Club Esperanza serves 300 children every day and we really wouldn’t be able to meet the needs of all these kiddos without the help of friends from all over the world!  Plumcreek Church from Colorado came last week and jumped right in feet first at Club Esperanza to make a Kingdom impact on the lives of fifty first and second graders!

They came ready with hands for labor and funds to get to work making Club Esperanza a more beautiful, fun and safe place for everyone.  During the mornings the group worked hard painting the veranda and main buildings to cover up the scuff and rust that the Nicaraguan sun can put on any surface, making everything a little bit prettier.  The fun came when they purchased new playgroup equipment and installed it (there is nothing quite like breaking up old concrete with a pick axe!)  As far as safety goes, we installed safety lighting for night time security at the Club.  It was lots of hard work, lots of sweat and patience needed, but very rewarding to see the finished product.

Along with the work projects we got to spend a lot of time with the first and second grade classes.  Everyday for three days the group shared Bible stories and fun arts a crafts with the children.  The rooms may have been swelteringly hot, but it was a really special time to interact with each of the children.  As we finished the week we loaded all of the kids on the bus with us and headed to the Zoo in Managua, and then as a finale to the week everyone went to Ruby Ranch for the day!  It goes without saying, but the kids totally loved the special attention paid to them, all the fun activities and the new friendships they made.

The group shared a special time at the beach on their last day.  Reflecting on their week in Nicaragua and enjoying the Lord’s beautiful creation.  The culmination of the day was a baptism in the ocean for one of the young women on the team.  It was a great week!

Love Light and Melody is an organization that has partnered with us for a number of years to impact the lives of all of the young people and the families from the dump community that was called La Chureca.  This month they came down for an event called “Dia de Luz”, Day of Light in English.  The origins of this event go way back to the our days in the dump when Brad Corrigan (founder of Love, Light & Melody) wanted to use art and music to shine the Light and Love of the Lord on the families in La Chureca.  It was a wonderful weekend filled with concerts, dance class, murals being painted, and lots of fun!

Max Frost led the art activities during the week and he had this to share…

Stefany is a scholarship student through @lovelightandmelody, which means she can attend school, something these kids don’t take lightly and comes with great responsibility. Last week @kimdiggs and I taught Art classes for kids ranging in age from 3-13 at a trash dump resettlement community called Villa Guadalupe, Nicaragua. Stefany was my favorite student. She stayed after class tirelessly working on her drawings with great creativity and attention to detail. Her smile cautious, yet genuine. A year ago my friend Austin and I were asked to paint this same heart image for the first time by parents in  Villa Guadalupe who had recently lost their daughter unexpectedly. This trip the image took on a much different and equally amazing story for me. It’s no longer just a gift from me to their community, but now it also represents a local giving back to her community in which she lives through her favorite form of communication, painting. I’m not so sure going to places like Villa Guadalupe “to help” is always the most helpful thing we can do. Although I do think coming along side people, smiling together, recycling water bottles together at the dump (their main source of income), high fiving, dancing together, flying kites together and laughing together actually does have the potential to change the world. Or at least us. I wonder if smiling together, and laughing together is one of the most “helpful” things we can do? One smile has the power to change the entire atmosphere of a room and warm the hearts of complete strangers in a moment without even having to speak the same language. Some smiles carry hope with them while others excitement and others joy. Then there’s the kind that carry the best flavor of gentle honor and pride. That’s the one Stefany wore this evening. After wrapping everything up by phone light, her mom came up to us with tears in her eyes letting us how much this opportunity had meant to her daughter. She was also smiling. Not the thanks for doing something for me kind of smile, which is great too, but this one was much deeper and more meaningful. It was that of a proud mother. Which I’m convinced is one of the best smiles out there. — MAX FROST 

We also wanted to say thank you for the special attention paid to our staff at Club Espernaza as well.  A day at the beach and a night at a nice restaurant was a special treat!  Here is a picture of the whole crew below…

We want to say a special thank you to Rachael Paris and Kyleen Chambers who have spent the last six months living here in Nicaragua and working at Club Cristiana La Esperanza.  They elected to finish their University studies overseas and lived with one of our teachers as a host family during their time here.  They taught English class, tutored the children at Casa Havilah and Casa Robles, put together an ethnography report on the surrounding community and basically were hands on in whatever was needed during their time here.  Zero complaints and lots of hard work…pretty awesome by two impressive young women!  

As they finish this week  and head home, we send them off with our prayers and blessings.  We are thankful for all their hard work and expecting the Lord to do great things in their futures.  On their departure they wanted to make the lives of the teachers they have grown to love over these months better, so we went shopping.  They wanted to use their funds to really leave a blessing, so they bought 10 “Crayola Lego” tubes, hundreds of dollars of school supplies, six new preschool tables, and more…nearly $1,500 worth of blessing.  It was a huge surprise to our staff and a huge blessing from two young adults wanting to make a difference for the lord!

Thank you for your time and dedication Kyleen and Rachel, may God richly bless you!

You may remember last year when our friends from Austin Samaritans in Texas came down to Club Esperanza and donated 10 Netbook Computers (story here).  Back then, we mentioned that we would like to open a computer lab at Club Esperanza to help further our students opportunities for education and advancement.  Well, this past week our friends were back and they made it happen!  Not only did they support the effort financially, they came down and build the shelving themselves, installed electrical and air conditioning, as well as painted the room and varnished the desk!

The world is shrinking and technology is allowing young people from all parts of the World to see things from a greater perspective.  There are so many great opportunities for learning on the web and we do not want our children to be left behind!  This computer lab is going to give them access to the world.  But even more than that we hope to help them to develop the basic computer skills that will give them a real advantage in their future careers.  I am talking about the basics like being able to type correctly on a keyboard, use word processors, and be able to do advanced research on internet resources.  This lab is going to really be a great asset for all of our kids.

