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Out of Destruction, a New Beginning |
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Friday, 04 January 2008 11:32 |
Hurricane Felix disappeared from the news very quickly but left a trail of destruction in Nicaragua. Over $23,000 has been spent on emergency relief. In 2008 we will see the beginning some major rebuilding projects. Can we count on you to partner with us?
by Rev Eric Pennings
In my ministry of training church leaders throughout Central America for MINTS, (Miami International Seminary) I often have people wonder what it would be like to follow me around to observe what my ministry activities are like. Most of my ministry activities revolve around establishing study centers and visiting them several times a year to teach courses. One of the study centers is in Puerto Cabezas, located on the Northern Atlantic region of Nicaragua. These students had formed an informal interdenominational leadership training center among the Miskito indigenous population of that region called The Interdenominational Theological Seminary of the Nicaraguan Miskitos (SETIMN). A subsequent partnership with MINTS resulted in the formation of a more formal seminary which they called SETIMN-MINTS. So please accept my invitation to join me in my last two visits to this study center.  August 13-20 – We fly from Managua to Puerto Cabezas (located on the east coast of Nicaragua) in a small 13-seater airplane. During the week, you observe me preaching, meeting with the board of SETIMN-MINTS and teaching four conferences of eight hours each to introduce six courses which they will follow up on after my departure. One of the courses is “Christian Leadership”, another is “Worldview”. You note the challenge in these two courses for the student pastors to model a leadership profile that reflects the wholistic ministry of Jesus Christ in Word and deed.
September 3 – You sit with me in my home office in Brampton, Ontario and you watch me fidget nervously through the day. Hurricane Felix has devastated Puerto Cabezas, and we are watching “CNN-Hurricane Update” throughout the day. You listen in to a phone conversation I initiate with the administrator of SETIMN-MINTS to get a first-hand report of the damages. A brief (and interrupted) phone call determines that the damages are phenomenal.
September 4 – I make a phone call to Bernie Pennings, Director of Word & Deed Canada, to ask about the possibility of partnering to provide relief to the affected communities. Bernie requests specific information about the damages and the potential for the local church to coordinate such an effort.
September 5 - October 19 – You observe numerous emails and phone calls being made between Word & Deed and Puerto Cabezas, using me as a facilitator and inter-mediator. There are reports from about forty indigenous communities of lack of food and contaminated wells. An amount of $23,000 in emergency funding is transferred to Nicaragua. Promotion begins through emails and website updates to raise funds. Five MINTS students coordinate an effort among members of the churches they are pastoring to distribute food to 1,050 families, each of whom share the food packets with other affected families in the affected communities. Three students receive training in “well-cleaning” and three pumps are purchased. Over a period of five weeks, three work teams are organized to travel through the affected communities to distribute food and clean wells during the day, and invite the communities to a church service in the evening. You are amazed at the number of people from the community who come to hear the Word of God in churches without roofs. In many communities the cement slab floors are all that remain of the church buildings. You hear about one of the student pastors who reports on preaching in each community, “The Cleansing of Physical and Spiritual Wells.” This student explains how this past spring I taught a course on the book of Joel and how he is using his exegetical term paper on Joel 1 from the course as the basis for his message. You read the passage and are thankful to the Lord to see how effectively he applies his homework to this particular ministry situation.
 October 19-22 – You join Bernie Pennings and I in a visit to the affected area (this time in a 35-seater airplane) to do an investigation and to consider possible future disaster relief work in the area. You sit through over 12 hours of meetings with the five MINTS students over a period of four days. You watch as the meeting is conducted in Spanish and translated by me. You follow along as we intersperse those meetings with visits by land to eight communities in the plains. You see the destructive effects of the hurricane: roofless buildings, animals carried away, numerous injuries from fallen trees and flying debris (including sheets of zinc that whirled through the air like helicopter blades), crop destruction, contaminated wells. You see the smiles of the community elders as they thank Word & Deed for the food and well-cleaning efforts. You also hear a plea for further help in each of the communities.
On Monday you climb aboard a small motorboat to join us in making a two hour trip along the ocean to visit Dákura, one of thirteen communities along the coastal region, and home to one of the MINTS students. The student reports that he was “home”(quotation marks not needed) with his parents and extended family when the hurricane brought in water from the ocean that came as high as the neck, washing their entire village of 400 homes and three churches away. A death toll of thirteen is reported, eight of whom were members of this student’s immediate family, all of whom he buried before returning to Puerto Cabezas to help coordinate disaster relief for his people. You walk with us through what is left of the village as we meet with village leaders and pastors of the churches to hear the reports of the disaster. They report that other communities in the area experienced the same effects. You hear reports of depression as the indigenous villagers have no idea what steps to take to rebuild and the hopelessness in the realization that there are no materials with which to rebuild. Literally every fruit tree (which doubles as shade from the sun) is washed away. Huge trees that have been there for hundreds of years are uprooted. In the background you hear hammers and machetes as some villagers pillage the ruined forest area to build simple shelters from pieces of leftover materials that have washed into their area from surrounding villages. You listen to the villagers report their concerns: food, shelter, clean water, hygiene, and protection from a plague of mosquitoes and small biting flies, treatment of soil contaminated by the salt water from the ocean, rebuilding of the churches.  October 23 – On the eve of your departure, you sit in on a final meeting with the five MINTS students. Bernie reports that he is overwhelmed by the tremendous needs we have seen. He notes that he is impressed with their accomplishments to date and with the professional quality of the reports presented. He challenges them to consider forming a formal partnership with Word & Deed in providing necessary relief to the affected area. The students respond favorably with much enthusiasm (and accompanying trepidation, recognizing the responsibility). They meet together amongst themselves to formalize a new agency which will be supervised by the church which supervises the seminary, with the pastor of the church serving as the president of the newly formed board of directors. They name their new agency SETIMN-MINTS-Word & Deed. You celebrate with the students as one of them is appointed as the full-time director of the new agency. Potential specific projects are discussed which will be more formally presented by the committee for approval and implantation. A formal contract with a minimal commitment of three years is signed in this partnership between Word & Deed and SETIMN-MINTS-Word & Deed. A final prayer is offered by the newly appointed treasurer, dedicating these efforts to the glory of God, in the name of Christ through their churches, and in service to the Miskito indigenous population.  Please prayerfully consider generously supporting this new initiative.
Rev. Eric Pennings lives in Brampton, Ontario, where he works for Miami International Seminary (MINTS) as Regional Director for Central America.
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