Submitted by Skip Winter
Seven members of the First Presbyterian Church’s Mission Team embarked on a journey to Nicaragua recently. All participants, Rev. Caroline Unzaga, Associate Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Cranford; Mark Cassidy; Lynne Fitzpatrick; Phyllis Dunlop; Jim Vanderhoff; Kelli Bruno; and Skip Winter experienced all facets of life in Nicaragua.
The journey began in Esteli, a northern Nicaragua community which had suffered many casualties in the Sandinista Revolution in the 1980s. Half of the group visited and met with representatives and families from Fedicamp, an organization that works with agricultural communities that desperately need clean and available drinking water and water for purposes of irrigation. While these individuals met in the village of Rio Abajo, the other half met to work on water projects in the city of Ciudad Sandino.
The two teams reunited and traveled south to the capital city of Managua to visit INHIJJAMBIA, a facility that works with street kids, many who are drug addicted and live on the streets in groups and fight for survival every day. Staying in Masaya, the mission team visited the construction site of the new home for Axazyacatl, a facility to assist women who suffer from domestic abuse and domestic violence. The January 2016 Mission Team had initiated construction and were pleased to see that their new home is now about 70 percent completed. Some team members spent two days painting while others traveled to villages to meet with people that are being assisted. The journey was concluded by spending a few days in Granada, a Nicaraguan city rich in culture, art, and history and visiting two of the schools where previous mission trips had done work.
As in past years, perhaps the most important parts of the trip were not only to learn about the rich cultural history and political turmoil of Nicaragua, but as a group, to work and travel together as a community of 12 to work hard, learn a great deal and have a good time doing it. An additional highlight of the trip was to have Kelli Bruno perform on stage in a restaurant in Masaya along with three brothers who are local musicians from Masaya.
The First Presbyterian Church of Cranford is located at 11 Springfield Ave. Cranford, New Jersey. For further information and mission opportunities please contact the church office at 908-276-8440.
(above, l-r) Skip Winter, Phyllis Dunlop, Kelli Bruno, Rev. Caroline Unzaga, Lynne Fitzpatrick, Jim Vanderhoff, and Mark Cassidy.
(above) Though Masaya is an urban city, one only must travel a short distance outside the city to see how many folks live on local farms.
(above) House with laundry; typical street scene in the urban city of Masaya. All wash is done by hand and put out to dry wherever space and sunlight is available.
