Nicaragua

Prior to 2000, Bethel members went on various mission trips throughout Central America, hardly ever returning to the same location. Missionaries felt that there was a lack of continuity in the visits. In 2000, a team of Bethel members proposed that we start visiting the same location every year for 10 years, to see if we could effect a change in one location that would spread outward to the remainder of the area. As Hurricane Mitch had recently devastated the country of Nicaragua, several relief organizations banded together to open the Nehemiah Centre in Managua. This has become Bethel's home base whenever a team visits Nicaragua, where we get our orientation prior to going into the community, and a place to debrief before we return to Canada. We visited Nicaragua yearly from 2000 to 2010, at which time changes came to Bethel's leadership, and the country of Nicaragua suffered greatly under their newly elected government regime. It was not safe for Bethel to travel to Nicaragua for a few years.