Dear Family & Friends,

As most of you know I had the privilege to go to Nicaragua last year! It was an experience that deepened my faith and broadened my world view. I'm so excited to announce that I applied and got accepted to go back again this Summer! I have been praying about this since I left and I believe this is something that God is asking me to do again but in order for me to fulfil this call I need your help. I need to raise a total of $2,100 ). That’s why I am writing and bugging you about this. It's really important to me and I want to ask you to be a part of my story.

Imagine living in a dump, smelling smoke and rotting garbage. Spending your days searching through the waste of the city for food or anything you can sell for food. Imagine living there as a child! The desperation, the abandonment, and most importantly the horrible injustice that takes place. Like having your parents sell you to truck drivers for better garbage. I’ll let that sink in  – child prostitution for garbage! This was the reality for many who live in La Chureca (Spanish for “the dump”), a village inside Managua, Nicaragua. The poverty and injustice was beyond anything that can be communicated by word or picture. 

Fast forward several years and La Chureca no longer exists, but the poverty still does. Families have been relocated all throughout Nicaragua to new “dump-communities”. Injustice still exists and where injustice exists so does the opportunity to make a change!

Eight years ago, La Chureca was alive and well; Forward Edge International (a non-profit in Vancouver, Washington) decided to do something about the injustice. They bought a 2-acre plot of land about ten minutes outside La Chureca and began building homes for the young, at-risk girls within the dump.

This July marks seven years since sixteen girls arrived at Villa Esperanza (“Village of Hope”). Today, just over 20 girls live there. Villa Esperanza provides the girls with tutoring, mentorship, psychological counseling, teaching of trades, spiritual development, food, clothing and more. More importantly Villa Esperanza provides each of these girls with hope - hope to break generational poverty that seems inescapable in dump communities. 

Since the doors opened in Villa Esperanza, the girls have been transformed from beggars into leaders. Their families have been changed by their development. The workers at The Villa have grown, matured, and learned to love their families better.  Also the community around The Villa has been transformed for God’s kingdom. And for ten days in August, I get to take part in it!!!

Hear The Cry partners with Forward Edge International who sends dozens of short-term mission teams to Managua every year. While the foundation of these trips are for the girls at La Villa, each day while the girls are at school we will go throughout the city to pray for people and work on different projects. The hope for the Villa is not just that Jesus would continue to radically impact these girls lives, but that He would also impact the girl’s families, the workers at La Villa, and the surrounding communities. My team and I will get a chance to help make that impact by working alongside La Villa’s workers, spending time with these girls daily, go into schools, share my story, paint, clean, bond with these girls, and remind them of their worth as women of God and serve where we find a need in Managua. 

I'm lucky to even have a chance to go back on such an amazing trip. I believe it would be irresponsible to not walk through the door that God has opened for me. I also believe that it would be silly not to invite you to join me on my journey. Over the next three months as I prepare for the trip I ask you to partner with me: Pray for me and my team, ask me questions about my trip, and help me raise the needed funds. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.  Any donations from you would make the cost a whole lot easier for me to cover. Thank you so much for taking some time to read this and please pray for me, the people of Nicaragua, and our team so we can touch as many lives as possible.

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey and making all this possible. I'm so grateful for your role in my life.

Love always,
Ashley Garner 

PS: Everyone who has donated to help me go, words cannot express how thankful I am! Thank you sooo much! God never ceases to amaze me! ☺️

For more information contact info@hearthecry.org