…so everyone must have ice cream!!! Sheyla our long time director posted these fun photos the other day on our Club Esperanza facebook page. This page is a great way to keep up with all of the daily happenings at the club, we post lots of fun pictures and little tidbits of information. It is in Spanish, but if you don’t speak Spanish don’t worry, pictures are like math and fun…they’re all universal languages!
That we have been at our new location for ten years sort of caught us by surprise because in reality we have been working in this community for over twenty years now. But when Sheyla realized this, we definitely needed to have an ice cream party. Most of our kids we are serving now don’t remember our old school and how we ended up where we are. In fact if you haven’t read about our story, here are some older blog posts about having to tear down our old school, finding a new location, and being able to re-open to continue serving these families God had called us to serve.
Everyday hundreds of children and their families pass through Club Esperanza. A preschooler laughing with their dad, a mom and her tweener that is in her last year before high school, one of the elders in our neighborhood coming for a meal, a young nursing mother leaving their weekly meeting, a boy with a lacrosse stick practicing for their next chance to win a trophy, our amazing kitchen staff preparing hundreds of meals, our amazing teachers and staff, Pastor Roberto preparing for Sunday…so much going on and it is all so very good!
Our goal is simple. We want to allow God to use us to reach every person who comes through Club Esperanza with His love, truth and kindness. That they may come to know Jesus in a personal way as their savior. We will be here as long as God allows it! But for ten years…these kiddos loved their ice cream!
In another post on the facebook page, you’ll find all of these fun photos of our older students who had recently brought Biblical stories to life. They created some very impressive art work and all of the students passed by to learn the story. We absolutely love that we are able to provide resources and the setting to allow our students to have the best education possible. Thank you to all who help and support Club Esperanza…we couldn’t do it without you!
Club Esperanza is fully funded by generosity of others. If you would like to know more information about our annual budget and current needs please email Chris Farrington at losfarringtons@gmail.com
If you have followed our ministry over the years you might have heard about La Iglesia Hashem Adonai. Profesor Roberto, who is now Pastor Roberto, has been a teacher at our school in the dump ever since it began over twenty years ago. He has served for so many years faithfully to the poorest of the poor here in Managua. Almost five years ago now he felt a call into pastoral ministry after a couple of years taking seminary courses. Soon after we had a great conversation and Roberto started a church, meeting at Club Esperanza. Praise Jesus for that because God is using this little church to deeply impact hundred of lives!
Last year in the fall Roberto asked about the possibility of hosting a Men’s Retreat for his church. We talked and prayed about it. He had such a burden to get away with the men from his church and invest in them, encourage them, address their difficulties and insecurities head on, present them to the Lord and let God take care of them. The Lord gave us the idea to put on a retreat at Ruby Ranch during the winter break, but the details had to all work out. Well we put the word out to our home church Christ Journey Church in Miami and immediately we had movement on making this happen. Then just two weeks ago a group of men came down from Miami to join with a group of men in Managua to retreat together and grow closer to Jesus!
It is actually hard for men down in the neighborhood we serve to get away. Firstly most of the families live from payday to payday so missing work would be a difficult sacrifice. Then the additional factors of their families safety while they would be gone was another obstacle. But it was so awesome as the Lord worked it out, we settled on a weekend overnight stay out at Ruby Ranch that fit perfectly for what God had in store.
We arrived together and had a time of praise and worship, then Noel shared his testimony. It was so encouraging to hear the honest vulnerable testimony of a man who just a few years ago found Jesus at Roberto’s church and has turned his life around in not just a 180, but as he said it was more like a 180 plus another 180 plus another 180 plus another one! He now lives in a way that honors his wife and two sons, he honors the Lord in faithfully working to support his family, he has a sweet relationship with Jesus and loves serving at church. Amen to all of that.
We had a strong contingent of young men in the group too, so we took full advantage of our short time together and made the hike up to the Chapel at Ruby Ranch for some time together watching the sunset in the wide open beauty of God’s creation! It was fun to race the younger guys up the mountain, exploring an old hiking path for an extra adventure and then get to the cross as our final destination.
