Seeing Hope

A local mission to Nicaragua wants to change the world, one life at a time

Story by Benjamin Pomerance; Photos courtesy of North Country Mission of Hope

Thousands of eyes stare at Sister Deborah Blow. They are the eyes of the wounded — the woman with feet too grotesquely deformed to ever walk again, the three-year-old children who will never know their real parents, the young boy wandering aimlessly in a Nicaraguan field. They are the eyes of the strong — the woman who overcame her disability, the children who blazed a trail into the world despite their orphaned upbringing, the people who know how to survive. They are the eyes of the receivers, the recipients of countless hours of assistance and dollars of aid, but they are also the eyes of the givers, the ones who teach the world what all those words like “faith” and “love” and “hope” really mean. Most importantly for the woman who introduces herself to visitors simply as “Sister Debbie”, they are the eyes of friends.        

Sister Debbie comes here often, as often as she’s able, to stare back at those eyes. The desk of her office at Plattsburgh’s Seton Catholic Central School building is covered with the telltale signs of a workaholic, not a square inch untouched by some folder or form or lengthy to-do list. Above all the hecticness, though, are the eyes. And when Sister Debbie looks into those eyes, stops and looks and really listens, she remembers why her mission began. “I keep the pictures in my office so I can see their faces,” Blow says. “Their faces are faces of gratitude. They’re faces of hope. And they’re faces that remind us to live beyond ourselves.”   

Beyond ourselves…all the way to a foreign land, a foreign culture, a spot most Americans probably couldn’t even point out on a map. Beyond ourselves…all the way to a world Sister Debbie never knew, never wanted to know, never thought about knowing until that world quite literally arrived on her doorstep. Beyond ourselves…all the way to more than 900 people experiencing the unexpected, an idea that was supposed to die after a month living and thriving after ten years. Beyond ourselves…all the way to the nation and people of Nicaragua. All the way to the Mission of Hope.      

Yet before Sister Debbie could teach others to live beyond themselves, she had to discover a way to live beyond her own life. With a refugee family standing before her, a woman with two small children and $200 stashed inside her shoe, she had no other choice but to step into another universe. The one she discovered was not pleasant. It was a world of violence, a civil war that had torn Nicaragua in two, combat without rules that had forced the two children to watch while their mother was beaten by members of a rebel army. “They were caught in the reality of a civil war,” Blow explains, “and both the mother and the father of these children knew too much. Their lives were threatened. Their children were in danger. The only option they had was to escape.”    

"It was really a no-brainer: we had to do something to help"

So the family escaped — first the mother and children, then their father at a later date. Somehow, their trail led them to the door of Sister Debbie, then the principal at a Catholic school in Plattsburgh. Before long, they were traveling together through unfamiliar territory. “They were new to our country, to our community, to our school, to our way of life,” Blow says, “and the customs and culture of Nicaragua were foreign to me. We learned from each other. We gave to each other.” And somewhere, in the midst of this unexpected exchange, the seeds of Mission of Hope were planted.

Rain caused these seeds to burst into bloom. Too much rain, that is, the devastating floodwaters of Hurricane Mitch that tried to wash away one nation and ended up forming a bond between two. When the tropical storm dropped 75 inches of water on Nicaragua over five days in 1998, Sister Debbie knew she had to do something to help her new friends. “By now, these children were in high school,” she explains. “Their village in Nicaragua was being destroyed by the hurricane. It was really a no-brainer: we had to do something to help. The only question was what.”

Joining forces with the children’s mother, Yamilette Flores, and Plattsburgh teacher Eve McGill, Sister Debbie set out to answer that question. The three women planned a mission trip to the Nicaraguan village of Chiquilistagua in December 1998, an effort intended to be only a simple, one-time gesture of goodwill. Before the trip was over, Sister Debbie knew this concept was futile. “The one-time trip is a typical American fix,” she says, shaking her head. “You make your donation and you’re done. No real personal contact, no strong relationships, no sense of empowerment.” She pauses. “And to be honest, the real result of this first trip to Nicaragua was that we realized we could not just do a one-time trip and accomplish what we really wanted to do.”

