Open Hearts Nicaragua - Farrington Family

Today is THE day in Nicaragua! Mother’s Day is so important here that all of the schools are closed and most stores close for the day…we think this is pretty awesome! And we want to recognize and celebrate Mama Angelica today. We had a great lunch out yestereday…to beat the “30 de Mayo” crowds…and had a wonderful time at Mi Vieja Managua restaurant downtown.

Angelica is such a wonderful woman of God, and more importantly a mother to dozens of boys and young men over the years. She has honored the calling on her life to serve the Lord, and God put her in the place to be a selfless and powerful influence on all the Robles Boys over the years.

It was sweet during the lunch when Maryel smiled and said his favorite thing was her cooking, and all the other boys high fived because they knew he would say that. Elery honored her with a big smile on his face saying she never gets too too mad at him, that is reserved for Maryel LOL! Denis who is in college now talked about the good counsel she gives and how patient she is with him. It was also so sweet to have Fredder in town from Matagalpa joining us for lunch. He had us tearing up reflecting on the last decade and how much he appreciates her even more now as a young man living on his own. The tough love he received, the instruction and good counsel, and the deep love she has. Fredder is going through that time that we all do, looking back and realize how blessed you were to have a Mother who loves you!

Please keep Angelica in your prayers. We love her so very much and honor her. Pray specifically for her health as a cancer survivor. There have been some signs of recurrence in recent weeks. She and Yuri are handling that head on with full faith and confidence. She will be receiving treatment every six months, and I know they would both appreciate all of our continued prayers! Total healing, in Jesus name!

Feliz Dia de Madre to all the mothers out there, those who have biological children, and those like Mama Angelica who have so many more than she could have ever given birth to herself. We bless all of you today on this Dia De Madre! YOU ARE THE BEST!!!

This is such a fun photograph from Night to Shine here in Nicaragua a few years ago. Teresa and her daughter Connie, heading down the red carpet! Connie is a beautiful young lady wonderfully made in the Image of God and her mother Teresa is an absolute champion of a mother and friend and hard worker in ministry at Club Esperanza!

Connie is 15 years old now and her health is definitely a challenge for Teresa to handle as a single mother. But Teresa fights and pushes through daily difficulties and some of life’s hardest questions…she loves and cares for her baby girl.

Right now Teresa can really use our help. That is why I am writing. Connie just had surgery on both of her legs, and she needs her mom full time…Teresa will not be able to work while Connie recovers. Additionally they will have extra costs for medical care, doctors visits, medicine, etc…

Please consider donating to help Teresa during these two difficult months. God can use all of us to provide for all their needs, and then some! Amen!!!

We want to raise at least $1,217

That is the amount Teresa calculated to cover the costs of the medical care, nutritional needs, and time off work…but I write “at least” because I know we can do more! Anything raised above this amount we will be a huge blessing for them!

DONATE HERE (or use a button below 👇)

If you want to follow up or have any questions about donating please email us at losfarringtons@gmail.com

Chris & Krista Farrington

While we keep Connie and Teresa lifted up in our prayers let’s keep this awesome worship song on in the background while we pray… “IMAGO DEI (Made in the Image of God) – Oh What a Miracle”

We are so very blessed by our friends, supporters and family who keep us in their prayers, donate to support our ministry, and love on us any time that you can. We want you to know that we are very thankful for that and do not take it for granted! Time flies sometimes and we let it pass without sharing updates on the different goings on, so in this blog post we want to catch up a little. Some might call it a mosaic, but we are ok to call it a scatter brained update on life in Nicaragua…Praise the Lord!

Teams have begun to return to Nicaragua in a post Covid world. We are so very thankful for that. The day to day of ministry can become a little bit overwhelming at times. Not just for us, but for all of our Nicaraguan partners as well. When we get to have visitors from overseas it brightens everyone’s day. The excitement of meeting new friends is delightful and the activities and projects the teams do add so much to our ongoing ministry!

This spring we had some special times out at Ruby Ranch with teams. Long time friends from Atlanta Georgia with Team Hungry came down and put on camp out at the ranch. This is such a cool organization, our friend Jeff is a public school teacher in the Atlanta area. He has a real burden for his students and created Team Hungry as a way to help his public school students have the chance to go out on missions. It was such a joy to have them back working hand in hand with us!

