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Dear Friends,

In September, hurricane Felix took over a hundred lives on the Atlantic Coast side of Nicaragua. More than 60 days of rain caused flooding, mudslides, the loss of houses, crops and thousands of acres of forest and wildlife.

The situation was, and continues to be, grave.

With your support, UMCOR provided a great deal of aid to United Methodist partner organizations that work on the Atlantic Coast. This aid continues to rebuild that part of Nicaragua, thanks to you.

Miguel and I work on the Pacific side of Nicaragua that suffered with flooding, loss of crops, isolation (kids couldn’t cross high creeks to get to school) and outbreaks of diseases like malaria, dengue fever and swamp fever with loss of life.

Two young people died from swamp fever in San Francisco Libre, the impoverished county where one of our main partner organizations (Women and Community) is located.

We felt that the UMCOR aid needed to go to the Atlantic Coast, so we asked covenant churches to make donations to ongoing programs that help people in San Francisco Libre like the women’s clinic and popular pharmacy, educational programs and scholarships for the most impoverished kids, economic development projects with women (things like no-interest loans and training for raising cows) and prevention of violence against women and children. (Violence always increases in times of crisis).
Because of these natural disasters last fall and consequent crop loss, the price of beans and corn is very high and there is currently hunger and malnutrition in at least 30 percent of the population. The current Nicaraguan government is bringing in more grains to try to get the price down. We pray for a good first harvest this year.

You can support these ongoing projects by giving through your church to ADVANCE # 013285-6. You can also support our mission presence by continuing your covenant relationship or beginning one with one of us.

Thank you for your prayers and actions in Christ’s example of raising up the poor and those who are oppressed and excluded in any way.

Grace and peace,

Nan McCurdy and
Miguel Mairena
Your missionaries in Nicaragua.