year. Mercedes and Gabriela are two sisters that we adopted. Both of the children have fetal-alcohol syndrome but both are doing quite well. Mercedes, our three year old is finally starting to put two and three words together. Gabriela at one and a half seems to be overcoming a lot of her issues with physical therapy.
On May fifth our family celebrated our ninth year in Nicaragua. I can hardly believe we are in our tenth year here now. We have lived here these nine years in very good health but last year we took some hits. In August, Jacob got hemorrhagic Dengue Fever and was hospitalized for some time. This is the type of Dengue that kills so many people world-wide. Praise God, he made a full recovery without any long lasting effects. A couple of weeks later I got Dengue. This all happened about the time the flooding began. Chris was in the States and I was too sick to get out of bed and do anything about it. My hemoglobin levels dropped to a dangerously low point. One more point drop and they would have admitted me to the hospital as well. A week or so later, Gabriela got Dengue as well. Her's was a relatively mild case and she recovered fine. Nine years living in Nicaragua and we never had Malaria or Dengue. Now, three of us had it within two months of each other. Then in March, Chris started having episodes where her blood pressure would spike then bottom out. This progressed to the point where she was having severe dizzy spells and eventually she started having heart attack symptoms and passing out. We rushed her to the emergency room and they admitted her to the I.C.U. Over the next several days they ran a battery of tests and told us that she had a heart arrhythmia and a blocked artery and that she would eventually need a pacemaker and a stint or possibly open heart surgery. Needless to say, our world was turned upside down. They wanted to do the procedures here in Nicaragua but we thought it would be better to send here home to South Carolina for what was coming next. When she got there her condition worsened. She was admitted to the hospital and seen by a top cardiologist in Spartanburg. He agreed there seemed to be a blockage, probably in the back of the heart. She was covered in prayer by so many people. Thank you everyone, God was listening. She came out of the heart-cath with the doctor saying her arteries were fine. He then called in a gastroenterologist, long story short, after many tests he found three ulcers, which had nothing to do with the heart symptoms.They said she must have had a virus around her heart that caused periocarditis, an infection and swelling in the lining around the heart, but it was gone. No more blood pressure problems, heart-attack symptoms or arrhythmias and her liver enzymes are slowly returning to normal. Praise God, we are thanking Him for the outcome. It could have been so much worse. However; this did have a devastating effect on us financially. We had over $7000 dollars of medical bills in Nicaragua. It came at a bad time when we are struggling to make budget anyway.
As I said earlier these last few months have been a mixed bag. A lot of non-profits saw their donations fall off drastically last year. We've experienced that ourselves. We are probably operating on less funding now than we did when the stock market crashed at the end of 2008. But praise God we are still here. Many of the non-profits have had to close and many missionary families are leaving Nicaragua for lack of funding. But in all of this, God has been sufficient for New Life. He knows what we need and we are trusting Him! I really want to thank all of you who have stood by us over the years. Those who have come and worked beside us to accomplish the vision; those who pray for us and hold our arms up when we become weary and those who have given financially. Your faithfulness and encouragement has kept us going. Chris and I know our shortcomings, particularly in the area of communicating with you, and yet, you remain faithful. You are not focused on our shortcomings, your focus and giving is as unto the Lord, and He will greatly reward you. It's easy for me to say that, but it's so very true. There are some changes coming in the next few months that will give Chris and I the freedom to travel and speak and communicate more effectively.We are very excited and positive about the future and the vision the Lord has given us for the people of Nicaragua. Thank you, thank you, thank you, and may God pour out His abundant peace and blessings on you and your families.
Finally, if you have tried to communicate with us over the last few weeks and we haven't responded please be patient. I got overwhelmed while Chris was away trying to keep up with everything that Daddy, Mommy and ministry required. Chris has been home for a few days now and we are trying to get caught up. Thanks for your patience!
It is so exciting to see the Lord using New Life Nicaragua as a channel for His blessing to people living in extreme poverty. Tomorrow morning, New Life and interns Anna Sustar and Carly Comparet, will head out to Cristo Rey with Pastor Scott Woodard and a group from NewLife Community Church in Clayton, Georgia, along with Pastor Mike Abbott and a group from LifeWay Community Church in Sylva, North Carolina. Our goal is to build new homes and help relieve the suffering of 5 families living in houses made out of black plastic and tree limbs.
Some of the team members will be working on the construction while others will be doing outreach evangelism and praying with the families and kids. Other members of the team will be working alongside our employees and serving the children in our feeding program. It will be an intense 2 days of very rewarding work. The reward will come from the expression and tears on the families faces as they take possession of their new homes and knowing that the Lord used us to channel His blessings. We are believing God for great things this week. Can't wait to see what happens. I'll follow up with pictures when I can.