"Nobody comes away from a Mission of Hope experience unaffected by what they’ve seen and done"

Fast forward a decade. Now hit pause. There’s those eyes again, staring out into worlds they never knew, only there are so many more of them now. And they aren’t just eyes from Nicaragua. They’re the eyes of more than 900 individuals who have made the trip to Nicaragua since Mission of Hope began, 169 of them repeat travelers to this land far from their home. They’re the eyes of people from 22 high schools, 22 institutions of higher education, 13 states, and 10 counties who have taken the same leap of faith Sister Debbie made 10 years ago. They’re the eyes of the 625 children fed every day by Mission of Hope programs, and they’re the eyes of the volunteers who provide them food. They’re the eyes of the 500 students being educated at a Mission of Hope- sponsored school, and they’re the eyes of their teachers. They’re the eyes of 20,000 Nicaraguans treated at Mission of Hope clinics every year, and they’re the eyes of the physicians who aid them. “Nobody comes away from a Mission of Hope experience unaffected by what they’ve seen and done,” Blow says. “This is something that touches all of us.”    

For a decade now, Mission of Hope has voluntarily provided assistance to the people of Nicaragua in four broad categories: health, education, ecology, and community development. Yet when it comes to talk of giving, Sister Debbie refuses to don the mantle of caregiver to the poor. Instead, she says, the greatest work Mission of Hope can accomplish goes beyond providing aid. “You do not change hearts, either here or there, without fostering relationships,” Blow explains. “Without relationships, you retain this inequity between the giver and the receiver. And I think anyone who’s been on a Mission trip to Nicaragua will tell you that we receive as much as we give.”  

Two-time Mission participant Sarah Deeb says the gift bestowed upon her in Nicaragua will last forever. Longing to do some sort of mission work abroad, Deeb first joined Mission of Hope in her junior year of high school. “You feel mixed emotions,” Deeb recalls of preparing for her first trip. “This was my first time traveling out of the country without my family. So while I was excited, I was nervous, too, just because it was all completely new to me.”

Still, Deeb says she didn’t anticipate just how different Nicaragua would be. When the plane carrying the Mission travelers landed in Nicaragua’s capital city, Deeb’s world was transformed forever — although she didn’t know it yet. “It was a really big airport,” she says. “You don’t expect to see such a big airport in a third-world nation. It was like you were landing in any other country. It could have even been in America. Then you get outside (the airport) — and everything changes.”

"We always have so much. We can give some of it back to those who need it"

Working in Nicaragua gave Deeb a sense of satisfaction, but also left her yearning to do more. The two trips with Mission of Hope, she says, inspired her to take on more service work in the future. “Seeing the people and the condition they were living in left a strong impression on me,” Deeb recalls. “Many of them were living in terrible poverty, but they were still doing what they could to live their lives fully, to appreciate all the things around them. And it makes you really think about yourself and how much you take for granted. We always have so much. We can give some of it back to those who need it.”

According to Blow, Deeb’s rejuvenated sense of consciousness is not unusual for young Mission participants. “The people of Nicaragua give them the affirmation that they are making a difference in the world,” Blow says. “The incredible thing about Mission of Hope is that it provides an invitation to open your heart and a challenge to live life differently.”

Several high school and college students have taken that challenge to heart, even changing careers as result of their Mission experiences. Blow points proudly to a number of individuals who joined organizations such as the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps after traveling with Mission of Hope — a nurse serving in Namibia, an orphanage volunteer in Russia, a Peace Corps worker who moved to Nicaragua after his Peace Corps contract was up and still volunteers there today. For those who don’t take such a large step, Blow says the Mission still leaves its mark. “I remember one college student who went with us,” Blow recalls, “and after he came back, he called me up in tears. He said that he had been taking a shower, and when the hot water began to run out of the showerhead, he began to cry, because he knew the people in Nicaragua didn’t have hot water to bathe in.” Blow pauses. “You don’t think he lived his life differently after that?”

"Even when we’re not actually in Nicaragua, we’re doing something at least once a week for Mission of Hope"

Yet high school and college students are not the only ones influenced by Mission of Hope. Plattsburgh resident Judy Charland and her husband have already traveled on five Mission trips, and plan to join the group on many more. Focusing on ecological improvements from safe composting practices to sustaining school, home, and community gardens, Charland says the Mission has provided some of the most rewarding work of her life. “Even when we’re not actually in Nicaragua, we’re doing something at least once a week for Mission of Hope,” Charland says. “My husband and I constantly find something we’re excited about, something we can always do to help out. And we want to keep helping out as long as we are able.”

