BBI alumni return to Nicaragua

Hepburn, Sask.

It was during the second week of a short mission visit to Nicaragua last February that Corwin Thiessen knew he would have to return to the new friends he had made.

"I told my national partner, `see you in a year'," says Thiessen, now intern associate pastor at Hepburn (Sask.) MB Church. "They didn't believe me. They thought, why would I come back--living in wealthy Canada?"

Thiessen had gone to Nicaragua in February 1996 as part of the senior class of Bethany Bible Institute in Hepburn. The class participated in two weeks of gospel witness under Church Partnership Evangelism. CPE matches North American volunteers with local Christians for door-to-door visits to explain the good news of Jesus Christ.

He, along with two other students, Lisa Giesbrecht and Brad McKeown, decided to return. Last spring, Thiessen learned that Bethany was planning to send its 1997 senior class on another CPE project to Nicaragua.

In July, he began to think of a special project. He wanted to record a number of songs, have cassettes made, and send them to his Nicaraguan friends "to remind them of my return."

Then a friend suggested that he do an eight-track recording and make the cassettes available to others as well. Thiessen began to see that the project might be a way to raise the costs of his travel to Nicaragua. He recorded in August and October, and had the cassettes ready for a first fund-raising concert Nov. 17 in Dalmeny, Sask.

A song featured in concerts and on the cassette, titled "Vera Cruz", is about a little boy named Gabriel whom Thiessen met at the Baptist church in Vera Cruz. The boy had treated Thiessen as his best friend. When the Bethany students had to leave, Gabriel "just cried in my arms", says Thiessen.

Thiessen, Giesbrecht and McKeon planned to meet in Vancouver in January to plan and pull resources together for their trip. They will then travel to Nicaragua to work for one month with the local church before the CPE group--including the Bethany senior students--arrives Feb. 12.

The three alumni would like to work with the Vera Cruz church in children's programs in the rural setting outside of Managua, passing on what they've learned about daily vacation Bible school. "We will spend a good part of our time trying to sense what the needs of the people are," Thiessen says. "We want to work with them in partnership."

Gordon Nickel, BBI

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