I am enormously pleased that our church has an active partnership with Rios de Agua Viva in Nicaragua. A group of a dozen of us will travel there July 6-14 to renew acquaintances with Pastor Ildefonso and the members of the church. Are you aware of how this partnership came about?
In 1999, Hurricane Mitch devastated much of Nicaragua. It dropped as much a 55 inches of rain over several days. Floods and mud slides killed many and the country’s infrastructure was virtually destroyed.
Into this situation, Church World Service and the UCC extended a call for volunteers to travel there and help rebuild. In the year 2000, 16 members of this church traveled to Nicaragua to help CEPAD build houses in an area they were developing.
One day at the work site, a man appeared and introduced himself as the pastor of an Assemblies of God church in the area. He also was “on the board” of CEPAD. He invited us to join them for worship later in the week.
On the appointed day, we cleaned up as best we could and went to the church at the stated hour of 6:30. We quickly received a lesson in Nicaraguan time. There were two musicians practicing but other than that, not a soul was to be seen. People started appearing around 7 and by 7:15 the singing began.
From that beginning, a lively partnership developed. We have learned a great deal from our sisters and brothers in Nicaragua as they have from us. While, we have contributed financially to their church in some ways, the partnership is not one where the rich go to give and the poor to receive. When that happens, the partners do not get to know each other as equals. Every now and then, I am called upon to share the story of our partnership because it is something of a model for other churches.
In Ephesians, we read that Christ has “broken down the walls divide,” and “has made both groups into one.” (2:14). A rural third-world Assemblies of God congregation and a mainline urban American church would seem not to have much in common. But Christ has indeed changed all that and made us into a single church.
Keep us and Rios de Agua Viva in your prayers.
