| Prior to his appointment, Carlos
was a term employee (on contract) with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.
From 2002 to 2005 he worked for PDA in El Salvador on the construction
of a community of 240 homes for people whose houses were lost
in the two earthquake in January 2001 (6.9 and 6.6 on the Richter
scale) that destroyed 47,000 homes and killed 1,100 people.
Originally from Honduras, Carlos is now a citizen of Nicaragua.
From a poor family, Carlos won a scholarship to study in the former
Soviet Union during the 1970s.
“In those years,” writes Carlos, “I embraced
Marxist theory and was a militant atheist. In those days, if someone
wanted to talk to me about God, I waved him away. When I began
to work with the Quakers, though, I began to rediscover my spirituality.
I crossed an important bridge then when I could say to myself
that I’m here in this world because of God’s will.
That helped me to discover the real sense of my life as a very
small part of God’s mission in the world. I found a way
to come back to God through community service to those suffering
in hopelessness and need.
“Despite the hardness of my heart during those years, God
has blessed me some gifts that we often take for granted such
as the precious gift of life itself, a wonderful family, good
health, the sunshine of every new day, and the modest satisfaction
of our daily human needs.”
Carlos has many years of experience in development and disaster
relief. He worked in El Salvador with the Agency for Personal
Service Overseas (of the Irish government) as a consultant in
2001 and 2002. He was a project manager for the American Friends
Service Committee from 1999-2000. He was regional director of
a rural development agency in Nicaragua from 1994-1996 and for
Nicaragua’s Ministry of Social Action 1990-1994. He has
done post-graduate work and been a part-time professor at the
Autonomous University of Nicaragua, UNAN (1996-1998).
Carlos holds bachelor’s of science and a master’s
in agricultural sciences from Friendship People’s University
in Moscow, Russia. He is a member of Nuestra Señora de
la Asunción” parish in Juigalpa, Chontales, Nicaragua.
Carlos is married to Maria Auxiliador Alvarez, and they have
two children, Rosaura Aracelly and Carlos Roberto.
Birthday: May 10 |
