Open Hearts Nicaragua - Farrington Family

Our family absolutely loves Thanksgiving, We are so looking forward to being with family, it is such a great Holiday!

But as you probably know, in Nicaragua Thanksgiving is not a Holiday. Christmas is already on everyone’s mind down here and all of the excitement surrounding it!

WE WANT TO ASK FOR YOUR HELP!

Our Christmas party at Club Eseperanza is only a few weeks away and we have over 300 presents to buy!

$30 – Buy Presents for 2 Children

$150 – Buy Presents for 10 Children

Or maybe you would like to buy more!

THANK YOU! …and please pray for these kiddos this Christmas season!!!

CLICK HERE FOR DONATION INFO

In our last blog we shared about friends who visited and really blessed us and we wanted to continue that theme. Our friends from Upper New York took some time this summer to partner with our church that meets at Club Esperanza. They blessed the youth of the church with an amazing time at Camp and followed it up by visiting the community and delivering food packs. It was such a special time. As they left they met a family who had just suffered a tragedy. The mother of two young boys in our school had just become a widow in incredibly difficult circumstances. She came to recieve a food pack but left with a time of encouragement and prayer and a touch from Jesus.

When we talked later about the groups time that day I remembered that the young mother had recently given us a letter asking for help. She was struggling to keep things together and one of the hardest things each day was not having a bathroom of their own to get ready for the day. They only had a wash bin and she gave her boys buckets showers over loosely placed bricks in the mud. It is sadly a very common situation in many homes here. But it was weighing so heavily on this young mother. Well from a far these friends took this letter home, shared it with their church…and two months later a brand new bathroom was built! Praise the Lord! It is so amazing some of the things that can be done from far away…please keep Crisbel and her two boys in your prayers!

Another awesome project on the same theme of construction was done by our friends from Pennsylvania. We had a family express their need for a concrete floor in their home. They are working hard and fighting for their kiddos and their family and they just needed a little hand to make life a bit less stressful. They even had a plague of scorpions invading because of the dirt hill behind their home, how crazy is that! So we got that mixer out and poured some concrete and blessed this family…it was awesome!

When those amazing folks were finished doing their hard labor they took some time to visit families in our neighborhood and they met Judy, a young mother who was recently diagnosed with cancer. What made the situation so much more difficult was that she was seven months pregnant. As you can imagine her story was very moving and these men and women of God took their time to lay hands on Judy, pray for her and pray for that baby in her womb. When they got back home they followed up with us, checking in on how she was doing. Well praise Jesus, baby Eric Alexander was born healthy and Judy has been able to begin her treatment for cancer.

And from afar these amazing friends in Pennsylvania followed up by making a collection to help provide for Judy in this difficult time. They sent a baby bouncer (which I had some little hands help me put together in the office at Club Esperanza), formula for baby Eric, a new stroller as he is growing, and some help for Judy in the moments when she is exhausted from her cancer treatment. We are so so thankful and blessed by men and women of God who help from afar!

We also have friends helping from a far on a large scale, like at the playground at Club Esperanza. If you have every been down for a visit you would remember we have an awesome playground that the kids absolutely love. But, it was on a dirt area and because kids are kids that led to lots of dirty kiddos with scratches when they went back to class after recess. Well, not anymore! A friend who visited this summer noticed this and said “hey why don’t we put in some turf.” In years past that would have been impossible, but in recent years we started seeing advertisements in Managua for just this sort of thing.

Well we looked into it, got some quotes, did some due diligence and now look at our AMAZING NEW PLAYGROUND GRASS! I tell you what, to be able to serve this community that is right outside the Managua city dump with something that is only found in other parts of town was such a wonderful thing to do! And you would smile so big if you saw all these little kids having pic-nic’s, running wild and being blessed each day. The sweetest thing of it all is, when they come to the playground they all take their shoes off. Nobody asked them to do this, they just think it is such a special spot and they take their shoes off to play. Is it ok to consider this sweet act by the kiddos to be sign that this playground is Holy Ground? Ok that is probably a little too much hyperbole….but it is a very special place! Amen, and thank you Lord!

