This Thanksgiving as some of us sit down to feasts with all the
trimmings, some people in the world will be lucky to eat at all
today.
The Rev. David Stains, pastor at Evans Memorial United Methodist
Church in Lewis Run, sat down with The Era recently to talk about
his 30-plus years of mission work in Latin America. During that
time, Stains said, he saw people living in poverty unimaginable to
the average American – conditions that make one realize everything
there is to truly be thankful for.
Stains explained that in 1985, the Western Pennsylvania
Conference of United Methodist Churches, in response to the Contra
War in Nicaragua and unrest in Central America in general, sought
to create a covenant with a church there.
The “Christian response” they were looking to provide came to
fruition through a partnership with the Fuente de Paz Church in
Jinotega, Nicaragua, formed officially the following year in
1986.
Stains, who speaks Spanish fluently, served as a base of
communication for the convenant, and coordinated and directed the
program in that capacity until this year, he said.
Serving in times of both war and peace, the church and its
representatives were advocates of peace until the war ended in
1990. After that, the church’s efforts branched out into mutual
visits, service projects, clinics and schools. After Hurricane
Mitch in 1999, the covenant intensified their assistance by
rebuilding homes and communities, Stains said.
Stains said that Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in
the world, and a large segment of the population lives in the
municipal dump in Managua. Many of the families there include
several young children, he said.
The volunteers for the conference’s convenant take residents
there willing to leave the dump and “gives them a chance to live in
a rural area, where they can own their own home and farm the land …
learn trades to support themselves … in context to a Christian
ministry, also for personal and spiritual care,” Stains
explained.
A main concern for the mission workers is creating shelters with
clean, safe water for drinking, cooking and bathing – a commodity
most of us won’t even have to consider worrying about this holiday
season.
Stains said volunteers he has worked with in Managua seemed
shocked by the poverty they witnessed, and of “people dying of
completely curable ailments.”
Stains himself has had friends he’s made there, who were
relatively young, die because of the harshness of living in such
conditions. One family he knew of suffered the loss of three of
their small children after the family ate from a bag of rotten or
otherwise contaminated peanuts they found in the dump, he said.
“It’s haunting,” he said of his memories of mission work in
Nicaragua, adding about 60 percent of the children born to families
who live there die very young.
Stains, however, is very proud of his role providing Christian
service to the residents there, especially of efforts that resulted
in a serious reduction of the incidents of infant mortality in the
communities where they worked.
One of the mission’s goals is to helps provide one nourishing
meal a day to pregnant women and nursing mothers, as well as
infants and children. That program alone has nearly eliminated
infant mortality in some parts of Latin America, he said.
“I feel blessed to be able to be a living bridge between the
United States and a third world situation,” Stains said, “to be
able to minister to their material needs, as well as social and
spiritual issues, which are as intense there as they are here.”
In addition to building housing structures with clean water and
helping with food, the mission workers provide aid with medical
supplies, clothes, Bible school and other church programs at
Nicaraguan churches.
Most recently, members of Evans Memorial and other churches have
been volunteering for mission work in Paraguay, Stains said.
On one recent trip to Paraguay, mission workers arrived with 100
pounds of medical supplies and 5,000 pairs of eyeglasses, he said.
That day, a medical care provider performed a life-saving
operation.
“From arrival to saving someone’s life took four hours,” Stains
said.
Evans Memorial continues to be a “mission-minded church with an
emphasis in Latin America,” Stains said. In fact, the conference is
currently organizing a mission to Paraguay in August of 2007,
during which several people from the Bradford area churches will
travel to participate in the mission.
And although they have little to give, those touched by the
church’s efforts give back to their benefactors by making the trek
to America with their thanks and praise.
Some of the Nicaraguans Stains and his fellow mission workers
ministered to have traveled to the Bradford area to give
testimonials at local churches with Stains translating, he
said.
“People are overwhelmed by their deep spirituality … they have
so much to share,” he added.
