Sandinista-turned-Contra-turned-Christian brings economic and spiritual hope to Nicaragua's poor.
Central America is still choking from the smoke of 9,000 forest fires. The international airport at Managua, Nicaragua, has been closed periodically due to skies heavy with 'the brown mist'. In this year's El Nino-driven climate, it is uncertain how long the parched summer will continue. For Mario Aviles, who endured decades of political drought and breathed the gun smoke of a hundred battles, this kind of waiting is nothing new.
For 26 years, Mr. Aviles carried a gun in his hand and vision in his heart for a free and democratic Nicaragua. He fought first with the Sandinista guerrilla army to topple the Somoza dictatorship. Unhappy with the Sandinistas' growing Marxist agenda, he switched allegiances, joining the Contra army and eventually rising to the rank of commander. The civil war claimed the lives of 150,000 Nicaraguans.
God's private
Now Mr. Aviles offers a much abbreviated version of his life story: 'I gave up my M-16 for John 3.16,' he says.
No longer fighting a guerrilla war, he battles daily to rebuild the nation - economically, socially, politically.' I went from being a commander in the Contra forces to being a private in God's army,' he says. From that vantage point, he heads one of the most successful micro-enterprise projects in Central America, known by its Spanish acronym as FUNAD.
FUNAD administers and distributes medicine, clothing, vegetable seeds and other agricultural products donated from the United States. It also runs an orphanage and a growing Christian school 20 miles outside Managua. But the beating heart of FUNAD is micro-enterprises, where small business loans - usually not more than $500 - are made to industrious poor people, enabling them to become self-sufficient with a small family business.
'We use money as a ministry tool,' says Mr. Aviles. 'A micro-loan, along with proper guidance, can enable a destitute person to start a small business and begin feeding his family.'
Business and gospel
Small businesses account for 90% of gross domestic product in most Third World countries. In that setting, a small business can exist and thrive just by acquiring a sewing-machine, mechanic's tools, or an arc-welder. In one case, loan recipient Carmen Reyes Calero used a $300 micro-loan from FUNAD to buy a refrigerator. The purchase allowed her to expand her small produce stand to also sell fresh meat. Don Felix, another recipient, received a $250 loan to improve his cement block business. Now he has three employees and produces 400 blocks a day.
Loan recipients are carefully screened, according to Mr. Aviles, before repayment terms are agreed on. With each loan - which usually runs for four to six months - the interest covers administrative costs. The principal is recycled into new loans. FUNAD's fund has grown to more than $100,000 since its beginning in 1990. Only 2% of loans made since then have defaulted. Currently 130 business loans are active, and either Mr. Aviles or one of two FUNAD staff members interviews two or three new potential loan candidates each day. Material provided by Mr. Aviles indicates that over 300 new jobs per year are created under this micro-enterprise programme.
The concept is part of a growing movement worldwide to help the poor bootstrap their way out of poverty.
This year, the US government will hit taxpayers for $8 million to fund micro-enterprise programmes in Nicaragua. Mr. Aviles, however, won't see any of that money. Unlike most micro-enterprise programmes in Nicaragua, he has raised his capital from private sources. This gives him the freedom to add an additional dimension to the programme: 'We teach the small business owners the biblical principles of running a business. Our staff meets with loan recipients each week to give them guidance and assistance in their business. As a result of being in their homes each week, and because we are sharing biblical truths, we inevitably get into more personal matters. We have found the micro-enterprise programme is not only a great way to create jobs, it is a great tool for evangelism.' Mr. Aviles' survey of loan recipients found 43% had become Christians.
Jungle conversion
When Mr. Aviles was 14, he watched as his father was taken off in handcuffs by Somoza police. His father's crime was speaking out against government corruption. The family home was burned. In 1958, at 18, he left home to join Sandino guerrilla fighters in the effort to overthrow the Somoza dictatorship. By the time Sandinistas took control of the country in 1979, Mr. Aviles was branded for speaking out against the Communist ideology that infiltrated the regime. As a result, the Sandinistas put him in prison.
As soon as he was released, he fled to Costa Rica where he joined the newly formed Contra movement. For the next three years, he commanded the 2,000-man army defending the Southern Front, reporting directly to top guerrilla commander Eden Pastora. Asked which was worse, the Somoza dictatorship or the Sandinista regime, he replies with his own riddle: 'Which is worse, having your left arm cut off or your right arm?'
As a Contra commander, Mr. Aviles had a life-changing experience on night patrol through the jungle. 30 feet behind him on the trail was a sudden, blinding flash and a deafening explosion. He ran back to find that one of his soldiers had stepped on a landmine. 'The mine had taken off the lower half of his body,' Mr. Aviles vividly recalls. 'His legs were gone. We knew he was going to die, but we told him: 'You're going to make it.' He looked right at me and said: 'Hefe (meaning Chief), I am not afraid to die - I know where I am going. But, Hefe, you do not know where you are going.' The soldier died that night in the jungle. Before he did, he gave me his pocket Bible. That night, I read that Bible and when I came to Psalm 23, I found his blood was on the pages. He was reading it when he died. That was when I gave my heart to Jesus.'
A few days later, Mr. Aviles was hit by mortar shrapnel and rushed to a Costa Rican hospital for surgery. When he re-covered, he met with commander Pastora, telling him of his faith conversion and a new-found conviction that he could not return to the battlefield. That was 1984. Mr. Aviles did not return to Nicaragua until 1989, when the Sandinista regime was ousted in the nation's first-ever democratic elections.
People who fear God
Mr. Aviles has a name for his brand of theology that brings the Bible into the context of politics, economics and social reform. He calls it the 'kingdom message'.
'Churches in Nicaragua are preaching how bad the world is and are telling their people: 'Don't worry about the world around you. You're going to heaven.' Some Apostolic denominations in Central American do not believe in social work such as orphanages. That's not the theology in my Bible,' he says. 'The kingdom of God is not just something in the hereafter. It means establishing morality, justice and ethics in a nation today. God will use people to do it.'
Mr. Aviles insists he is not promoting a religious state in Nicaragua. 'My goal is not to see an evangelical government. Rather, to see men and women who fear God be in positions of leadership.'
Greg Dabel in Managua
Reprinted with permission from World Magazine, Asheville, North Carolina, USA.
Home
Archives
Subscriptions
Adverts
Find a church
About us
Contact us
Site Map
Printable