Sunday morning we went to a local Iglesias Bautista (Baptist Church) in Matagalpa where a man who works at the Nicaraguan Young Life is a member of. The reaction of everyone in the room was very charismatic with high energy. There were a lot of people from the United States there on mission from other organizations, and our eyes were fixed to a older, tall, dark man in the corner with his trendy hipster-fashioned wife.
On a side note, I’ve had to learn to be very careful with saying American to not refer to the United States, as we are in Centro-America, and people here consider themselves just as much Americans as the US citizens.
We spoke with the couple after the service and their story captivated us. The power couple that is Harvey and Rosemary come from Kentucky. They became empty nesters after having a quiver-full of children reared in their home. Full of life and joy, the couple has spent the last few months plugging into the community here in Matagalpa. After serving in the United States Marine Corps for five years, Harvey tried his share at fire fighting… but quickly realized he wasn’t a good fit he chose to his advantage to become a state trooper.
“I could write a book of the crazy things I’ve seen, just like any one else in law enforcement.”
All Harvey wanted to do was retire after serving for twenty years in Kentucky as a trooper, spending his new found free time hunting and fishing. Rosemary had spent a trip overseas and her desires were completely changed, dead set on being a missionary. She prayed for the Lord to either change her heart on the matter, or her husbands. By nightfall of the first day that Harvey went to Nicaragua he knew this was where he wanted to be. They spent the following summer making frequent trips out here to visit with the children addicted to glue, finally being able to move here in August of 2014. At this point the children started to realize, “you aren’t leaving, are you?” The ones on the street are so conditioned to missionaries coming and going within a few weeks time that they do not really open up or invest into relationships (and rightly so).
The children here often have difficult situations at home. Abuse, addictions, and on and on it goes. Sometimes the children have great homes, just are rebellious and want to do whatever they want to without submission to authority. Either way, the kids (usually middle school or high school aged) will leave their homes and sleep on the streets in the bushes. To curb their hunger appetite they will sniff glue. The glue here is a type of shoe polish that is illegal in the USA. It will curb appetite and cause hallucinations.
Every morning at 7:30 am Harvey and Rosemary will wake the kids up in the bushes by their house, feed them, read scripture to them, invest in their life, love them and pray with them in Spanish. Every day the couple spends an hour learning the local Spanish to better communicate with them. They even taught me how to pray with them.
The children asked us for our water bottles, which was hard. They reasoned with Jessie that she is American and she could just buy another one, right? I explained to one that we have limited resources ourselves and do not have access to just purchase another Nalgene travel bottle. The water bottles here are made for single use, and they release toxins that are in the cheap plastic if used multiple times and/or left out in the sun. Which is hard, but its why we have to be careful with giving away our resources. It’s difficult seeing people on the street begging for money. Children everywhere ask for one Cordova or something to help them out. Harvey has told local people to stop giving money to the children even when they beg because they more often than not use it to buy more glue to sniff. To get high, to curb hunger.
Harvey and Rosemary offer to buy the children food if they give up the glue they have, but rarely does that ever happen on their part. Harvey and Rosemary have an open invitation for that, but the children would rather have the glue than actual food. It’s a sad circle.
Some children want to change and get better. We met a young man named Gilbert, who Harvey and Rosemary are trying to get plugged into a local school and are helping him learn English if he keeps to requirements they have set up, which is no drugs and to try to return to your family (unless there is an unhealthy circumstance with the parents such as abuse in whatever form it may come). Their goal for their ministry, Manos de Gracia ( Hands of Grace ) is to help children get off the streets and into healthy family settings to where they can succeed.
They are in the process of setting up foster homes for the children and are plugged into a local Catholic based food shelter in the evenings. Coming into it they have set up very strict rules, because in the past it has been a mad-house. They teach the children scripture verses, pray with them, and feed them. A lot of local single parents will come bring their children also. They feed usually around 160 children per evening. If the children come with drugs on them at all, including glue, they are henceforth permanently banned from coming into the feeding center. They have to have very strict rules or the children will run all over them.
The children there are learning self respect, how to treat women, and how to treat one another while learning the Gospel through Harvey and Rosemary. They are a lively couple, full of joy and are ecstatic to be here. One child asked them why would they give up the comforts of the USA to be here, and Rosemary said it was because she loved that child. Because Jesus first loved her, she loves them, much more than the comforts of the USA.
To learn more information on the Hands of Grace ministry, check out the website here.
Thank you for reading!
-J
Follow me on instagram @texasfornever.
