Open Hearts Nicaragua - Farrington Family
Open Hearts International Children's Relief Mission
Catching up with Things Round here…
Hello Hello Hello to all of our family and friends! We have been moving and shaking and living life down here in Nicaragua over the last few months….but I have been a poor updater and newsletter writer. But alas today I thought I would do a fun long blog of pictures and happenings with our family and ministry. We are so very thankful that you cover us in your prayers, it has been a difficult last few years in Nicaragua. And we really appreciate your financial support to all God is doing here!
We appreciate you!….Chris, Krista, Aliyah, Mason, Isabella & Juliette
We recently received a large shipment of Bibles donated by our friend Pastor Mike Booth at Calvary Chapel Managua. Among the Nicaraguan population in general there is a real desire for God’s Word, and almost as often as we are asked for help with a monetary need, we are also asked if we happen to have a Bible. Praise God for that, and praise God for this donation of over 1,000 Bibles. Daniel (pictured) has become the caretaker for Ruby’s Prayer House and is an awesome man of God. He spends his days when he isn’t able to find work sharing the Gospel on street corners and markets in Managua. He went through an entire box of Bibles the first few days. We are asking the Lord to bless these Bibles and use them to bring people into a place of having a personal relationship with Jesus!
You may remember Fredder from Casa Robles. He went through a pretty deep valley last year, giving up on his schooling at NCA, moving out of Robles and back into a very hectic life outside the dump with his family. But the God of the mountain tops is also the God of the valleys, and He met Fredder there. Fredder now has moved up north and is an apprentice in his uncle’s carpentry shop. He is learning hard work there and has also gotten a new perspective on life from the Lord. He volunteers at his church in Matagalpa, even leading worship and sharing a message during mid week services. Fredder is doing great personally and we praise God for that! These Bibles have been going up to Matagalpa by the box load too! Amen.
In our little homeschooling household things have been cranking along. I snapped this picture the other morning because it was too cute. Bella working on computer while she and Juliette sipping tea and Mason supervising the math lesson LOL! We are very thankful that God has given us the chance to teach our kids in the way we do. Krista puts in many hours and does an incredible job. This semester has some fun online experiences too with French class, English class, and special tutoring with Mrs. Kevin Randal. We appreciate your prayers for each of our kiddos as we raise them up…it is a joy and we need prayer! Amen that those two things aren’t mutually exclusive LOL!
The school year at Club Esperanza has started off with lots of excitement after the 2020 school year was so tumultuous dealing with the Corona Virus. We have made the appropriate adjustments and are getting back to normal as much as possible for our kids. We believe that God has us in this specific community for the specific purpose of affecting the lives of the children. So, getting school going for them has been a priority numero uno! Teacher Eliza started the year with an incredible project helping the students create art projects based on the Bible stories she was teaching them. It was so fun to watch them show off their work!
Another fun time at Club Esperanza this spring, was when Teacher Veronica turned her English lesson on naming all the fruits and vegetables into a life sized experience. Grapes, tomatoes, strawberries and more were seen wandering around the school yard on day in March…..it was lots and lots of fun!
Churches are slowly opening back up in Nicaragua and we have enjoyed getting back in to our community at Verbo Church here in Managua. But one of the fun times we had together during the pandemic, was gathering at Uncle Brinson’s house to watch church online with the family. It is always fun to get together with Krista’s entire family for church and lunch afterwards…we also had fun when other families would join us during the Spring.
In April we got to celebrate Mommy’s birthday! Gramma always gets up early on birthday mornings to make her special sweet bread….it is the best way to start a birthday morning!!! We would never mention any age after 29 but this one was the last of a certain digit and next year may be monumental! 🙂
Denis, Elery and Maryel are all doing very well adjusting to all of the crazy ways Covid has affected Nicaragua. Casa Robles has been an anchor for them and they are really thriving. Mama Angelica just got their report cards and both Maryel and Elery were on the Honor Roll! And Denis is going to graduate High School this year….we are so so so excited for that! But as everyone know around the world things have been slow….so when things are slow what do you do? You do puzzles! It may sound funny, but we have had the best time passing puzzles back and forth between our house and Casa Robles. We appreciate all of your continued prayers for Casa Robles!
