Outreach
It was into this lurid environment, then, that our unassuming hero, 22 year-old Martin Pickles, suddenly descended in early March 2002. A Modern-Language student from Sheffield University, Martin was off abroad to perfect his Spanish speaking skills. However, academic proficiency could little have prepared him for the challenge that he was about to undertake. Indeed, education was to become secondary to him there as a divine appointment soon transformed his trip, beyond all recognition, into a luminous outreach of Christ-like compassion

Desperate
After only a few days in the country, Martin and his travel companion, Anna, met Libby - a young English girl running a project for street children. 'We met Libby at a church service in Santa Ana', recalls Martin. 'She was desperate for help. Really desperate. She had some forty street-kids to look after all by herself.' Coincidentally, as it happens, Libby was an answer to Martin and Anna's prayers for a place to serve God, while, Martin and Anna were also an answer to Libby's prayers for helpers and co-workers. 'You could say that God had the whole thing planned out from the start,' Martin smiles, knowingly.

The streets
Going into the neighbourhood every day was a daunting task for the new team. 'Santa Ana is just a haven for everything Satan has, basically,' says Martin. We're sat in his student flat, flicking through some of his most recent photographs. 'It's for drugs, it's for drink, it's for prostitution: child sex-abuse like you wouldn't believe. It's a horrible place; really horrible.' Having said that, you might expect that Martin would have been scared. But he concedes that under consistent prayer and God's supernatural covering, they simply had nothing to fear. 'We weren't afraid in the streets; we weren't afraid in the neighbourhood, or even looking after the children. We just saw God's protection everywhere we went,' he says.

Love
As a force for good, Martin, Anna and Libby sought to counteract the abuse, crime, and poverty around them by introducing the locals to a God of love. They struck up dialogue with street children; they took down-and-outs to church; they taught toddlers school lessons: all the activities of a typical day. In everything, though, Martin and the girls sought to show the street children they encountered that someone cared deeply about their lives. It is fair to say that it was no less than a comprehensive, 24/7-rescue operation.

Family saved
One dramatic day, the three were used by God to help save a pregnant mother and three children from their irresponsible drug-addict father. 'Libby, Anna and I followed the Lord's leading to this foul, foul park', Martin explains: 'It's where they all hang out - criminals, prostitutes, glue-sniffers... There, sleeping rough under the trees was Jairo (an ex-prisoner) with his pregnant girlfriend and their little boys: Jestin, Lupito and Jaito.' The family had literally nothing; so, says Martin, 'we simply had to take them in.' The newfound group thereafter began living in accommodation near the church - eating together, praying together, working together, 'as one big happy family'. That is, until the father left in a huff, refusing to keep his job or quit his drug habit.

Explanations
When asked why Nicaraguans like Jairo fail to break out of the poverty trap, Martin supplies no easy answer. He cites an attitude of compliance to be a factor - the upshot of generations of political oppression. He also draws into question the laissez-faire approach of the current government's social policy. Additionally, he refers to the ever-present easy get-out offered by local crime syndicates, and just plain-old irresponsibility. However, he's a man more interested in the immediate difference people like you or I can make to their lives.

Children
'Nicaragua's children are just so precious,' he stresses, 'They're a lost generation in what is quite a lost land. They really need our time.' Martin now shares a tale of how he, Anna and Libby rescued a four-month old baby boy - Moíses - who had been abandoned by his fifteen year-old prostitute mother. 'When we got him, little Mo was really ill: listless, unresponsive, malnourished and suffering from bronchitis and scabies. But after some love and attention, it was great to watch him get over his illness. He began to put on weight, to smile, laugh and play.' The three young boys taken in also improved dramatically: 'I don't want to make us sound brilliant or anything,' says Martin ever-demure, 'But you could just see the difference we made in their lives. Their vocabulary increased, they became livelier, they became more imaginative. Children need real loving stimulation and good, godly examples to follow'

Disaster
Unfortunately, now some two months after his time abroad, Martin says the work established in the barrio has taken a terrible turn for the worse. The Nicaraguan government has recently circumscribed Libby's right to adopt any homeless children. Their misplaced argument is that a single, foreign white girl, without what they see as a 'regular income', isn't fit for the job. Obviously, the implications of this are devastating to the fledgling Christian family and the immediate community. It's much more than just a temporary set back. Baby Moíses, for one, has been removed from his newfound home and whisked off to a anonymous State Residence: 'A place that is far worse', Martin says 'and of which you hear such atrocious tales; everything from corruption and murder to child-selling and rape.' As if to make matters worse, Jairo's girlfriend and children have also just decided to walk out, leaving Libby alone, frustrated and heartbroken over something valuable, lasting and workable that she pioneered for their own sake.

'We're, most of all, really worried about what will become of the lost children,' says Martin, crestfallen. 'We feel like they were almost our own, you know. We wanted them to be Christians; to know God; to grow up to be decent, responsible young men in Nicaragua. I can't even begin to contemplate where they are now.'

Appeal
When I asked Martin how Counterculture readers might help the vital work in Nicaragua, he gives three practical possibilities.

• Firstly, by prayer;
• secondly, in financial support; and,
• thirdly, by taking the step of faith to become a short-term co-worker yourself. '

To receive further information on the Nicaraguan outreach - or to make a financial donation, you can contact Martin by telephone, on:

UK 0114 2680780;

or by email, on: martinjpickles@excite.com.

Phill Dolby is a freelance writer and a member of Abundant Life Church, Bradford.