As Nicaragua develops the challenges people face changes. The church must be responsive to those changes. Chronic unemployment has always been a challenge to a majority of the population of Nicaragua. The devastation of the civil war of the 80’s and the changes in global markets in recent years have left much of the population of without options for stable employment. Major agricultural exports such as coffee are only now beginning to reach the level of quality demanded by world markets . The only real opportunities in manufacturing are found near the major cities in the factories of the so called “Free Zones” where garments are sewn with cloth produced in China or India destined for sale through mass retailers in the United States. These jobs sewing clothes pay as little as $25 per week for a 60 hour work week.

Many choose to try to earn a living selling items on the street or in the open air markets. They depend on the slim margin they can wrest from items as varied as religious icons to small bags of purified water that people buy to slake the thirst the tropical urban heat generates. As we consider the role of the Church in barrios that are populated with men and women who must strive each day to feed their families with very little income it is vital that we serve as a resource to those, especially those Christians who are working in small businesses, who show iniative

Biogas Digesters

As firewood becomes more scarce and bottled gas become more expensive the basic task of cooking food becomes increasingly expensive for most poor families. Based on a design used in Bangledesh we have installed 9 family sized biogas digesters. These simple digesters when fed regularly with cow manure produce enough clean burning methane gas to cook three meals a day for a family. Based on the experience we have gained with these simple digesters we hope to adapt the technology to mass produce a similar set up to make it an attractive alternative to any family having access to manure. Our hope is to construct a larger version that would provide enough gas for a family sized bakery as part of our small business incubator.

How to ship a John Deere combine to Nicaragua for fun and profit

As part of our small business incubator we are in the process of importing a John Deere model 4400 Combine into Nicaragua.

For several years a small group of rice farmers, one of whom is a member of one of our churches (Lesber Sotelo of Tipitapa) has been griping at me to send down a combine. Seems that most of the combines that harvest grain in Nicaragua are Fiat and Soviet Union era junk that was imported by the Sandinistas in the 80’s. Now these machines are more than twenty years old and are falling apart, they never were that great to begin with. Worse yet there are simply not enough of them to harvest the rice and sorghum that are increasingly in demand from the population. The rice growers in Nicaragua figure that each year they lose thirty to forty percent of their harvest because there simply are not enough combines to harvest the crop. Now here I am in a dilemma, the “bootheel” of Missouri, not far from where I call home (St Charles, MO) is the biggest producer of rice in the USA after California. California produces more rice than China, by the way, and with help from Uncle Sam, exports it to the far corners of the world at a price that makes it difficult for local farmers to justify planting rice, a staple crop. Why is that a dilemma for me? Well, when I go to the wholesale market in Nicaragua to buy rice for the street kid’s school lunches, do I buy rice that was raised in Nicaragua, benefiting the Nicaraguan rice farmers, some of whom are Christian brothers that I shake hands with on Sunday morning or do I buy USA rice for a nickel a pound more knowing it was grown in Missouri or California, harvested, packed, shipped, and imported into Nicaragua with the help of the taxpayers of the USA? Aaaguh!!!! I just want to see hungry kids eat, not debate global politics!

However, back to my rice planting brothers in Nicaragua, this I can do, with the help of many good folks in the USA, including Nathan Schnoutz and his friends, and Bill Beltz of the NICE Foundation, I can buy and ship a John Deere 4400 combine to Nicaragua to be sold to Lesber and his friends in Nicaragua. I hope that Lesber, Nate, Bill and I all meet up in Heaven some day and we can swap stories. Until then it will be enough to see that old John Deere combine out there cutting rice, some of which may end up in the bellies of the kids in the Street Kid’s Ministry. In any case it will contribute to the tithe of a godly brother in Christ which will ensure the ministry of the Gospel in the local church in Tipitapa.

Ramiro's biogas

John Deere combine

Vegetable farming

Grain sorghum

Medical team in Momotombo

Street kid’s ministry - Managua new classroom building