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Community Corner

A Bit of Broadneck in Nicaragua

The 17-year-old young man knelt down in the dirt and fit the shoe onto the bare-footed woman. He had met her just the day before as his group walked through the streets of her impoverished village outside Managua, Nicaragua. The group greeted people in their homes and asked if anyone would like to be prayed for. Every home said yes and every home spoke of basic needs, food, shoes, and work. After hearing so many requests for food, the team met and pooled the money each had brought for souvenirs and headed to the local grocery store. 30 families received heavy sacks full of rice, beans, oil and other needed items.

The team, 36 strong from Broadneck Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Arnold, traveled to Los Brasiles, Managua, Nicaragua for a week long mission trip. They joined two Broadneck High School graduates, Paul and Jenny Kavanek (nee Steinweg) in their service to the poverty stricken village. Paul and Jenny’s vision is to help provide the very strong community with some basic necessities; food, shoes, shelter and the Word of God. Los Brasiles, while a tight knit and sharing community, suffers from the same thing that ails America, the breakdown of the family. After visiting dozens of homes, only three had a father present. Crushing poverty and tough conditions are the outcome for the many single mothers struggling to raise their children.

Daily downpours during the rainy season wreak havoc on the people’s few possessions. Heavy black plastic is used to wrap houses from top to bottom. It is difficult work because the houses needing the waterproofing are very flimsy and haphazardly constructed. Sticks, bits of corrugated metal, old signs, scraps of wood, string and a few nails are all that hold some of the homes together. Just finding a piece of wood in the home to nail plastic to was difficult. Yet this simple piece of plastic meant so much; sleeping in a dry bed, walking on a dry dirt floor instead of a muddy one, keeping food from getting drenched and spoiled. It was satisfying work for our Western mentality of accomplishment yet it was just as satisfying to meet  and speak with the mother of the home, requesting her direction on how she wanted the work done and seeing her happiness at being able to put her baby to sleep in a dry crib.

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A concrete soccer court sounds like a crazy idea but after the monsoon downpour that met the team, all the Americans started to catch on to this radical thought.  A Nicaraguan foreman was hired for the astronomical sum of $20/day, and the team got to work mixing cement. Two wheel barrows of sand, one wheelbarrow of gravel, one bag of cement and four buckets of water was the recipe. Every youngster in the community wanted to be a part of building their soccer court. So maybe one batch of concrete had five buckets of water instead of four, and maybe the five-year-old Generalissimo, Isaac, bossed all the adults around and ran over a few toes with the wheelbarrow, and maybe a few team members had cement splashed on them by a 6-year-old in a cast-off flower girl’s dress furiously mixing cement with a hoe bigger and taller than she, what difference does that make?

While the “flower girls’” dress was obviously the six-year-olds pride and joy, it may well have been her only dress. Many women from Broadneck EP Church and beyond had vision months ago to bring brand new dresses to the girls of Los Brasiles. Over 70 pillowcase dresses were sewed and decorated over the past six months in preparation for the trip. Kim Stewart, Nancy Martin and Gina Hopkins all from the Broadneck Peninsula, delivered many dresses of varying sizes to each girl and let her choose the dress she wanted. Kim expressed that for some, it was obvious that they had never been given a new dress or even a choice before.

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Adam Walden from Arnold was moved to meet one physical need in a very personal way. His team met a family of 5, led by their single mom. The team had shoes for everyone but the mother. The next day, as the team delivered the prayed for food, Adam dug into his pack and brought out shoes he had picked out from the hundreds donated for the trip. Instead of handing her the shoes to try on, he knelt down and gently put the shoes on her feet. 

That personal caring touch is why the entire team went to Nicaragua. To reach into a completely foreign culture and see the thread that binds us as human beings. To share the love that Christ has shown us with people that we would never otherwise know. To see how God works in the midst of poverty to bring joy and contentment to people who we Americans would describe as having nothing. We are all grateful for the opportunity to meet such gracious people and many can’t wait to go back and reconnect one day.

The Team:

Kathi Berry from Millersville; Hannah Chitterling, senior at Severna Park High School; Chris Cogswell of Chapin, SC; Hannah Cotton, junior at Annapolis Area Christian School; Phil & Kathy Dalby of Arnold; Brian and Courtney Della of Cape St. Claire; Emily Della, junior at Broadneck High School; Matt Divens of Arnold; Melissa Etchison 2nd year pharmacy student at University of Maryland and 2009 BHS grad; Gina Hopkins of Annapolis; Marin Howie, junior at Cornerstone; Connor Jaenke, sophomore at Broadneck High School; Jesse Klassen, junior at Broadneck High School; Tim Klassen of Cape St. Claire; Alyson Lane, youth intern at BEP and 2008 BHS grad; Maria Lim, junior at Broadneck High School; Andy Lomax of Arnold, Sarah Lomax, junior at Rockbridge Academy;  Nancy Martin of Arnold, Jameson McCarty , 2010 BHS grad; M’Cheyne Moore, Youth Director at BEP;  Cassi Peck, junior at Annapolis Area Christian; Keith Peck, Senior Pastor of BEP; Ron Rowe of Bozman, MD; Bobby Steinweg, senior at St. Mary’s in Annapolis; Todd & June Steinweg of Arnold; Stephanie Steinweg, 2nd year med student at Univ. of MD and 2008 BHS grad;  Jonah Stewart, junior at Broadneck High School;  Kim Stewart of Arnold; David Thornton, senior at Broadneck High School;  Marianne Tucker, 8th grader at Severn River Middle; Stacie Tucker of Arnold; Adam Walden,  senior at Annapolis High School.

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