Donna Biddle

On Mended Wings: Transforming Lives and Communities in Nicaragua Donna Biddle

Outrageous. That's how one person described the vision of a transformed Nicaragua. This goal was born more than a decade ago, when a group of North American missionaries from different organizations and denominations joined forces with Nicaraguan leaders to form a community of Christians known as the Nehemiah Center. This community has launched training programs to lead Nicaraguan people to see what a God-centered society might look like. The training has led many to change their lives and their marriages, then to transform their churches and communities. In these pages, you'll meet Lourdes Rivas, an uneducated pastor's wife forced to make her home behind a curtain inside the church building, and Daniel Aragón, once a leader in the Sandinista army and a drug addict. You'll read about villagers who scavenge in the town dump to survive, and about Nelson, a gang member who lost his leg by machete when other gang members turned on him. Through these stories and many others, you will learn how Nicaraguans are being transformed and then working in their communities to transform others. Although significant, these transformations within Nicaragua are only part of the story. The Nehemiah Center recognizes that people around the globe are in need of transformation. It seeks to help North American visitors recognize their own poverty-influenced by materialism and selfishness-in ways that will lead them to develop their own strategies to transform their lives, churches, and communities in North America. In a very personal way, On Mended Wings shares firsthand the stories of people who discovered healing and who work to heal others. Transforming Nicaragua is happening-one individual, one marriage, one church, one community at a time. Their stories reveal that this work of transforming a country is, in the end, not outrageous. It's contagious.