We are so excited about this new gift to Club Esperanza!

If you would like to help with the future of the Computer lab please email us at ohearts@gmail.com.  There are items we would like to fund such as hiring a computer lab monitor, upgrading our technology, the monthly electrical costs, software updates, changing the door to the room for one with glass windows, etc…

You can give specifically to the Computer Lab by following this link and noting “Club Esperanza Computer Lab” on your donation.  

Our very good friend from Chris’s days at FSU, Benjamin Wilder has published a new Children’s book called “Big and Small, God Made Them All”.  We are excited that Ben contacted our family here in Nicaragua and is going to be sending books down to Nicaragua as his sales happen in the U.S.A.  So if you have children and love to read to them as we do, please take a look at Ben’s new book.  It will bless your child’s day I am sure, as well as children in Nicaragua at Club Cristiana La Esperanza!

You can easily download the book to your phone or tablet by clicking here.

Thanks Ben….your book is awesome and so is reading!

Below is evidence from Ben’s Blog that we did in fact go to college together 🙂

Every year for the past ten years we have selected a group of teenagers from alumni of Colegio Esperanza and offered them the opportunity to be a part of a program that will help them through their High School years.  It is a great opportunity for us to continue our involvement in their lives.  But also, help some students whose lives are pretty difficult and they are just trying to get ahead.  This year we have a young mother named Adriana who is trying to finish High School on Saturdays and a young man named Ernesto who has been working selling tortillas everyday for his family since he was twelve.  This is a small way we can join them in their efforts to succeed.

This week we are preparing for school to start so we went shopping for school supplies, new shoes and uniforms.  It was fun to hang out with all of them and get to know them better.  We always like to try and have lots of fun too so we stopped for ice cream at the Centro Comercial.  I’d like to ask that you would please pray for each of them and their school year?  It is a good bunch of kids, but they face all of the things that any teenager will face as they go through this time of life.  We want to be there as a support for them, give them guidance and direction in the things of God, and see them succeed!  We are looking forward to a good year!

Speaking of having fun, in that last picture I had a little fun.  Jose had been a bit of a wild man all day, and as a male leader with a bunch teenage boys I often get punched and sucker punched all day long.  I can take and try to dish it back out, but I am getting old.  So, as I finished the group pictures I told everyone to swing some haymakers at Jose with their shopping bags….LOL, you can see him ducking for cover in the middle!

A special thank you to Love, Light & Melody for their support in getting uniforms and school supplies to our High School kids for this 2016 year.

If you are interested in helping financially in any way, please find donation info here (just note Club Esperanza).   This group is one of the many ways we are blessed by God to be able to do good work in the lives of kids at Club Esperanza.

Our friends at Austin Samaritans in Texas brought down a huge blessing for the Tutoring program at Club Esperanza during their last visit.  They were able to get a donation of 10 Dell Mini laptops that have been refurbished and programmed in Spanish.  What a HUGE blessing!

The world we live in is advancing technologically and we want to be able to offer our students the best chance to succeed in the world.  The deck is stacked against our kids already, but we want to bust past any barriers in their way!  These mini computers are going to be a huge part of that.  They are already on super high demand every afternoon at Club Esperanza. Our tutors jockey to be first in line to sign them out of the office for use in their classroom (I think the kids send them over first thing!).  In fact our internet can’t even keep up with all of them!  It is so great.

As we look towards the future one of the improvements we would like to make for Club Espernaza in 2016 is to complete a computer lab.  We actually have a small room that we can use.  We just need to do some remodeling to make it capable of being a computer lab….including electrical wiring, network system setup, installing desks and computer chairs, as well as Air Conditioning the space so the computers last.  Ideally we would put desktop computers in the lab, so that the mini computers can remain mobile but be checked out and used in classrooms.

There are exciting possibilities.  If you would like to help us with the Computer lab in any way, please email us at ohearts@gmail.com

 If you would like to make a donation, just follow this link and make a note on the check “Computer Lab”.  

God Bless and thanks for your continued support!

  Last month we had a Friday Funday with some of our Kindergardeners from the Club…the official start of any weekend ;).  Sheyla had promised a surprise to our oldest Kindergarden class at Club Esperanza because of their good behavior with their teacher Henriette.  So, we took them on a outing to the Golden Arches.  Sure, we know the food may not be the most healthy, but to be inside with A/C in a giant playground was a priceless moment for these cute little kiddos!  They were all smiles the entire time.  I am pretty certain, that the “Happy Meal” is one of the best inventions ever…food, a fun box, and a toy!  We really had a great time…thank you Jesus for fun times!

   Earlier this summer we had a wonderful group come down from Tallahassee and go to work at Club Esperanza while all the children were away on their Summer vacations.  Their idea was to do a complete makeover of the Club’s Academic building…painting all the walls, changing color schemes, putting up new wall art, building custom play sets for specified play areas, etc…  All with the hopes that the children and staff would have a HUGE surprise when they got back to school….you know, that “Move That Bus” experience 🙂

    Well, it definitely worked and the Club looks so beautiful with its new makeover and of course all the kids loved it…it was hard to pull them away from all their new fun play areas!  Even better than that, was how much the teachers appreciated their newly painted and decorated rooms as well as all the teaching materials, portable radios and shelving units they each received in their classrooms.  As anyone who is a teacher can attest to, to have help revamping your classroom is a Huge blessing!  And then to see all the little play units which are so cute….the crew that custom made the kids play areas were so impressive!

Thank you all for your help friends from Tally….what a huge blessing!!!

Club Esperanza operates because of the generosity many different people uniting to see the Lord’s good work in the lives of His little ones!

Thank you for all of your help and God Bless!

If you would like to help financially please visit our donation information page.