October 9, 2006

Dear Friends,

Since my first letter several months ago, many important events have occurred in Nicaragua and abroad that have moved society and have marked the lives of Nicaraguans, their communities, and their families.

There was a great deal of concern in church circles in Nicaragua about the staff cuts and changes at PC(USA) headquarters this spring. Some predicted this would be a heavy blow to the ongoing construction of a new kind of fellowship, which PC(USA) has strengthened until now, between sister churches in Latin America and all over the world.

Several months after the downsizing, however, there is a sense of satisfaction that God has guided with wisdom the decisions of the different entities within the church to exercise active and responsible stewardship, redistributing the tasks and people in a better way, while also caring for the future of those who are no longer working directly for the PC(USA).

During these same months, we Nicaraguans still feel the pain of those who living through the crisis in the southern United States caused by Hurricane Katrina, which uncovered the truth that there are no limits for disasters, nor distinctions in this regard between "developed" and "underdeveloped" countries. The feeling of abandonment and institutional rejection that Biloxi and New Orleans experienced is the same feeling we Nicaraguans live with all the time.

At present, the national agenda of Nicaragua is dominated by the elections. We are now only 35 days away from the general elections for the period 2006 to 2010. So far, everything seems to indicate that the electoral slates are serving up more of the same old thing.

We have come to understand that the factors which generated violence in society during the 1980s, far from being overcome, have instead become magnified, as a result of the dismantling of institutions that previously carried out the important function of social protection, and which today simply play the role of "regulators" or "rule-enforcers" for the privatized sectors of the economy.

Unemployment and lack of opportunities are now, as they were in the 1980s, factors that lead to increasing levels of crime and violence and to the renaissance of social movements and a widening of street protests and demonstrations against government indifference.

In spite of the fact that we Nicaraguans are in favor of varying government leadership via public elections, we are also clear that the political platforms of the parties in the electoral race are ignoring key topics in the life of the nation, such as the redistribution of social wealth, the pardoning of our foreign debt, and the fight against corruption.

Evangelical Christians have made a call to close ranks and a campaign that discredits moral values and encourages corruption, which in turn threatens the capacity of the society to be tolerant. The Christian sector encourages voting for the least bad alternatives, which are of course difficult to identify in the midst of a campaign plagued with aggression and disrespect for the citizenry.

The Council of Evangelic Churches of Nicaragua, CEPAD, in particular is involved in the electoral process, with more than 150 national election observers from different churches and communities all over the country. CEPAD does this as part of their Christian testimony, their commitment to incarnate the love of Christ in service to the community and to the cause of justice.

During these months our family has been sharing and living through the discomforts caused by strikes by transportation workers, health workers, and teachers, prolonged cutoffs of electricity, and student protests against government's indifference toward the economic and social crises that we are confronting.

But as a family we are greatly comforted to recognize we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses—men and women of faith in search of the presence of God as guide, people moving along paths where the times have created their own challenges, their daily upsets, moments of pain and of happiness, of peace and of rejoicing.

In the midst of this uncertainty, CEPAD calls us to solidarity, to comfort each other, to come together as a community, to reflect on our experience, and to decide together how to confront the reality our country is living through at this time.

Every Monday at 7:30 a.m., before we start our work week, we at CEPAD celebrate an hour of prayer and praise to the God of life and of love. We pray for our governing officials, that they might cease the masking of the true purposes of their wars and crusades of hatred toward their brothers, and we pray for our brothers and friends who have to struggle to overcome hunger and death caused by sickness and other causes in many parts of the world.

This hour is also an opportunity to become informed about the achievements and difficulties we address in our daily work. From time to time we also share a breakfast of favorite Nicaraguan dishes such as "gallo pinto," "nacatamales," "chicharrones," "vigorón," some national beverages made from fresh fruits and of course, a cup of our “café de palo.”

I bid you a kind farewell, hoping that this has served to bring you up to date on my doings and my perspectives on current happenings in Nicaragua.

May God bless you,

Carlos Cardenas M.