Greetings,

Addressing a letter to a large audience is not easy. The response I've received from the first report leaves me close to dumbfounded. Concern for myself, my family and for the Nicaraguan people has poured in in a way that deeply speaks of the covenant we share together. Thank you!

I don't want to sound as if I'm trying to fool anyone, by sounding overly analytical, spiritual or philisophical about the Mitch disaster. But admittedly I tread more carefully than during our plunge into the Guatemalan earthquake of 1976. A very brief explanation easily explains why. Perhaps due to naivety, while with an obvious degree of Holy Spirit guidance, Verbo was formed around a response to a Central American tragedy.

My personal participation was primarily working in a 1500 home housing project, "Carolygnia". With many wonderful and deeply committed brothers and sisters in the Lord, this venture was completed during a labor intensive 4 years. 18 years later, the police will not enter this neighborhood without military assistance. Some would say it is Guatemala City's most dangerous zone.

So I look at Mitch's immediate aftermath and wonder... is this a second chance? In Guatemala we simply left out some links in the Gospel chain. I want to make sure this time, as much as we're able, to lay a surer foundation. I realize that Verbo still has grown into something far beyond our initial vision, bless God. However, certain similarities between then and now are too obvious not to notice.

As I mentioned in the earlier letter, I've only wanted to respond to the degree that God would lead. It's too big, there are too many years at stake, and my shortcomings are, shall we say, a little more obvious to me than in 1976.

The support and interest I've received, I confess, are certainly a significant part of what I feel is the nudging of the Holy Spirit.

My initial hope was that we'd somehow be able to identify some definite areas to be able to concentrate on a limited, yet varied, set of circumstances. This seems to be coming to light. One of the nudges that has helped us to identify these areas was the interest generated when my last e-mail was mailed to a Holland born Verbo elder (Jan Swarz was sent by the Ecuador church to further the participation of Latins going into the Moslem world). He in turn forwarded the letter to a Dutch Evangelical broadcasting company that then decided to do it's monthly feature on Verbo Nicaragua's response to Hurricane Mitch.

So, with a Dutch film crew in tow, James Jankowiak coming down to help me out, we (me and the local church) began pin pointing certain areas. As you can probably guess, this had to be more Holy Spirit, then strategy, but we followed a few leadings. Here are the conclusions as to the areas we'll most likely be working in:

Posoltega is the department head of an area that was devastated by the mud slide of the volcano Casitas. We've made two trips up to that area (90 km north of Managua), I've driven both times up the river bed carved up to 20 feet deep and 75 feet wide by the flood. Finally arriving to what was the village of El Porvenir, now totally buried under mud and enormous bolders. While speaking with the Vice-Mayor of Posoltega to get a better picture of the whole thing, I asked her, innocently, how she'd been affected. This woman, working from dawn to dusk for the well-being of her neighbors, looked me in the eye and stated that she had lost three of her four children, her husband, two nephews and her mother. I decided then and there, we're going to do something here. We've found a number of groups of refugees we can work with. Including one young man in his third year as a math major at the National University, he is a leader of the Christian Youth Movement working under the direction of a young physician from our church. Nice coincidence. Housing and some agriculture help would be probably be best for the Posoltega area.

Las Maderas is dusty little roadside town on the way up to the heavily damaged central mountain range. In the foot hills, it still received a roaring torrent of water. A number of houses, and lives were lost. It's closer to Managua and was actually "discovered" by a group of our church leaders seeking to find some place that we as a congregation could help. Here the people stick together as friends and family, but there's no work to speak of, only agriculture on mediocre land. Horror stories of the nights, and days, are common. In the aftermath, the affected families are "toughing" it out. The local community leader is a clear eyed man that I think we can work well with. Shelter and work will be the next areas. Right now we're taking food up to them.

Ciudad Antigua is one of the towns that were only accessible by air after the flooding. Close to the Honduran border, we were able to fly up in one of the Chinook U.S. helicopters that came down to lend assistance. This is another town built on the edge of a river, one of the early tributaries of the Rio Coco, that defines the national borders of Nicaragua and Honduras. The ugly swath of the raging river is clearly seen from the air. Fortunately only a few homes were lost and the picturesque town, alegedly the oldest founded settlement by the Spaniards in Nicaragua did not suffer as many deaths that so many other communities endured. However, the local water system was destroyed, so the entire population is simply garnering it's drinking water out of the muddy river. This looks like an epidemic waiting to happen. I'd like to help in providing pure drinking water for the town of 5000. Here we also chanced upon the Vice-Mayor, who personally showed us the damage. Again, he was an upstanding citizen of his historic town.

Vida Nueva on the outskirts of Managua is an entirely different situation. This is a new community built on the backside of Ciudad Sandino, a bedroom community birthed by the Nicarguan earthquake of 1972. (Somewhat like S. African labor source of Soweto). All of the flood victims along the shores of Lake Managua are basically being relocated here. Lake Managua of 288 sq miles rose almost 15 feet, swelling to more then 42 feet inland. The people that lived, in some cases for generations along the lake shore, simply, almost overnight have found themselves in a tent city of black plastic of over 1900 families. Some speculate it may swell to as high as 4000 families. This is a classic refugee problem on a world standard. Carolygnia was 1500 families 22 years ago. These are nice people yanked from their homes and overnight lumped together in an arid, very distant corner of urban Managua. This is Pandora's box. Yet, this is where I feel the Lord saying. "Want to give it a try?" I've taken a small medical team in. I've gone a couple of times to film and simply walk the recently plowed dirt streets. Some assistance is coming in here. But the people know very well that when the initial response ends, and attention is diverted, they will simply be "there".

In all these areas the big pitfall is the creation of a "begger" mentality. Waltzing in with a truck load of donations can be intially satisfying, both to the givers and the receivers, in the long run it sets a hard precedence to maintain. It's also an axe to the dignity of anyone. Yet, the bountiful supply of single moms with hungry kids makes I John 3:17 a very painful verse. There are many Christian affected by Hurricane Mitch.

We need to be led. I've acquired a little funding to begin working on a green area for Vida Nueva (New Life...this is either an opportunity, or the most sadistic piece of hypocrisy), that I think will put us intially in closer, shoulder to shoulder relationship, with the community. Which in turn will give us time to identify the natural leaders, and speak to gangs and drugs that are already moving in. Building a new communty mentality I think is essential. Something along the lines of Jeremiah's letter to the Jews in Babylon to settle in to their new environment.

Now the "Why" these four (and there might be a fifth in the works) is a viable question. Nothing is cast in concrete. So no real reason is available to me, because everywhere got clobbered. The mighty river Coco looks, I'm told, like a gigantic bulldozer drove down it. Stories of families spending days in the tree tops to avoid the floods, only to have their children fall while sleeping, or even starve to death while waiting assistance are everywhere.

Mitch is a like scorching wind. It's going to reveal the hearts of men. But this "Word" from the Lord might be a tremendous launching pad for the church of Nicargua.

Thanks for your prayers.

All the Best, Bob Trolese

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