Remote Assist - La Estrellita

     Jose Benito Escobar, better known as la Estrellita, is a community with almost 200 families living in a small neighborhood in the middle of a coffee plantation named “La Cumplida” that is part of a big hacienda located 160 km from Managua. Most of the people in this location live from what they earn working daily. They clean the farms with machetes, they work with the farm owners to fertilize their coffee plantations, and doing whatever comes to them to do with a salary of 150 Cordobas ($ 4.25 dollars) a day. Seventy-five percent of the population in this area are right now is in survival mode after this Covid 19 pandemic. This is because the farmer now faces a drop in prices of the coffee and the loss of many plantations due to coffee-leaf rust fungus and there is no money to pay the people for their labor. There were testimonies while we were sharing the Gospel of families that have not received any salary from their employers since April of this year. The saddest part of our trip was the fact that even though in this small neighborhood and in some of the places we visited there are a couple of evangelical churches, most of the people we visited do not know about Jesus Christ as Savior, and they have been taught something different about grace and salvation.

     I praise the Lord for Bethel Baptist Church and the team that comes from this church because thanks to their partnership we were able to carry the Gospel to this area. Our team was composed of some BMDMI staff members, two members from BMDMI’s church leadership, some help from the pastor of Santa Emilia and 2 church members, Juan Mairena pastor from our BMDMI church in la Estrellita and 5 of their members. Our plan was to visit 200 families in 3 days, and thanks to God we were able to accomplish our goal.

     One of our highlights this week was our visit to La Escalera, a community forty minutes away from La Estrellita. Pastor Cesar from Santa Emilia and pastor Juan Mairena from La Estrellita have been visiting this place doing a bible study every Wednesday. The house that hosts this Bible class is owned by sister Sarita. She was a teacher and the wife of the principal (profe Julio) from the school in La Escalera. They were usually part of the local committee that helped our teams in the past. In one of those teams brother Darrel Johnson, as he usually did, shared the Gospel to sister Sarita and she decided to repent and confess her sins to our Lord Jesus and she became a Christian. Now that our pastors were visiting the area, they got in contact with her, shared the desire they had and the need for a place to meet and the first thing sister Sarita said was, “I am retired now. I got saved because God brought a team here from your mission. Brother Darrel shared the Gospel with me. I am a believer and my husband and I have been waiting for this to have a Gospel and sound doctrine preached in a place to congregate. If you think we can start here, my house is open for you.”

     We all went and visited the community to share the Gospel. Our surprise was that many of the people who accepted the Lord with our teams were hungry and in need to have a place to worship and have a good Bible class. Thanks to the Lord we had almost eight people who came to our service that afternoon. It was a great time of singing to our Lord, but also a great sermon shared by pastor Raul Garcia.

     If you ask me was it worth it?

• I will say yes, 100% worth it, because our pastors and some members from the church are part of our Bible institute in a leadership and ministry program were able to serve side-by-side with their pastors and see in the field the kind of work the pastor and leadersip should be doing – discipleship.

• Another aspect of our evengelism teams is that all the members that are part of a team like this one have a time of fellowship and encuragement for one another like we have not had in other times.

• Leading this team, I am able to see that we nicaraguans are starting to learn that mission can be done by us and that our starting point is close to where we are. This is bringing a revival in the life of those who have seen what we are facing as a church outside of the walls.

     Is it worth it to repeat this in the future? I will say yes, if we get many people involved, supporting us and partenering with us as nationals, we can do it. God is putting it in our pastors, members and also in our national leadership that we just need to go back to the basics.

Omar Barquero

Teams Coordinator

BMDMI Nicaragua

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