Doing things with large impact from afar is not the limit to what can be done, we also had friends this Fall make a very DEEP impact from afar! We were not going to be able to have our camp for the Sixth Grade class this year and it was a very sad news to have to share with the kids at Club Esperanza. This camp is a highlight of the year for the sixth graders at the Club, a sort of right of passage as they head off into high school the next year. Then we got word that our friends from Colorado were going to be able to sponsor the camp from afar…..WOW WHAT AN AMAZING WEEK IT WAS!

Uncle Brinson has an amazing team from a local church who partner to put on camp in an intentional and impactful way. Fun is definitely the language of kids and we have tons of fun at camp! Aliyah was still in town so she got to be a counselor for camp, and so did Mason and Bella. This is so special for our family because with all our normal life of home school and sports our kiddos don’t always get to invest in the kids at the Club. Being able to have this camp was just a huge blessing all around. We had so much fun together in the bunk houses, the slide, the camp fire, the songs, the games…Fun Fun Fun! But as I was saying it was not just fun. The kids we serve have so many challenges in life and as we spent time together we got to pray for them, encourage them, and lead them towards Jesus. And this so so important because in the wildness of life, Jesus is the one who takes all of our burdens. It was so special as we saw several of our kids make decisions to give their lives to Jesus on the last night. Being able to have camp has made a HUGE and lasting impact!

We hope this is encouraging to you as you get here to the end. Our ministry is impacted by visits to Nicaragua but also by friends who help from afar!

If you would like to donate to help us keep serving here, it has a Huge Impact! You can find donation information by clicking here or use one of the buttons below.

We are so thankful for your prayers and support for our family here in Nicaragua!

The Farrington Family

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” – Colassians 3:17

We never had the chance to sit down and recap the summer for a number of different reasons, but we wanted to take a little blog space and say thank you to all of our friends! You all took your vacation days and made the trip down to beautiful Nicaragua. We were so so blessed to have you stop in with us to lend a helping hand….THANK YOU FRIENDS!!!

Our friends from the great state of Texas visited and did something amazing. At the Club we have a new program focused on early childhood development. We have the opportunity to help mothers with newborns focus on the development of their children from the earliest moments of their life. We needed some supplies for the new space and BOOM, look at all the awesome resources!!!

Our friends from Pennsylvania came by and did some amazing hard work blessing a young family with a concrete floor. It was heavy sweaty labor, you may have seen some of our stories on our social media. It may have been the same day the Florida Panthers won the Stanley Cup and I may have been running around the worksite being ridiculous! These awesome folks also took our kiddos on some really fun feild trips to the fun Nicaragua Zoo and out to the Ranch for a fun day!

Our friends from Atlanta stop by every year to faithfully paint at Club Esperanza. You wouldn’t believe the amount of dirt that quickly gets all over our walls. We love their faithfulness to help doing this and they add a special touch each year. Our 6th grade class are in their last year of primary school before graduating heading to high school. So we take this time to have them put their handprints on the wall and leave their mark in a special way on their school!

Speaking of dirty walls. Thank you to our awesome friends from Oklahoma for stopping by and blessing the kiddos at the Club with all kinds of awesome activities. As Jesus calls us to serve and do the simple things, we were most thankful that they took some time to clean classroom walls…like I said our setting leads to some mega cleaning needs!

Oh how we love to have friends come and visit with their families. It was so great to see our friends making their travels back to the land of Nicaragua that they love and is part of their life story serving Jesus here. We loved getting to see the Deiberts! We were also blessed to have a visit from friends from my days back getting saved and forever changed at University Baptist Church in Miami…so many years have passed and it was sooooo awesome to have the Parsons come down and visit and serve with us for a week! We all suddenly have all these big kids!!!

We were also blessed by friends and family new and old who visited and took us on their vacation!!! We always have fun whether serving and sweating in the hot sun or taking a break for a few days in the hot sun…this trip down to the beautiful Nicaraguan coast with the Booths and Putnams was Epic!

