first saw the severe poverty and the children it in the song which happened to be the one resettlement project forced them to relocate
living there in the trash areas what was your I wrote with Brad’s nephew Kylin called “Todo just outside the resettlement neighborhood.
reaction to it? Es Posible”. Never would I have imagined the possibility God would end up calling me to Part of the Day of Light festival involved music
[Jordan] My first experience in the trash dump Nicaragua full time to start a music program workshops I helped lead at Club Hope which
was a vivid memory that will always stick with and to see what God has done four years later was when I first met some of the students I
me. At first there was the need to overcome this has me on fire to be Christ’s light in kids’ lives still teach. At that point Club Hope was in the
emotion and burden I felt come over me. I was in Nicaragua. processes of reestablishing an elementary
nervous, I was afraid, a little disgusted by the
school however another missionary named
smelly atmosphere, and mostly just concerned [WM] How did the idea about teaching the Kara Westermann started a ministry called
that families were present in the country’s kid’s music come about? Beauty for Ashes to provide scholarships for
landfills.
kids in the resettlement community to attend
[Jordan] So, the first trip with Brad and LLM a private school called Lighthouse Christian
However, not long after getting out of the van I hadn’t heard God’s calling yet, but I sure Academy.
with our instruments and following Brad shine a caught a bug that made me want to go back light in the dump, attracting lots of smiling kids right away. The following spring of 2016, I When we visited this school, which was across
to come running in laughter, I was able to shed joined Love Light + Melody in putting on their town in a well-developed part of the city I
my spiritual shell and even felt parts of me heal. Day of Light festival. Traditionally, this concert remember a huge feeling of joy, relief, and hope
My heart was broken in a good way. Fear turned was held inside the trash dump, but this year that I had also started to feel at Club Hope.
to love, and I loved singing and worshiping with was held in the recently developed resettlement The burden I felt witnessing the struggles and
the families there. That particular trash dump I community. In 2012 Spain aided the Nicaraguan poverty was lifted and turned to excitement by
first entered in 2015 is called Nueva Vida, which government in establishing a recycling plant seeing kids in a safe place studying. It was a
means New Life. I felt God give new purpose and resettled the families living near and clear resolution to kids not playing in pollution.
to my life and a quote from that day I will never within Managua’s landfill “La Chureca”. This And literally in the instant I realized Light House
forget is when one of the men working there resettlement community called Villa Guadalupe Christian Academy didn’t have a music teacher
gathering recyclables told me to add a line to has become a key location for me. There is a I heard the Holy Spirit tell me Nicaragua was my
the song I was singing that ‘it was a day in school called Club Hope established and led home. I knew in my heart I could teach music
paradise’. That statement rocked me especially by the Open Hearts Ministry. That school used at both Lighthouse Christian Academy and at
since it was inspired in a trash dump. I did put to serve the kids inside the trash dump until the Club Hope. In my first conversation with the
52
February 2020
Subscribe for Free...