Our brothers from Miami led us in a time of reflection on the book of Acts and what it mean to be a man of God in the full Biblical sense of the term. This set the tone for the rest of our time together. Young and old we were all encouraged to be men who have given our lives to Christ, pray constantly, give generously, lead and disciple others, love our neighbors, and remain in communion with God on a daily basis.
We also had the great camp experiences together that you might expect on a men’s retreat. We put together a giant bon fire, because you know when men get together they like to play with fire hahaha! A bonfire is such a great time to sit together under the giant open sky. At Ruby Ranch, we are so far away from the city lights, the stars are innumerable and it is just amazing.
The younger guys stayed up late into the night coming and going from the cabin, running into the woods with flashlights, rekindling the fire at about one in the morning, and just having a time of adventure that just isn’t really available in their daily lives living in the urban setting of Managua. The older men stayed up late too, but that was because the Nicaraguan baseball league was in playoff season and they wanted to catch the Boer Indians game on the radio…their was a power outage in the stadium so the game was delayed well past midnight LOL!
God was so good to us and gave us an outstanding time together. One of the older man gave his life to Christ and is soon going to be baptized. The younger men had the time of their life, but we also saw their hearts turn deeper to Jesus. One young man shared at church when we visited on Sunday about what an amazing time he had. What I loved is that this young man had brought his entire family into the church, and several of the young men on the retreat were friends of his that he had invited. I was so encouraged knowing these young men, should they push aside all of the darkness of the world that surrounds them in that neighborhood, can make a HUGE impact. These young men could steer the future of an entire neighborhood into a place of hope, of honestly, of integrity, of joy, of friendship, of strong marriages, of strong families…these young man can change the future! That is our prayer, amen!
The retreat was a success! I know we speak for Pastor Roberto in saying how thankful were to have our brothers down from Miami. Please keep La Iglesia Hashem Adonia in your prayers…we want to see God use this church to make a great impact on Nicaragua! It is happening…
If you would like to give to support our ministry you can do so here or use a button below.
Our Christmas party was such a huge success and we wanted to tell you all thank you so much for helping to make it happen! It was an incredible time filled with joy and fellowship, all of the children at Club Esperanza and their families felt so very loved. God is always encouraging us to push further and do better. We do all of this so that these little ones might be blessed, that they would grow in the truth and love of Jesus, and that they would be kept safe! Thank you for making this Christmas so special…
Merry Christmas! … ¡Feliz Navidad!
“Said the king to the people everywhere Listen to what I say! Pray for peace, people, everywhere Listen to what I say! The Child, the Child sleeping in the night He will bring us goodness and light He will bring us goodness and light“
We bless you this Christmas and ask that the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace, Our Savior Jesus born in a manger…would bless with Goodness and Light this Christmas!
Christmas is the best time of year as we celebrate the birth of Jesus and the hope that brings to the entire world! The families that we serve don’t have the resources for big celebrations, so we would love to start Christmas in an exciting way for them!
Our Christmas party is the second week of December. Our goal is to have a Christmas present for each of the over 320 children that we serve…we will also be inviting their parents to have a Christmas meal together at Club Esperanza!
$15 will help to buy a Christmas present and a Christmas family meal…
Can you help to make this happen? You can help by donating $15 for one of our kiddos…Or maybe for 2 or how about 10 of our students, or 25 or 100 of them! Whatever you can give is a sweet Christmas blessing from the Lord…a Christmas gift to a child in Nicaragua!
Our goal is to raise $4,815 for Christmas at Club Esperanza
This is going to make these boys and girls feel very loved! THANK YOU!!!
We hope that you all have a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving weekend back in the United States and we pray that your Christmas Season is filled with Hope, Joy and Peace!
