Prayer Letters
Here are our prayer letters that we write every three months. If you are not on our email list and would like to receive these letters, please sign up today. Enjoy reading!
December 1, 2002
Dear Friends and Family,
If
you could pick one gift to give the world for Christmas, what
would it be? I am sure that we would all come up with a wide range of
answers, but mine this Christmas would be hope.
After living in Nicaragua for about eight months, if there is one thing
that so many people seem to lack, even the Christians with whom we are
working, it is hope.
A couple of months ago I was invited to speak to a group of Christian college students who were in Nicaragua for a couple of weeks, and the most challenging question asked that evening was “Where do people find hope here in Nicaragua?” According to my faith in God, Jesus Christ is the One who gives hope – hope for now and eternally. However, if I was honest I couldn’t really say that I had seen any greater hope in many of the Christians I have come to know versus those that don’t believe. So where do people find hope or how do we help people find hope here in Nicaragua?
In October a medical mission team from my home church gave others hope by meeting medical and dental needs of people that otherwise could never have afforded the local doctor. A national doctor worked with the team that week and gave us hope in his desire to work with us in the future. Some of the churches where we have been working that have seemed so closed to any type of change have recently shown some glimpses of hope in their willingness to begin to reach out more to the gangs that run throughout their neighborhoods. I have seen a new hope arise when visiting a small church eight hours outside Managua with the news that a short-term team would be coming to stay with them in their homes and could offer leadership training seminars for their leaders as well as the pastors from the surrounding communities. Hope blossomed in the church of Loma Linda during their 14 th anniversary service, one-week after a team from Omaha had been there, as the pastor announced “We are going to begin to see some changes around here.”
All of these signs of hope may be small or seem irrelevant, but in a world where $7 is a lot of money and hopelessness and oppression are ever-present spiritual clouds, small changes can make a huge difference. When you light a fire, you start from the spark of a match and when you give someone hope, you start with a helping hand, a new opportunity, a small gift, the promise of positive change. From there the fire takes off to burn with as much hope as one will allow. However, in Nicaragua the forces against hope are strong, but we have been given the promise of the Lord that with Him we are stronger. As Christ for the City Intl. in Nicaragua we don’t want to give people a fire that has already been built and lit, but rather we want to be the spark that lights the fire of hope that we believe lives in each church, each community project, and each person through showing the goodness and the love of Christ.
Jesus Christ was the spark of hope that entered the world that first Christmas, and He chose us to be the fire of hope that would spread until He came again. So where do people find hope in Nicaragua? They find hope in change, in new opportunities and in a helping hand through people, like you and me, that are reaching out and lighting small fires. Some of those fires start by a new relationship with Christ, and others begin a path towards Him. Our hope is that the small fires that we have and will continue to begin will come to find their eternal hope in Christ and will then turn and reach out to help light a spark of hope to those around them.
May you be a spark of hope this Christmas to those around you!!
Seeking Him for life,
Amanda Van Deman
"dale una luz a los que aman tanto vivir en Nicaragua."
~ Guardabarranco (Nicaraguan duo)