We also made some new friends with a group of college aged young adults from Louisiana. They are part of a camp in Louisiana and are looking to develop a long term partnership with a camp in Nicaragua…we pray for a great connection to Ruby Ranch. They also used their time with us to put together food packs for families at Club Esperanza. We had a great time delivering the packs and praying over the families that received them!

Spring Birthdays…Krista’s is actually tomorrow! Gigi turned 93 which is amazing. It is very fun for our children to have their great grandmother living here on the same farm in Nicaragua. Gigi moved down a few years after we did in 2005 and has been here in Nicaragua ever since. She joins the family for all our parties and gatherings with guests, and one of the sweetest things she does is write a personal encouraging birthday card to every one of us on our birthdays. Juliette turned 11 this spring and she got her card from Gigi as well as lots of gifts from friends and family. Check out the fruit plate gramma and papa had made for her!

This little house outside of the Managua city dump has been a place where thousands of people have received a special touch from the Lord. Miss Ruby’s house never closed its doors even after she passed away years ago. We miss her so much because she was such a powerful servant of Jesus and she let God use her to speak into so man lives. Imagine that. God meeting up with you in a little house right outside a dump. Our God is amazing.

We have had some amazing prayer times and worship times down at Miss Ruby’s House throughout the spring. We go by there with teams, we stop by with friends, we sometimes show up on our own to spend some time set apart in God’s presence. There is nothing quite like it in all of my Christian experience. Mr. Buzbee put together a facebook page where people can share encouraging stories…if you have one in your past that you remember, please share it here! We will all be encouraged, Praise the Lord!

We had a fun local happening down at Club Esperanza this spring as well. One of our long time friends teaches at a local school and they were planning a service day. So, he brought his group of high school boys down to serve at club esperanza. We had a good time sharing with these young men, praying with them for the area, and then they served. They packed up rice packs to be delivered, taught an English class that they came prepared to teach and then served lunch at our feeding program. Great work young men! God is with you!!!

Friends!!! Ah we so love having family and friends come down to visit…we had a wonderful wonderful time together and it is so encouraging. The airlines are opening back up, there are flights with American Airlines, United Airlines, and Spirit Air…along with Avianca who never stopped flying. So if you even have an inkling we would love to see you…we can also serve together too! There are so many ways we can put our hands to the plow down here and make a difference for the Kingdom of God!

Construction Zone!!! As we have a pause in teams for month here at Quinta Havilah it was time to pull the trigger on some major projects. We fixed the part of the fence that had fallen in the river bed, we replaced some pathways and driveways, we are always making improvements to the guest rooms with AC and hot water, and the most recent endeavor…raising the roof! Our giant dining hall ranchon is needing to have its palms replaced, it is quite the endeavor. But all will be finished up soon for the summer, so if you were thinking about coming down with a missions team….Send it!!! (that is what the kids say). We promise the kitchen will have a roof by the time you arrive!

We will finish with a little family update. Our little girls are getting so big, I got to have a daddy daughter time with them at a new coffee shop that has the fun drinks like they have in the States. We also splurged on some macaroons. Krista is doing well, though still recovering from the long covid that has effected her this past year. She so so so appreciates your prayers and really feels like she will be back to 100% soon. It has been a trying year, but Jesus has held her close and we have all drawn closer to the Lord with her. But she is ready to be better…please keep praying for Krista!

Aliyah and Mason are both getting so big and there are some fun plans ahead this summer for them. Aliyah will be working this summer at a camp in Pennsylvania and Mason will be going to camp in Maine. Mom and dad think we are ok with them being gone…but we really aren’t LOL! It will be the longest we have ever been apart, but these opportunities are so so fun for both of them!

If you have read this far we love you and want to pray peace over your life! Please know as often as we feel so blessed and covered by the support of others, we try to do the same! May your weekend be blessed with peace, fun and the presence of God!

Our family does live by faith as missionaries with the generous support of people like you. If you would like to support us please email any time and we can set something up. We would love to hear from you. losfarringtons@gmail.com is our email.

You can also find donation information by clicking here.