We spent the big Spring holiday of Semana Santa out at the beach camping at Costa Azul! Mason found a way to turn a giant blue barrel into the best outside bathtub on earth LOL! We also had fun with our friends the Ohrans…our girls are such good friends with their girls and we had a fun time camping at the beach with them!
Speaking of the Ohrans….Jace, Todd and Brandon went to work out at Ruby Ranch doing a build of some awesome adventure bike tracks. These guys are incredibly talented and just go to work to build some exciting new things whenever they can. Things are still in the works but it was so fun to go out and visit them with Isabella while they had the bobcat in action! This thing is going to be EPIC!!!
As the world calms down with the Corona Virus we are definitely looking forward to getting camps up and running again out at Ruby Ranch. It is an incredible treasure and place that God will use to really impact the lives of anyone who has the chance to visit. Even in this slow time we have still been able to do some camps….check out the Ruby Ranch Website to stay updated!
After over a year of not cutting his hair, Chris finally yielded and cut it all off! It was a sort of silent protest against Covid….but the darn virus keeps persisting and it was finally time to get a trim. He was also getting ready to travel to Texas to help with a fundraiser for our friends at Austin Samaritans. They have partnered with us at Club Esperanza since 2007 and asked Chris to speak at their Spring Dinner. So he had to clean up a little bit!
It was a wonderful event to be a part of and we are very thankful to Austin Samaritans for being such a faithful partner with us serving the families that used to live in the La Chureca dump! We look forward to many more years partnering together with them to reach as many children and young adults as possible, giving them as much help as we possibly can to help them grown into young women and men who have great success in life and are grounded in the things of God.
Traveling to Texas meant passing through Miami. As I waited to get all the Covid testing to return to Nicaragua, I got to visit my family which was AWESOME! Uncle Matt and Aunt Reina have a new baby…..baby Levi is a miracle! He was born a bit premature and had some serious concerns and spent two weeks in the NICU. Reina and Matt got to bring him home a few weeks ago and he is such a beautiful baby boy! God heard all of our prayers and has been with the McDonalds through all of this……I was soooooo excited to get to meet my youngest nephew for the first time! I loved spending time laughing with all of the McDonald’s over meals, it was such a fun visit…and I got to spend time with my mom too, who is my favorite person in the world! We love baby Levi…he has an awesome mom and dad and some pretty awesome big brothers! I was very thankful to get a surprise visit home.
Covid has caused some major issues with travel and Nicaragua has been affected greatly. The testing and the protocols here have made it incredibly difficult to travel, there is only one flight each day….for the whole country! So as you can imagine we have many friends who are unable to visit….and they have friends down here who they occasionally send support to for medical issues or assistance in the economic crisis or many other things. Because we have a solid established footprint in Nicaragua over the last fifteen or so years we have also been able to help with any of these random needs that arise and make that connection from overseas to Nicaragua…Praise the Lord! It is one of those random things we are able to do, but it honestly brings a great joy to our hearts.
Lastly in our little family update was our weekend trip to Little Corn Island with the Boone and Booth boys. Nicaragua has so many fun places to see and this spot was one of them we have never seen before. It was also a good bye trip for some of Mason’s best buds here in Nicaragua. We love the entire Boone fam and are going to miss them tremendously as they follow the Lord’s leading back home to California. This was an EPIC trip together for the boys…..remote island, hiking and climbing a tower for the view, snorkeling in reefs and touching a shark, hanging out on the beach doing boy stuff…it was just awesome! We were super pumped to get to do this father son trip! And we are going to super miss the Boones…it is going to be a very hard good bye!
Well that is all from our little update…thank you again so much for caring about our family and about the work the Lord is doing here in Nicaragua. It is the best adventure we could ever be on, amen!
God bless you and yours….The Farringtons
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Chachi, Thank you for the email and all of the pictures and stories! What a joy to reflect and think about how God is using you all to further His kingdom. We continue to pray for you all. Keep pressing on! Jeff
On Tue, May 11, 2021 at 1:17 PM Open Hearts Nicaragua – Farrington Family wrote:
> Chachi posted: ” (Click here if this does not appear correctly in your > email…) Hello Hello Hello to all of our family and friends! We have been > moving and shaking and living life down here in Nicaragua over the last few > months….but I have been a poor updater ” >