This fall we have Ethan down teaching computer skills to a select group of students from our fifth and sixth grade classes! Ethan is a recent graduate of Liberty University in Computer Science. His job allows him to work remotely so he asked if he could come to Nicaragua and volunteer at Club Esperanza…what a great idea!!!
He is going to work this fall to develop a curriculum to help our students develop basic knowledge of computers. As we all know the future is a future full of using computers for every type of job you can imagine. Ethan was even able to get five laptops donated and brought them down with him…hoping to bring more down in the Spring. So our little computer lab is up and running with a teacher that has legitimate credentials…so awesome!
The hope is to peak curiosity into the computer science world and then give the students the tools they need for future. Even the possibilities of helping our students learn to code and design games and websites by the end of their time together. Hopefully these first few weeks will be first steps in that direction!
Please keep Ethan in your prayers as he adjusts to a different culture and to teaching in a different language. And please pray for this great opportunity for our kiddos at Club Esperanza!
Yes, Yes, Yes, playgrounds are amazing! The thing is, down here we don’t have access to the incredible playgrounds that are in just about every school in the United States. So, when our friends from Hope Rising Church in Pennsylvania made the trip down earlier this month to install new playgrounds there was sooooo much excitement, and it did not disappoint!
God orchestrates things in interesting ways. Our friend Pastor Randy and Feed the Hungry organized an amazing blessing to our ministry. They worked stateside with Kids Around The World to get two playgrounds donated and shipped to Nicaragua for Open Hearts, such a huge blessing. Then COVID hit and the playgrounds sat disassembled…for two years! That made the arrival of Pastor Harry’s team from Pennsylvania even more exciting! As I said, playgrounds are amazing!!!!
Assembling the playground at Club Esperanza was quite the endeavor. Sometimes you have to improvise and we used that tree branch you see up there to get the roof up and on to the four poles! It was amazing and maybe just a little not so OSHA approved LOL! Even more amazing was that the team was able to do miraculous work and finish this playgrounds installation in only two days!
Once we had everything assembled the hard part came….keeping the kids off the playground while the cement dried. The timing was perfect and we only had to wait one half day of school before we let all of the kiddos onto the playground and you can see in the video below that it was an incredibly fun inauguration party!!!
Ok, so the real reason that playgrounds are amazing came to me yesterday when I was talking with Perla who is one of our long time teacher’s assistants at Club Esperanza. Sure a playground like this is incredibly fun, but Perla told me something even more amazing. She said…
“Chachi you know what…I think some of the kids have been coming to school just so they can go on the playground, it is so funny. That is all they talk about. Even better is when the classroom is loud and I am yelling silencio silencio silencio…all I have to do is say, If you don’t quite down you don’t get to go on the playground. Immediately everyone is quite! Or when our room is a mess I just tell the kids, we can’t go to the playground until we pick up all the trash in the classroom. Immediately the floor is spotless!”
How awesome is that?!? This play area is going to be such a blessing for so many kids who could never have imagined having something like this at their little school outside the dump in Managua, Nicaragua. We are so very thankful for this amazing team and amazing partners in ministry.
Playgrounds are amazing!Thank you Jesus!
And if you didn’t think that playground installation at the Club was amazing…this team of folks from Pennsylvania also installed a HUGE playground out at Ruby Ranch. Click the picture below to link to the story about that great adventure…and a huge shot out to Pastor Ramon and his son Ray for their expertise and experience that got us to the finish line. Without Ramon’s knowledge from building parks all around the world we may not have made it!
After many months of praying and getting papers in order, we have the official land title for our land at Club Espernaza! In fact, we were selected to be recognized by the local government offices to receive the title in person at a ceremony last week. What a blessing! It is so great to find favor and be recognized for the hard work and impact that we are having at Club Esperanza. Jesus is glorified in these good works that our team are doing every day of the year…amen! “Let your light shine before men, so that they might see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven.” -Jesus (The Gospel of Matthew 5:16)
Why is this important? Having this land title will allow us to move forward in building our educational building, arts center and sports fields with all proper permits and approval of the local municipality. We have been operating in make shift classrooms for the last two years…but we are out of space, so this will be amazing! Now for the next big steps, because this is a $250,000 endeavor. But Jesus is huge and all things are possible with God. Please be in prayer as we move forward into the next big things at Club Esperanza…and if you want to give to help with the building of the school we would be greatly blessed by that! (link to donation info here).