Chris & Krista Farrington

As you may know we are working towards a future of constructing an entirely new education building (or two) for Ileana’s School. We are doing our due diligence to get things done well on the front end working with engineers, architects designers and builders. But, in the mean time we needed more temporary classroom space! One of our neighbors offered to sell their land, so we pulled the trigger and quickly converted it into a new temporary classroom space! Praise the Lord! Here is a before and after video…

God is so good and we hoped this little video encouraged you this week. My little helper Abdiel is a champion, his future and the futures of the over 300 kids we serve and protect every day is what motivates us. We know that Jesus loves the little children and wants them protected as He speaks about in Matthew 14…let’s keep fighting together for God’s great purposes in these little ones’ lives!

Thank you for your prayers and donations to help keep things moving forward. We look forward to sharing about what happened last week, Master Plans are coming together for the future and it is exciting!

Stay tuned for that story…and please keep lifting us up in prayer!

There is a pretty commonly held refrain, “Water is life”. That is 1000% true, especially this time of year in Nicaragua when it is a million degrees, hasn’t rained in months and pretty much everything is dry and covered in dirt. But even more than that, at Ruby Ranch water is fun!!!

Sooooo we have a bit of an emergency. The 160 foot well of life and fun was acting up and needing some attention. Upon deeper inspection, there was some serious work to be done. Replacing old pipes, installing check valves, pulling the pump, all this on top of the routine maintenance.

Total Repair Cost: $3,059

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And so everyone must have ice cream!!! Sheyla our long time director posted these fun photos the other day on our Club Esperanza facebook page. This page is a great way to keep up with all of the daily happenings at the club, we post lots of fun pictures and little tidbits of information. It is in Spanish, but if you don’t speak Spanish don’t worry, pictures are like math and fun…they’re all universal languages!

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If you have followed our ministry over the years you might have heard about La Iglesia Hashem Adonai. Profesor Roberto, who is now Pastor Roberto, has been a teacher at our school in the dump ever since it began over twenty years ago. He has served for so many years faithfully to the poorest of the poor here in Managua. Almost five years ago now he felt a call into pastoral ministry after a couple of years taking seminary courses. Soon after we had a great conversation and Roberto started a church, meeting at Club Esperanza. Praise Jesus for that because God is using this little church to deeply impact hundred of lives!

Last year in the fall Roberto asked about the possibility of hosting a Men’s Retreat for his church. We talked and prayed about it. He had such a burden to get away with the men from his church and invest in them, encourage them, address their difficulties and insecurities head on, present them to the Lord and let God take care of them. The Lord gave us the idea to put on a retreat at Ruby Ranch during the winter break, but the details had to all work out. Well we put the word out to our home church Christ Journey Church in Miami and immediately we had movement on making this happen. Then just two weeks ago a group of men came down from Miami to join with a group of men in Managua to retreat together and grow closer to Jesus!

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Krista and I want to wish you a Merry Christmas from Nicaragua! Our lives are full and we are blessed this season to be the parents to our four lovely and handsome growing children! We are also very thankful for you who pray for us and support us financially! We committed to living by faith as missionaries over 17 years ago and our well has never run dry. We praise the Lord for that!

Looking into the New Year we know God has so many amazing plans for our lives down here, the lives we have an impact on, and your lives wherever you are…so cheers to the blessings of God on all of our lives this new year!

From everyone in our extended families at Casa Robles and Casa Havilah we wish you a Very Merry Christmas!!!

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Our Christmas party was such a huge success and we wanted to tell you all thank you so much for helping to make it happen! It was an incredible time filled with joy and fellowship, all of the children at Club Esperanza and their families felt so very loved. God is always encouraging us to push further and do better. We do all of this so that these little ones might be blessed, that they would grow in the truth and love of Jesus, and that they would be kept safe! Thank you for making this Christmas so special…

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Hello family and friends. Today is #GivingTuesday and we want to take this day to say thank you for all of you who continue to support and pray for our ongoing ministries down here in Nicaragua. We are faith based missionaries and are supported entirely by donations. We are proud that 100% of donations you make come all the way down here to Nicaragua!

If you are considering giving today or in the weeks ahead to end the year please consider helping us in Nicaragua. Maybe you would like to become a monthly giver, that would be amazing! There is a box to check for that option via Paypal and National Christian Foundation Buttons. We would be very blessed by any donation this giving season. Here are three recent posts with specific ways to give…

Our donation information is linked here…or use buttons at the end of this post…Thank you!

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