Distributing Food Up a Mountainside - By Christie Hollenberg

Today we hiked up a mountain, stopping along the way at each home that we wanted to distribute food to. Each home was not what I would consider a home but more like mud and wood together to make a little hut shelter. At each home we went to, we met the families and were able to pray with them and bring them food. Although the scenery around on the mountain was beautiful, the sight of these people and the conditions that they lived in was heart breaking to say the least.

With each step up the mountain, climbing in the heat, was a reminder of the people’s hard life of daily making that journey while hungry, weak, or in bad health. A few houses we stopped at I will never forget. One, as I approached, had dirt floors, holes all through out the shelter and it looked more like a pile of burning wood than a home. It smelled of burning trash and there were starving, rib thin dogs wondering around aimlessly.

We stopped and asked what we could pray for and a small woman sat down and took off these small pieces of fabric covering her ankles. These pieces of fabric acted as bandages. Her feet were swollen and covered in ulcers. Her husband has been very sick for a long time and almost died. Such pain I saw in their eyes. As we prayed for them, tears flowed. How do they survive? How do they get water or food or get up and down the mountain? Then, as we continued up the mountain, we stopped at another shack with a similar beaten down shelter. There stood a small woman with a little boy who through her weeping, asked for us to pray for her daughter who was taken by an abusive boyfriend and is not allowed to come home. Such broken hearts stood before me. We prayed and encouraged them, letting them know that God sees their daughter and we prayed for her protection.

Another shelter we arrived at didn’t even have four walls. Part of the roof was made up of garbage bags and inside there was a few pieces of wood planks in which served as a bed for a family of three. As I looked around my heart sank. The belongings in the home could have easily been counted on one hand. They literally had nothing. I got emotional and had to walk away from the group and get myself together.

It wrecked me, I had never seen anything like that in my life. How could people live like this? How do they survive? I started thinking if bad weather came, there would be little to no real protection or shelter. I’ve never seen such poverty. My heart sank and tears flowed as I realized how blessed and lucky I am and how much I take for granted.

Another home that we stopped at that impacted me the most. It was a shelter with a small old lady and a little girl who was abandoned by her mother. The old lady was her grandmother and she took the little girl in. I got emotional as I listen to them tell us how her mother doesn’t want her or care for her and I felt that, in a sense, I could relate in feeling that way towards my own mother.

Throughout this whole day, God broke my heart for His people and taught me how to love through prayer. Getting to hear from each family and praying with them created in me a true love for the people of Nicaragua. This process taught me that no matter what the language barrier, or horrible situation,  God loves all his people and through it all, He is on the throne in every circumstance. Above all physical needs, the greatest need of all is the love of Jesus Christ.