Members of our Junta Directiva for MCCA/OH receiving the land title…
We are so excited about the future! But that certainly has not kept us from continuing in ministry. Most recently we celebrated “Dia de Madre” and “Dia de Papa” at the club. As you look through all of these fun pictures please keep praying for these families we are serving. We know that the Lord wants families to grow in healthy ways and be able to be united and strong. The daily efforts by the men and women of God who serve at Club Esperanza are having a huge impact. Praise the Lord!
I was at Club Esperanza this week as lunch was being prepared and noticed the wind blew the cover off the food. Wow! What may look like just a bucket of food to you is a HUGE feast! Tuesday was soup day….¡Sopa! We see with our eyes everyday the harsh affect of poverty, hungry children on every corner. So, when I saw the sopa come out it impacted me…there are over 300 kids today who will eat well…a big piece of meat, a chunk of yuka, a piece of corn, a chunk of butternut squash…it is amazing! I love that God has made this possible. At Club Esperanza we have made great efforts with our partners to make sure that the children and families we serve don’t receive scarcely at our feeding program. They are provided for and given the opportunity to grow and learn with a full stomach….amen amen amen!
Thank you for partnering with us! Thank you for donating! Thank you for praying!!!
God is soooo good and we hope this random picture of a big pot of ¡sopa! encourages you today!
When Jesus had finished a day of ministering to thousands of people, over five thousand people as told in the Gospel of Mark (Ch. 6) his disciples were in a real bind. It was evening and there were thousands of hungry people who didn’t have anything to eat…
…By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and but themselves something to eat.”
But Jesus answered, “You give them something to eat”
Friends together we are seeing Jesus provide abundantly for hundreds of children every day. I know it is not feeding five thousand, but you can be so encouraged that this isn’t a one day thing…this is every day of every week of the year! Together, we are giving them something to eat….amen, so awesome!!!
We love doing this together with you….if you want to see the beautiful faces of all the children we serve click here to check out our Club Esperanza Facebook page…the sopa is a great picture, but the kids are way cuter! And get in contact with us via losfarringtons@gmail.com if you want to come down and serve in person…we are looking forward to seeing friends down here again!
Christmas happened at Club Esperanza too and it was an awesome time! Check out our facebook page to see the live videos we did. We pray for each and every one of our students as they celebrate the holidays with their families. We look forward to seeing them back again in January for the start of a new school year in Nicaragua! Thank you for your prayers and support of Club Esperanza and the 300 children we serve every day….Merry Christmas!!!
We hope that everyone has wonderful New Years Eve Celebrations!!! We pray that 2022 is a great year of new beginnings and a year that the Lord does great things in your lives! Happy new Year!!!
We know Thanksgiving just ended and it may be a little early for Christmas…but maybe you can use Cyber Monday to make it special for one of our kiddos down here!
Every year we want to make it possible for every child at Club Esperanza to get a present for Christmas! Last year we couldn’t do a big party because of COVID. But the alternative was so fun! We rolled out a red carpet and as the kids came to the club in small groups throughout the day…each one got to walk the red carpet on their way to a special Christmas present just for them!
We have over 300 children at the Club and are trying to raise money to buy a $12 gift for EVERYONE! Maybe you can donate for a couple? Maybe you would like to bless ten kiddos? Or more? Maybe the Lord has blessed you and you just want to buy all of them…amen!
We hope that we are the first to wish you A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! It is indeed the most wonderful time of year. We celebrate that Jesús, our savior was born!Amen.
Club Cristiana La Esperanza 