A WALK DOWN MEMORY LANE

Last night, “VALENTINE DAY” or “Día de los Enamorados” I invited my wife to dine at the “Candilito Jr. (Little Candlelight Junior) restaurant. The young entrepreneurial owners had included our Logo in their promoting a lovers dinner for two, with wine, romantic music and a raffle to spend a weekend at a luxurious beach resort “Montelimar”.

It was a real walk down memory lane! Songs we listened, wrote down, sang with bursting feelings in our hearts, since we were teenagers and later on hiring guitar singers to ride in the back seat of our cars serenading our girlfriends on the driver´s side seat while slowly driving through the quiet silent streets of our early adulthood city. Believe me, we felt as young and happy again as we haven´t been so long ago.

The pleasantest surprise was that the restaurant was located in the “Mothers´ Park” near to what in my youth was the center of the government main garrisons where I was stationed as a second lieutenant but already an assistant to the Chief of the National Guard General Staff Office, in charge of planning and logistics.

I developed a very special relationship with my boss. We both were kind of dreamers/analysts of wider and macro oriented national perspectives but at the same time faithful and stronger believers in excellence and abhorrence of mediocrities.

What an intriguing coincidence between the past and the present! 40 years ago there was a pergola where this restaurant is now located.

We used to sit there for hours to analyze and discuss whatever “planned to be presented to the highest command” social welfare project we visualized it should or could be undertaken under the general scope of “Civil Affairs”.

Despite my young age I had become the head of the C-5, G-5 General Staff Section . My duty, intent and purpose was to devise such plans in accordance with the principles learned in the Army Schools I attended all over the USA undergoing specialized training related to macro analysis, planning, management, supervision and control of “nation priorities and planning, case study method” projects.

Out of those sharing and dreaming times sprouted into existence different realities in our Nicaraguan land: The 1st. Medical Company that intervened alongside the Americans in the Dominican Republic; the “Nueva Guinea rural settlements in the central north mountains; the “OPEN” or “National Emergencies Planning Organism”, antecessor of the present SINAPRED Army Emergency Relief organization, being the “OPEN 3" settlement presently known as “Sandino City” one of the last projects I planned and supervised before becoming a guest instructor in a US Army Training Center, and later on a hospital administrator and hospital rebuilder in my country.

You never know how your actions will influence or affect other peoples future. For example, the OPEN 3 settlement became the birth place of a young engineer who has recently made a technical analysis of our present Arms of Love homes in Jinotepe. He was born in a family, among the around fifty thousand people we relocated from more than “7 miles long” shores of the Managua lake in the sixties. This was an effort to move them nearer to the planned industrial region fed by geotermal energy and at the same time to prevent the development of what is presently known as the biggest dump in Central America LA CHURECA where so many relief and compassions activities are poured by all types of institutions and Christian groups, as water drops falling into highly hot irons.

As time passed the pergola became a restaurant we visited from time to time, still immersed in our government and military years circles and activities. It was the same place, modified surroundings, happy and pleasant memories and events, and the path of our lives threading always farther, wider, never boring or limited to a dreary way of living

Then, political exile, missionary years, unexpected experiences, newer goals and projects, Christian TV stations management, Bible College planning, interesting missions projects all over the world, to close the circle by coming back to become involved with another far ranging project, the Arms of Love Nicaragua project.

What started as just a children´s home in a slummy neighborhood already has become a deluxe 2 different locations. What started as feeding and lodging and Christian care and orientation is starting to expand to adapt to the peculiar Nicaraguan idiosyncrasies and a living laboratory for the specific needs of the growing up children that the Lord is placing under our diligent care and protection.

I surely know hurdles, mistakes, failures and successes will always be the order of the day. I surely know you will never be able to please everyone who cross your path as every person´s perspective is different from one another. But the Lord knows our heart and our resolve to tackle whatever comes our way because our motivations are greater and wider than any opportunistic circumstance.

My dream is to see another worthy dream and vision becoming a successful life changing reality. This I think could very well be our last challenge as I see the time for a well deserved warrior´s rest looming in the horizon.

IT IS SO INTERESTING HOW THE CYCLES OF LIVES INTERTWINE THEMSELVES AROUND PEOPLE, PLACES AND CIRCUMSTANCES, UNDER THE LOVING GUIDANCE AND LEADING OF OUR SAVIOR AND LORD.

THE PROCESS OF LIFE

OR THE CHAIN OF CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS THAT BECOME THE THREAD OF GOD ACCOMPLISHED PLANS IN THE “TRUE TO HIS PURPOSE” LIFE OF HIS CHILDREN

The other day I was reading in a children´s book the turning of a chrysalis into a butterfly, and its inner struggle in trying to rip open and break away from the cocoon layers so its beautiful colored wings could take her fluttering away. It was mentioned how well intentioned hands by breaking open the cocoon irremediably condem the chrysalis to become a “maimed to be butterfly” that could not mature into such a beautiful freely flying creature of God.