How many of you have ever been on a camping trip? I'm not talking about a trip to Lakewood Campground in Myrtle Beach with golf carts, permanent camp sites and all those crazy activity directors. I'm not even talking about a KOA campground where you set-up a pull-behind with electricity and bath houses. I'm talking about a "rustic" camping trip that takes you out into the wilderness where you set-up a tent, build a fire and go to the bathroom behind a bush. The first thing you do is put up your tent, which is made out of fiberglass poles and some nylon. It's a very basic shelter that serves the purpose unless it starts raining. You had better zip it up tight though, you don't want the creepy-crawlers in your tent. Then for cooking you pull some large stones together and set out to find firewood. Hopefully you'll find some dry wood that's ready to burn, but that depends on if it's rained lately. Next you find a place with privacy and dig a latrine away from the campsite so that everybody can have a place to use the bathroom. I hope you have enough food and drinking water with you. You will need all three, food, shelter and water to survive in the wilderness.
When I was younger I did a lot of this type of camping. I enjoyed being in God's creation, camping on the riverbank and catching lots of trout. But there were some things I didn't like so much. Like being smelly and dirty all the time. Being on guard for snakes and the mosquitos. And waking up every morning and everything is damp and wet. Trying to keep a cooking fire going all the time was difficult as well, especially when it was raining. And going to the bathroom in the woods, especially when you run out of toilet paper; I don't even want to talk about it. After 3 or 4 days I'm always ready to come home to my comfortable bed, a hot shower and a refrigerator full of food. The wilderness is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.
Unfortunately, about 860,000 Nicaraguans do live there and live in much worse conditions than I described in my camping trip. They live in extreme poverty on less than $1.25 per day. They can't leave and go home. There is no warm bed, hot shower or refrigerator full of groceries waiting for them. They live in homes made out of black plastic and tree limbs. During rainy season, the dirt floors in their homes become saturated. When they get out of bed in the morning, they put their feet down in mud puddles. Many don't have clean water, access to healthcare, or education for their children. They go to the bathroom in holes in the ground, without so much as a curtain for privacy. When the rains come their latrines fill up and flow out into the pathways where their children walk and play barefooted. Skin diseases, parasites and respiratory illnesses are a way of life for these people. Many of the families only eat one meal per day, some not even that. Severe malnutrition plagues their children. They usually live in very rural areas where there aren't any job opportunities so they end up in the municipal landfills scrounging through trash for anything of worth. This is a hard life, and there faces and bodies tell the story.
In 2009 we began a ministry through our Relief and Development Alliance to a community of people just like this. It's called Cristo Rey, which translates "Christ the King". As of October 2010, around 3000 families are living there, many of them refugees from communities in and around the landfill in Managua. Since January we've established a feeding program for 150 of the most needy children and built about 26 new houses from the ground up. We are also buying beds so that the children don't have to sleep on the ground. This will go a long way toward keeping the children healthy and keep them from being bitten by field rats at night. We've posted some good pictures on the Flickr website. You can also watch videos on Vimeo and YouTube.
We sincerely hope that you will pray for us as we continue to try to meet the many needs of the people of Cristo Rey. If you would like to donate toward our work in Cristo Rey click HERE. To read more about our ministry there then please click HERE.
After way to long, updates are coming to the website and blog. As the ministry grows Chris and I are finding it increasingly difficult to keep you caught up on the happenings in Nicaragua. And to be honest, Chris and I are having a hard time just keeping up ourselves. The Lord continues to give vision and open doors, and Chris and I are being as faithful as we can to walk through them. This translates to added work and responsibility for Chris and myself. But, help is on the way. Many of you have heard us speak of our ministry partners, Jeff and Kristi Link. They will be contributing more to the website and a new email newsletter that we will be publishing soon. We will also be looking to some of our visiting teams for testimonies and their own personal perspectives of the work going on here. All in all, you can expect to see changes in these areas in the coming months.
New Life has given birth to another area of ministry in 2009, and many of you don’t know about it. New Life Nicaragua’s Relief & Development Alliance. We’ve been referring to this ministry as Cristo Rey because that’s the name of the neighborhood where it all started, but we know there will be more barrios in the years ahead. While we’ve done projects like these in the past they’ve mostly been one-off projects. Our Relief & Development Alliance represents a new ministry emphasis and commitment to the those that live in poor communities all over Nicaragua. Look for the link at the left to read about this exciting new area of ministry.
Once again, we want to thank all of our ministry partners. We couldn’t have accomplished anything in Nicaragua without your prayers, faithful giving and working alongside us. I know we don’t say it often enough, but you are much loved and appreciated.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
