Farming School of Hope

Recently we had the joy of traveling as a family with fellow missionary, Noemi Caiazzo, to the mountains. She has 2 feeding programs for kids who suffer from malnutrition and is in the process of starting a Farming School of Hope.

These villages are located way up in the mountains, about 5 hours from the city. It is only accessible by a 4-wheel drive vehicle or mule. As we are every day, we were grateful and blessed by our Speed-The-Light vehicle. We had the opportunity to go and share our hearts with the children in a remote mountain village, sing songs about Jesus and play. The mountain children are very shy and well behaved. We were so blessed! The children were so excited that people were coming, the word spread, and the kids lined the edge of the mountain, river and road. You can imagine their excitement when they saw our 3 little missionary kids get out of our car. Pure Joy! We all helped carry the bags of rice, beans, and oats that have to be brought in from the capital. (for now until the Farming School of Hope is going full swing.)

The next stop was the land that has been purchased for the Farming School of Hope. A small storage area has been built that will hold the construction materials and gardening/ farming supplies, as well as, house the gentleman that will teach the youth the necessary farming skills they need. Most kids in Nicaragua only complete the 3rd or 4th grade because they stop going to school to work and help provide for their families. The idea behind the Farming School of Hope is that the youth would have to go to regular school in the morning and then in the afternoon come to the Farming School of Hope to learn skills and apply them on the projects that have been started. This way, they will still get their basic education, plus farming school and discipleship. When they harvest the crops, the crops will be used to provide food for the feeding programs as well as for the families of the workers. The remainder will be sold in the market as income for the workers. There are currently 4 students in the program and they just had their first harvest of beans!! The week before we visited they had built a small greenhouse where they planted vegetable seeds. When we arrived we were all excited for the youth as the vegetables were growing quickly. A cow stable was in the process of being finished, so that the first cows can be purchased. The milk from the cows will also be used at the 2 feeding centers and for the families of the workers. Currently the youth that work at the school are in need of discipleship and that is where we come in. We are headed back up in a few weeks and we pray that God would give us direction, contacts and open doors to minister to these young people.

After visiting the land for the school, we went a little ways down the mountain to a larger community where they have a little corner store and a really beautiful Assemblies of God church where we participated in a Children's outreach. Hundreds of children walked from all around to come and hear about Jesus and many received him into their heart for the first time. What a blessing to see these little ones on their knees and receiving God's love. God is so faithful!

We are so grateful for Missionaries like Noemi that have allowed us to come along side and partner together to reach the children and youth of Nicaragua.