Same could be said of so many newborns or growing in adversity creatures of God, thirsting to receive a soothing caress or a helping hand to take them off their apparently insurmountable plies.

On the other side there are extremely appealing readymade successes that lift up the spirit with almost instant gratification when you see an slight change in the hurting eyes of the ailing, the dispossessed and the beggarish.

There are different calls and deeds and actions, suited to the spiritual understanding of the called, the doers and the acting. All types are necessary for the threading and weaving of the fabric of God´s Kingdom. It depends on the spirit and the skills of the threaders and the weavers, the servants of the Lord. It depends on our inner fabric and personality.

Some are destined to light up the skies as firecrackers, comets and passing stars. Some are to serenely shine as a moon through its subsequent stages and passing over the darkened souls. Some are to warm and even sometimes scorch the earth while giving out and distributing over the light that make life sprout. Some are called to fill the stage with their astounding feats and sonorously resounding voices and actions, but in my book, the most important of all are those like us who ready up the stage for them at the same time that we care and nurture our children who could probably become, in the future, part of the limeligh actors and doers of the wonderful deeds of mercies for the masses.

Our ministry, the one that the Lord has placed us for the time he plans us to be his instruments in His influencing the lives of those around us… Our ministry, the Arms of Love ministry, is placed in a very particular and very unique place in the Kingdom. Our president and founder, very recently reemphasized that we, being a custodial care ministry dedicated to the extremely hurt few, at the same time has become a linking factor between those groups focused on the healing and the soothing of the many as well as for the christian leadership promotion in the adults gathered under the spiritual covering of our ministry.

They, churches, leaders and followers, come to us as groups on their way to the masses, but then, by the grace of God and our humble subservience to His guidance, in its best interpretation (subordination not servility nor opportunism) they come out as individuals committed to a “one at a time” and “one by one discipleship” of the few by way of their prayer, sympathy, personal attachment or support.

This is the only way to really make the difference in someone´s life. I remember the story of a rural pastor, humble and secluded in an isolated place on this earth who faithfully preached by word and example to a very few but especially to one nondescript person. I remember it was said that he died without never seeing a firecracker in the sky, but his nondescript disciple became one of the greatest revival evangelist of his time. That pastor understood what Ecclesiastes describes as a time for everything, which in its broader context describes the necessity to understand that everything becomes what it becomes through a patient and many times a seemingly obscure, tiresome and unglamorous process.

I relate this concept to the undeniable fact of sprouting up and increasingly maturing life “being an unceasing but not hasty step by step process”, each one of them bringing up with it its particular and specific challenges. If we want the best for any child or individual in our circle of christian oriented service we must be acutely aware of everything that could affect their life long term and not just at the precise moment they cross our paths or become subjects or our plans or visions.

We must be aware that for some are the limelight and the glory and for others the setting up the stage for those called to light it up with their astounding feats and resounding voices and glamorous regards and recognition. But let all of us beware of Mathew 7:21-23 so we serve the Lord as He wants us to serve.

This starting year and after more than 5 years of dedication we see it with such an awesome clarity that brings joy to the spirits of all who have been involved with us in a fraternal effort to bring the “children in our care” to their destiny and place in God´s Kingdom.

Not all succeed. Some have walked away. Probably some more will in their haste for freedom and independence. If, after trying our best to guide them so they can have a safe and protected future where their flying out can be strong and forcefully, they decided otherwise in their hurry to enjoy that independence or reunion with their own flesh and blood, we trust the Lord will make a way for them. As in Luke 15:4-7 He will send His angels to satiate their thirst and protect them as they did with Agar and Ishmael.

If they listen to His voice, not any other interested voice (Luke 15:14-15) because of need, as in Luke 15:17 to 24 we will be there for them if they decide to submit better to our loving restrain as prodigal sons but sons above all worldly considerations. Because they would have proven in themselves that life is more than just a process. Life is a winding path from eternity to eternity.

The rest, despite temptations and luring ghosts lurking along their paths, keep on growing up busily working as bees at their own pace under the shadows of the merciful tree the Lord has ordered all of us to become. In our case, two are actively engaging in their starting college studies, having earned scholarships besides our and other sponsors’ direct support. Several are striving to become college student candidates. Others are trying their best to find their way to technical trade skillshood.

And the younger ones? They are happily starting to walk through the stages from infancy to adulthood…

Cared for by our dedicated staff people that presently include even a young girl who served with us until she got married and now is back with us serving again the children she served before as a single girl, but now alongside her husband and her first born child.

And the latest blessing, the sample of how a little child can bring joy to us through her happiness and early dedication to the usually dreary chores of life she has already witnessed, such as washing her own clothes as she probably saw her mother and relatives do in the midst of the mountains where she lived until she came to the warmth of our home. It will be an emotive and emotional day when she leaves our home to join the other little ones in Jinotepe. Believe us… we are sorely tempted to keep her with us to lighten up our elderly days.

Truly, Truly! There is no better lifting up of your spirit despite the dreary at times passing of the days!