Moderator

After an excellent breakfast buffet at the hotel that included my first taste of pitaya fruit (a bright red fruit with black seeds), Jose arrived at 8:50 in a CEPAD truck to take the four of us to the CEPAD training centre in Managua. The Director of CEPAD, Damaris Albuquerque, and the rest of CEPAD’s staff and board members were all waiting for us in one of the staff rooms for our orientation to their work and a quick overview of Nicaraguan history and culture.

Dr. Gustavo Parajon, a Nicaraguan medical doctor and Baptist pastor, was the key speaker for the morning’s orientation. Dr. Parajon is the founder of CEPAD, which began after a devastating earthquake hit Nicaragua at twenty minutes to midnight on 23 December 1972. The quake and its aftershocks completely leveled 300 square blocks of Managua and killed 12,000 to 15,000 people. Dr. Parajon was on staff at the Baptist Hospital in Managua at the time and had many links with the community. He arranged for an announcement to be made on the radio, inviting church representatives and community workers to gather together to discuss how to coordinate their response to the emergency. It was at this meeting that CEPAD was born. It has continued ever since through various government changes and revolutions as well as natural disasters such as Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

CEPAD is the Council of Protestant Churches in Nicaragua. They do relief and development work among poor communities, working through six different regional offices (what they call zones) scattered throughout eastern Nicaragua. They are engaged in many “on the ground” development projects as well as a school and their own radio station (radio is the most effective way to reach rural communities since many of the rural peasants don’t have TV).

After the morning orientation, we traveled to one of the zone offices about an hour’s drive south of Managua. After a delicious lunch (which included pitaya juice) and a quick orientation to the zone’s work and how they are organized, we traveled in a 4-wheel drive truck to the home and farm of one of the campesinos who had benefited from CEPAD’s training. Along the way we passed a town dump where several people were sorting through the garbage for whatever was salvageable. It was a good thing it was a 4-wheel drive vehicle. The dirt road was treacherous from repeated rains, yet it was still filled with people walking, biking, driving, or riding in horse drawn carts.

When we arrived at the farm house (built out of cement with cement floors, a tin roof and a bare light bulb in each room), we gathered to meet one of the community groups supported by CEPAD. While we were walking from the truck, the rain began to fall… harder and harder and harder. We all ran to the farmer’s house for shelter. With the rain beating down on tin roof over our heads and the thunder booming outside, the sound was almost deafening as the people shared their stories and Ken Kim translated. One woman, the secretary for the group, told how she had transformed a little patch of grass and dirt in her yard into a “kitchen garden” with many varieties of vegetables and fruits. The farmer explained how he was now planting a greater variety of crops with seeds provided by CEPAD, and he was also learning how to make and use his own organic fertilizer. “Organic fertilizer is better,” he said, “and it’s more economical.” “He sounds like a true Presbyterian,” Shirley whispered in my ear. When the rain subsided a bit, we trudged out to the farmer’s garden where he proudly displayed some of his crops and farming methods. When we returned to the truck, the road had been transformed into a river, but people were already beginning to venture back onto the road.

Hopping across one of the new rivulets that had formed from the torrential rain, we climbed back into the truck and drove to the farm of the group leader. He introduced us to his family and proudly displayed the plan he had made for introducing new crops to his farmland. He had discovered that as he began to put his plan into reality, he was already dreaming about how he could improve the plan even further. His eyes lit up as he showed us the plan he had posted on the wall of his home. I was deeply impressed by what these people managed to do with so little and with the sense of hope they had gained from their participation in the CEPAD projects.

We drove back to Managua along the same road, now made even more treacherous by the afternoon deluge. Yet even on this muddy roadway we met a taxi with five passengers inside and two in the trunk! We returned to our hotel wet and tired but inspired by the people we met and the stories they shared. As I looked forward to a warm shower, dry clothes and a soft bed, I wondered how the people we had just met managed to have such a hope-filled outlook in the face of such incredible challenges, and I wondered what adventures I would have tomorrow.