All I want for Christmas is a piggy-back ride...

My trip to Hogar Agape (Home of God’s Love) was life changing in so many different ways. As I look back, I’ll honestly tell you I left half of my heart in Nicaragua and at the orphanage. The relationships that you build with the children, who have without question experienced more tragedy and helplessness than any of us here probably ever will, is something that I will look back on as a moment that redefined my faith, how I view this world, and how I view the underprivileged.

Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Coming from the United States, this was the biggest culture shock of all. I had never seen children running around unclothed. I had never seen so many people without showers for so long. I had never seen so much trash spread through the city along the sidewalks and even in the parks.

Yet, the people are so much more thankful for so much less. They are so humble and respectful to everyone they meet. The children at the orphanage were the most well behaved, cheerful, and grateful children I have ever met. We also had the chance to give them their Christmas for the year, which was backpacks filled with clothes, shoes, soccer balls and many other things. We brought them more than just gifts, which they were thankful for, but the chance to ride on someone’s shoulders or hug them, or to just look us in the eye was all they needed. It’s a humbling feeling, to understand toys don’t mean everything, but relationships do, even to a 6-year-old child.


The final life-changing experience for me was saved until the final full day of our trip. We were taken to the city dump La Chureca in Managua to get our first view of what life in Poverty was really like. A place, or better yet, the home to over 4,000 native Nicaraguans who have never known anything else. The majority of people here were second and third generation to call La Chureca home. They were born into it, and most likely will die in it. It was the most disturbing and horrifying thing I have ever witnessed with my own eyes. As we drove down the street you could hardly see one hundred yards in the distance because there was so much haze and smoke from the fires and dust the swarmed the air. There were animals malnourished and left alone to die, and children playing in the mud that will most likely be their bed that night. As we drove deeper into the entrance of the dump, a woman kept pace with us as she help a cup of nearly black water. I do not know what was in her water but I can only imagine the amount of disease that engulfs these people day in and day out.

I have tried to explain it time and time again to everyone who asks, but I can never find the words. Perhaps there are no words? You must experience it for yourself for it is something you will never see in the United States, a country that has everything in luxury.

The biggest lesson I learned on the trip was that we must pray, we must give, and we must act! Too often, myself included, we sit in our homes and watch television and ignore the five minute commercials asking for money for a starving child in Africa. The time is now for all Christians to unite and make a change for Christ! It doesn’t necessarily have be the commercial you see on television. There are many other ways to give such as Compassion or World Missions, but I feel it is the duty of every single Christian to give to the least of these, and every day that goes by, is one less day we can help.

If there is one bit of advice I could give my fellow Christians, it would be not to pray over what God has already commanded us to do. He has already told us to go into the nations and into the communities and homes and make a difference in the lives of His people. Instead, pray that He will give you the opportunity to go and equip you for once you get there.

- Jared Barnes

In December 2007, Jared traveled to Hogar Agape in Nicaragua with a group from Lee University.