Amigos fiesta sports fun, food for Nicaragua's poor

Gladys Rivas has lived amid Katrina-like devastation since 1998. The Chinandega, Nicaragua, resident said Hurricane Mitch "changed everything" when it hit her country.

Rain from the category 5 hurricane swamped the city in northwestern Nicaragua. Volcanic mudslides covered villages. Winds leveled homes. More than 3,000 died. An already weak economy sunk further.

Rivas, 35, looked away, her voice breaking as she remembered. "Everything destroyed. And all the dead people in the canal."

The area is still in dire shape. But Rivas and others have hope, in part because of outreaches like Amigos for Christ, a Buford-based ministry that puts its faith to work.

Rivas, 35, a mother of two, is the featured speaker at Amigos' main fundraiser Sept. 17, the Outback Fiesta. The noon to 8 p.m. event sports music, food and children's games to help finish a 120-home, 50-acre village called Villa Catalina.

Amigos and residents have finished 40 homes. The goal is 80 more by May, the start of the next rainy season, Amigos director John Bland said.

He hopes to raise $75,000 or more Saturday.

"We lack the money to do the last 80," Bland said. "So we're up here begging to keep on moving."

The festival, Amigos' second annual, will be held at Rock Springs Farm in northern Gwinnett County. Admission is $5. The principal sponsor is Outback Steakhouse. Highlights include crafts, a petting zoo and entertainment such as Atlanta's Banks & Shane band.

"People loved it last year," said Yanis Latsis, whose Outback restaurant in Gainesville will again donate the main course.

Amigos grew out of a 1997 trip by Bland, who works with youth at Buford's Prince of Peace Catholic Church, and a friend. The next year, Mitch spiked the needs in the impoverished country. The group responded.

Amigos has grown into an interdenominational ministry that has worked with Nicaraguans in opening a surgical hospital, drilling wells, teaching self-sustaining organic farming, and now raising a village to give 120 families a working start.

But the group has seen rising materials costs push the price per home from $3,000 to $3,800. It's also unclear if the donations sweep for Hurricane Katrina will affect fundraising for poor storm victims in a third-world country like Nicaragua.

Yet, Rivas and Bland speak of steps of faith taken for Villa Catalina. And Rivas is grateful for the chance to tell more.

"Because God," she said smiling, "has given me the opportunity to speak on behalf of other people."

E-mail: mailto:rlavender@gainesvilletimes.com

Originally published Thursday, September 15, 2005