Teachers Needed

Nicaragua Christian Academy is currently seeking interested individuals to fill the following positions for the 2011-2012 school year (orientation begins July 20, 2011):

• Preschool Teacher
• First Grade Teacher
• Third Grade Teacher
• Fourth Grade Teacher
• Sixth Grade Teacher

NCA Summer Camp is also currently seeking volunteer teachers for Summer Camp 2011 (June 16 to July 22).

If you are interested, please contact our director, Liam Starkenburg (director@nca.edu.ni) or visit our school website (http://www.nca.edu.ni/Employment.shtml).

Education in Nicaragua

Did you know?

• There are about 2 million school-aged children in Nicaragua.
• Only about 1.6 million are actually attending school; 400,000 do not attend for various reasons, mostly related to finances.
• The country only has classroom space for about 800,000 students; most schools have two "shifts" of class. Some students attend in the morning and others attend in the afternoon. The school day is shortened to less than 5 hours.
• The classrooms are overcrowded. The law permits up to 40 students per classroom, but many times this is not achieved. Classrooms with 50, 60 or even 70 students (or more) are common in Nicaragua.
• Most schools do not have sufficient resources to provide a good education to the students. Teachers are inexperienced, underpaid, and overworked. They do not have the classroom and textbook resources necessary to achieve academic excellence.

Thanksgiving in Nicaragua

Last Thursday was Thanksgiving day! Although it is not a holiday in Nicaragua and most Nicaraguans are worked on Thursday and Friday, our school celebrates Thanksgiving and we get two days off.

Wednesday was our Thanksgiving Program at NCA. Each class gave a presentation, and Caleb's role was to say, "I'm thankful for God's Word, the Bible." As parents, we were worried that he would get stage fright and not say anything, but he did a great job speaking into the microphone in front of hundreds of people! Great job, Caleb!

Thursday evening we had several other missionary families at our house to celebrate Thanksgiving together with them, although turkey was not on the menu because it is so expensive. Rotisseri chicken was the substitute, along with all of your other traditional Thanksgiving foods.

We already had shared a real turkey dinner last Sunday night at International Christian Fellowship with many other missionary families. The church was full and the pot luck buffet line was long, but most of all, we had a lot to be thankful for!

Christmas Bonuses

In thinking about how life in Nicaragua is different, I thought you might find the following interesting:

• All Nicaraguan workers are legally entitled to a year-end bonus of 1 month salary (aguinaldo).
• There is also a well-founded tradition of employers giving all of their employees a "Christmas basket". In its original essence, this is supposed to be all of the ingredients to prepare a Christmas meal, but it usually ends up growing into a very big gift basket.

Imagine recieving a full month of salary as a Christmas bonus! Anyone thinking about getting a job here in Nicaragua? On the flip side, Nicaragua is the poorest Spanish-speaking country in the world and the minimum wage is only $0.48 per hour ($1,400 per year for a full-time job).

Liam's Recruiting Trip

For the past three years, part of Liam's role as Director at Nicaragua Christian Academy has included traveling to the States to participate in the ACSI International Teacher recruiting fair. The purpose is to connect with potential teacher candidates so that as we have needs for new teachers in upcoming school years, more people will know about our school and be able to apply for openings.

In November, Liam visited six colleges and universities: Dordt College (IA), Wheaton College and Moody Bible Institute (Chicago), Calvin College, Cornerstone University and Hope College (MI). Liam spoke with over 120 potential teachers at these locations and many expressed interest in teaching at NCA in the future.

A Walk in the Woods

One of our favorite family activities is to go for a walk on a dirt road near our house. Many Saturday mornings we will take the short drive out into the "campo", or countryside, to enjoy the cooler fresh air. The kids enjoy seeing chickens, cows, and horses, and the Nicaraguans think it is funny to see us meandering down their road, where they get little or no traffic. We might not have State Parks or National Parks to visit, but God's beauty is always around us if we pause to notice it.

Would You Do It?

Several years ago, our local Managua newspaper (La Prensa) published an interesting survey. One of the questions really caught my eye. They asked youth across Nicaragua the following question: "If you had the chance to leave Nicaragua to another country but could never return, would you do it?" For me (and probably most of you), the answer is easy. I would never want to leave my home country if it meant not being able to return. However, the surprising answer for 84% of Nicaraguan youth was "yes!"

The sad reality is that there are many Nicaraguans who believe they would be better off anywhere else than in their own country. They have given up on the possibility that their country will ever rid itself of the poverty and corruption that have plagued this nation throughout their lifetimes. Unfortunately, the escape mentality (which has led many to leave the country) only furthers Nicaragua's inability to grow.

One factor that has brought our family to such a strong commitment to God's ministry through Nicaragua Christian Academy is that we see something very different among our students. Each year, before our senior class graduates from high school, the soon-to-be graduates share their hopes and dreams for the future. Although the responses of our missionary kids and other international students are always extremely interesting and encouraging, most intriguing to me is what our Nicaraguan students (more than 50%) have to share. While their peers dream of abandoning their country, our NCA students consistently share of their plans to continue their studies (most of them in the United States or Costa Rica, where university education is much better than in Nicaragua) and of their commitment to return to Nicaragua. Their words reflect a mentality of, "This is my country, and I know that with God's help, I can make a difference here in the future." It is this hope that we see in the eyes of our students that gives us a sense of renewed passion each day and year for what God is doing at Nicaragua Christian Academy!