Initially through an ecumenical church program in Baltimore, four years ago we
began assisting the people of San Juan de Limay, Nicaragua to build basic houses
for people living in unbelievable conditions. During these four years we
provided funds to build 12 houses. In 2008 we decided to work directly with our
sister parish, San Juan de Bautiste, and its pastor, Father Bayardo, in San Juan
de Limay. Father Daly and several interested parishioners visited Nicaragua in
July, 2008. We funded, thanks to a number of generous parishioners and other
interested people, funding to build 39 more houses by late 2009 to early 2010 –
weather permitting. Funding for 20 additional houses will be committed during
our February, 2010 mission trip. Note: all funds are the direct gifts to the
housing program and do not come from regular church funds.
A committee of
dedicated parishioners from our sister parish in San Juan de Limay, interview
and determine the “poorest of the poor” in their parish (roughly the size of
Calvert County) as potential housing recipients. Each eligible family must
have title to their land and have volunteer help in building their house. The
houses themselves are approximately 20 X 20 feet in size. They are made of
locally produced clay bricks and floor tiles with a metal roof. Each house
includes a new outhouse. The cost of a house is $2,500. We provide the funds
for the houses, not the labor to build them. Our goal is to build 100 houses in
phases of 10 over the new few years. We try to visit our sister parish twice
each year to monitor the housing program's progress.
Pictured below
are some scenes of our program: Upper left is a photo of the local church
sponsored pharmacy (that's the whole pharmacy stock in the background) with SJV
parishioners Liz Snyder and Darrell Ahne flanking the pharmacy student who runs
the pharmacy, and Father Daly. Upper right is Father Daly on the left and Jose
Alberto on the right, who heads the local church housing committee, in between
them is a woman and her son in her new house. Bottom left and right are photos
of the “house” that the woman used to live in.
As you can see,
houses dramatically change the lives of the recipients.