And then lastly we wanted to thank all the young people who came down individually to visit and to serve with us this summer. Arielle from Tennessee, Judah and Trevor from Colorado, Katie and Ashleigh from Oklahoma…this was such a crazy fun summer getting into all sorts of good Jesus things together! I think this picture captures it best….worshiping the Lord in prayer under His beautiful creation!

One last picture…..Mason is 18!!!! We love our son dearly and are so so proud of the strong and faithful young man he is! Thank you for your support for our family and your prayers over us! We are blessed by your support!!! If you would like to support our mission you can find donation information here.

Blessings from Nicaragua!

Chris & Krista Farrington

Those of you who have followed our ministry for many years would know Denis pretty well. He has been a part of our extended family at Robles since he was a boy. He has grown to be a solid young man and we are blessed to know he loves the Lord and is well prepared for life. At the end of this summer Denis is striking out and giving a go on his own.

Life won’t be without its challenges, and temptation will be constant in some environments. But he is ready and prepared and has been blessed by Mama Angelica and Papa Yuri with a great foundation.

So please cover Denis in prayer! Pray for him to find a perfect job. Pray for him to be a light and a good influence wherever he goes, and that the bad influences of this fallen world be held far far away. That he would step out in a strong way and live well and be blessed! Amen and Amen!

“So that they might be called Oaks of Righteousness (Robles de Justicia), the planting of the Lord to glorify His name”

• Isaiah 61:3 •

Thank you for your prayers and support for our ministry in Nicaragua.

If you would like to support our ministry please click here

Hello friends, we have a pressing need for the children in Walakitang where we support a church planting effort with Pastor Victor and his wife Damaris. Walakitang is in the indigenous region of Nicaragua, it takes two days on the river to get there…it is very remote!

Damaris is the local school teacher and all of her kids can come to school for free but nobody can afford to buy school supplies. They recently had a plague on their crops and resources for basic living are scarce in the region. Damaris is asking for help for her children and we want to answer!

There are 95 children.

We want to raise $12 per child

Total: $1,140

If you would like to join us in helping these children please use the links below or find info for sending a check here.

As you are getting ready for school to start again in America, we would be so blessed if you helped this group kiddos down here in Nicaragua!

Thank you friends! God Bless from the land of lakes and volcanoes!!!

Chris & Krista

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Here at the footnote of our blog I would like to share a Bible verse that encouraged me this past week. Have you ever fasted? Krista’s mother Sue faithfully fasts every Monday for all of our ministry and family and all of the other concerns in life. We often join her, and Aliyah has been faithful this summer in fasting with Gramma every Monday. What I love about this verse is that it captures why we fast, it leads us to the truth behind it and the religiousness we leave behind.

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What an amazing thing to consider! As we fast, and in our fasting we serve others….”THE GLORY OF THE LORD WILL BE YOUR REAR GAURD.” Amen to that…The Lord has got our back! I hope this encourages you to draw closer to the Lord in your personal life AND to serve in ways that overwhelm others with God’s love for them. God has got your back.

Before we jump into a hodge podge of news and family updates from the Spring, we want to take a moment and ask your for you support for our family as missionaries. We have been able to serve the Lord here in Nicaragua for almost twenty years now, and we have always lived as “Faith Missionaries.” We don’t have a salary or a big organization behind us. We live and serve here by faith knowing that this is what God has called us to and that God will provide. So, if you have ever thought to or prayed about financially supporting our family…please do! We would be so blessed by that. We are so thankful to God for all of the support we have received over the years.

You can find donation information here…or use the National Christian Foundation and PayPal buttons below…Thank you Amigos!

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Happy New Year friends! In February we will be starting a new school year at Club Esperanza here in Nicaragua. We have a construction project that we are hoping you might be willing to join us in accomplishing. Over the last year we purchased an adjacent property to Club Esperanza and we are in the process of remodeling the existing structures to provide desperately needed classroom space for this coming year! Here is a short video explaning what is happening…

The estimated Cost of the project is $15,098

TO DONATE CLICK HERE OR USE ONE OF THE BUTTONS BELOW

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