Plattsburgh pediatrician Roger Patnode understands Charland’s sentiments about helping out. Every week, Patnode can be found up to his elbows in medical supplies at “MOH-town” — the Mission’s supply depot on 119 Sharon Ave. in Plattsburgh —preparing for the next shipment of equipment and medicines to Nicaragua. “We have everything from gurneys to exam tables to every sort of medical equipment and medicine you can imagine,” Patnode says. “And we always find a place for it. There always is a need.”

"It gives you a real reality check, because that situation is so different from the lives we lead here"

Patnode says his work at the Mission’s Nicaraguan clinics opened his eyes to the situation faced by so many citizens in the tiny country. “You realize that people there have so few resources,” he states. “It’s not that they don’t have the desire to stabilize or improve their life. They simply don’t have the resources to do it. It gives you a real reality check, because that situation is so different from the lives we lead here.”

That difference, Blow says, can overwhelm many Mission participants. Even after a decade of service, Blow admits even she finds herself blown away by the abject poverty crippling people she has grown to love. Which is why, when the pressures of running a non-profit international organization start to suck her under, Blow always returns to those eyes, staring at her from the photographs that canvas her office walls. “I can get consumed with all of the work, all of the details, all of the administrative things that need to be done so Mission of Hope can survive,” Blow says. “But when I see the faces in those photographs, the faces of the people we've helped and the faces of the people who have helped us, I realize again how blessed I am to have been called to this. That’s why their faces are so important.”

Including one face that is not found on Sister Debbie’s wall, a pair of eyes not present in her office but never absent from her thoughts. Two years ago, the Mission visited the city dump in Managua, Nicaragua’s capital city, a spot where more than 1,200 Nicaraguans make their homes among the rotting stacks of garbage. Out of this squalor ran one tiny girl, her face covered in grime, who threw her tiny arms around Blow’s waist and uttered the question Blow says she will never forget: “Will you feed me?” Blow had no food with her that day. She could only promise the child that she would see what she could do to get her some food for the future. Apparently satisfied, the girl ran off.

The next day, Blow and several Mission volunteers returned to the dump. Setting up a makeshift kitchen on a concrete slab, they prepared a hot meal for the dwellers of this refuse-ridden area. As the people lined up to receive their bowls of food, Blow recognized a familiar face at the front of the line: the hungry girl from the previous day. “She looked at me with this big filthy smile,” Blow remembers, “and she said ‘I had hoped that you would come back.’ And it made me think of how strong this girl must have been to live in such terrible conditions, and yet still have such hope that a stranger would come back to fulfill her promise.’”

Blow never saw the girl again. Last January, after several attempts to locate her, she learned her friend of two days had vanished for good. Her fate remains unknown, but Blow says the girl’s disappearance likely meant she was either sold as a child prostitute to one of the sanitation workers at the landfill — a common practice among the families living at the dump — or fell into an uncovered hole filled with sewage, never to be found again. “The day I found out she was gone, I promised that I would tell her story,” Blow says. “And when people ask why, I tell them that if her story causes action that saves just one child from suffering like she did, it will be worth it. I still wake up in the middle of the night and see her face. It’s as if she’s looking at me with those big eyes and saying ‘Don’t forget me.’”

So Blow tells the girl’s story, just as she tells the tales behind all of those eyes staring down from her office walls and the countless other individuals involved with Mission of Hope tell the stories behind the faces filed in their photo albums and memory banks. “Our mission, when you get down to basics, is about relationships,” Blow says. “It’s about people. It’s up to us to tell their stories, because when people hear them, they will live their lives differently.”

For a decade now, the Mission has succeeded in helping people live their lives differently. Helping people live beyond themselves. Helping people live, as the Mission’s name suggests, lives of hope. While Blow emphasizes the importance of telling stories of the Mission’s past, she also insists that the future of the group will rise from listening for the stories yet to come. “It sounds poetic,” she says, “but we did not find the Mission of Hope. The Mission found us. Whatever happens in the future will also be unfolded to us. And if we listen to the cries of the poor, we will know what we have to do.” She gestures toward the photographs again. “We need to listen to what they have to say.”     

Thousands of eyes stare from around the small room, each containing their own story of faith, of love, of trust. And as the Mission enters its next decade of service, one can only believe that if Blow and her volunteers continue to listen, new eyes will join the faces of missions past on Sister Debbie’s office walls, the eyes of people looking into their collective futures, each touched by a mission that has them at last seeing hope.     

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