Friends Helping From Afar…

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