Margaret Storey is a lovely Christian lady who lives in Wallsend, but who spends most of her time in Nicaragua, a country currently going through difficult times politically. In this guest post she tells her story:

I first heard about SIFT (Seed International Fund Trust) when I made inquiries regarding school sponsorship in Nicaragua. I had previously been to the country volunteering with a different charity three times and each time I returned home, I felt part of me had been left behind. I decided when I retired in 2008, to return to Nicaragua independently for 11 weeks to wait on God and see where he wanted my future to be.

During that time, the SIFT team arrived to do their yearly visit to the children who were sponsored by the charity, to get their school reports, family news, a fresh photo to send to their sponsor in the UK and pay their next year’s school fees. They invited me to join them. They had been praying for someone to act as a link person in Nicaragua with the office in the UK. Unaware of this, I told them the reason I was there. Some weeks later, they asked me if I was prepared to join SIFT. I agreed to give them, in a voluntary capacity, nine months each year (now eight months).

My main ministry is the area around the rubbish tip, where lots of our sponsored children live and scavenge. Many of these children would not be in education today were it not for SIFT. Some of them have now reached university level. I support the families in their struggles an encourage the children with their schooling. I also organise the payment of the monthly school fees. We have 135 children in 8 schools and 2 universities, which I have to check on regularly. With donations from home, I help buy school uniforms and supplies, pay for prescriptions and medical costs, contribute towards projects at the schools or the church, and give treats to the children.

Every 2 months I give out food rations to our SIFT families. My home church, Trinity Methodist in Wallsend, has a well fund, and with this I am able to organise new wells to be dug, or dried up ones to be dug deeper. There is always a demand for wells!

I’ve had a playground built at the orphanage, a shelter built at the rock quarry, where people sit for 10 hours a day in dire conditions, breaking rock to sell to builders and a laundry in the poorest community where people walk a mile to wash their clothes in the creek. I work alongside the pastor of the church I attend, sometimes preaching. In our women’s fellowship, I have taught many of them to knit and now some of them are making and selling their own work.

Bluefields is a very poor community with people living in atrocious conditions, often not owning a pair of shoes or knowing where the next meal is coming from, but they are happy people and grateful for the help they receive.

When I am home, I speak at various guilds, meetings etc. and it’s from donations there that I carry out the projects, independent of SIFT. I am self-funding, so none of these goes towards my own costs. I find it challenging, often an emotional strain, but also a joy to serve these underprivileged brothers and sisters who are now part of my extended family.