‘This
is the future of my children’
Father Pfeffer’s Village completed in Nicaragua
By Lou Baldwin
Special to The CS&T
BIJAGUAL, Nicaragua — A group of 24 Philadelphia-area pilgrims,
led by Msgr. Francis X. Schmidt, traveled to Nicaragua Jan. 8-11 to see
just what happened to the money raised through Father Chuck’s Challenge
to supply housing for desperately poor families. They were not disappointed.
Along with officials from Food for the Poor (FFP) the agency through which
Msgr. Schmidt has been working, and its local partner, the American Nicaraguan
Foundation (ANF) they traveled by rugged mountain roads to Father [Charles]
Pfeffer’s Village.
When they got there, in a place Bishop Carlos Herrera of Jinotega called
“a village far from the cities, and in one of the most forgotten
areas in the country,” the Bishop celebrated Mass, thanked the region’s
Philadelphia benefactors, and blessed 60 new houses.
The 355-square-foot, single-story houses are extremely basic by American
standards. They are built on concrete slabs with precast concrete walls
and corrugated metal roofs. Each contains a living room and sleeping room,
but most families (typically six people) have added a kitchen shed, built
from their old shacks. Each house also has a freestanding latrine.
As explained by FFP officials, the housing was built on land donated by
the Nicaraguan government, and each plot was deeded solely to the mother
of the children in the family. Should she die, the house can neither be
rented nor sold to anyone else until the last child reaches adulthood.
Because both the FFP and ANF organizations work to encourage self-sufficiency,
each family has also been provided with a hybrid goat that can supply
milk; as the herd increases, offspring can be sold for profit or used
for meat.
The village also has piped and treated running water, but no electricity.
The villagers have collectively voted to use the profits from their goats
to arrange for electricity some time in the future.
“This is the future of my children,” said Santos Espinosa.
He and his wife, Rafaela, and their children, Rafael, Darwin, Adic and
Jessica, occupy one of the houses.
There is also a multipurpose community center, paid for by Connie Hunt
of King of Prussia, which can be used for monthly Masses when Father Rafael
Rios visits.
During the Philadelphia-area pilgrims’ trip, they also traveled
to La Rica, another region where they could appreciate firsthand the primitive
conditions that poor rural Nicaraguans endure.
In one of the flimsy shacks, for example, a family struggles to get by
on subsistence farming and roughly $400-a-year that the father earns in
the coffee harvest season. The Philadelphians also visited a girls orphanage,
and a day-care and health center funded by FFP.
Father Chuck’s Challenge, which to date has raised $317,000, has
already sent funds to FFP to build 40 more units in San Sebastian, and
50 units in La Rica. Those funds, for the most part, are matched by ANF,
which oversees the actual construction.
“Father Chuck would have been thrilled and embarrassed by all of
this. He was a very simple person, who loved the people and saw so much
in the future of young people,” said Saint Joseph Sister Jeannemarie
Jordan, who knew and worked with Father Charles Pfeffer, for whom the
project is named.
Also among the pilgrims were Father Thomas Higgins, pastor of Holy Innocents
Parish, and Father Charles Kennedy, parochial vicar of St. Ignatius Parish
in Yardley.
Donations for Father Chuck’s Challenge can be sent to Msgr. Francis
X. Schmidt, 110 Nester Drive, Norristown, PA 19403.
Lou Baldwin is a member of St. Leo parish and a freelance writer.