How Erica changed my perspective

There is a change in our method of working with businesses in Nicaragua than when we first arrived in 2016. It is easier to explain this difference with a story!

Five years ago I started working with the Association of Christian Entrepreneurs of Nicaragua, (AECNIC). An association started out of the Nehemiah Center. You can read about this association in older blog posts. (I don't know why the pictures do not show up anymore, blogger website problem?) I spent a lot of time mentoring the business owners who made up the board of directors for the association. Hours were spent helping these individuals get a stronger accounting system and flow process in their businesses. I loved working with all of them. Their positive attitudes and faith was, and still is, inspiring today. 

In 2018, Nicaragua went through its political crisis. During those months many businesses were hurting and barely surviving. I met with Erica* to see how she was coping with the crisis we were all living through. She was very sad, stressed and considering closing her business. She ran a medical laboratory and had an employee. However, her principal reason for wanting to close the business was not from the economic crisis caused by the 2018 political problem, it was because of her local church. She was feeling pressure from the pastor and elders of her church to leave the business alone and work in the church more. The pastor wanted her to lead an outreach ministry. Erica knew her business was her ministry. She had been through training and discipleship programs at the Nehemiah Center. She understood her call as a business woman to serve God. The church she worshipped at did not recognize her call, they said her talents should be used within the churches programs. 

In order to close her business she would have to sell off her machines and could still end with some debts. She also felt bad about her employee not having a job, who was also a member of her church. Work was difficult to find in 2018, and still is today. I helped her run a simple cost analysis for closing the business, and keeping it open. I also discussed with her having a meeting with her pastor and bringing with her some of her old training materials about her faith in her business. I encouraged her to share how she is not working in a 'secular job'. She is faithful to God in her business too! We prayed and ended the meeting. I left, waiting to see what would happen. 

Four months would pass before I heard from Erica again. She decided to keep her business open! The pastor understood her position and the church found someone else to lead the outreach ministry. I knew from this example and forward that working with the local church is essential to helping businesses grow or causing them to close. Helping business owners remain in a congregation or leaving it. 

We are working with the business people, but the churches too. Teaching the churches to open their doors and recognize the most talented people in their congregations are also the ones who help share the Gospel by deed and then words. Christian businesses are outreach ministries! They get to do it more than forty hours a week! 

We have a ministry of reconciliation for the church and the marketplace. It is a reminder of the forgotten role of the Churches in the working world. We are not making new wine, we have found that wine left in the basement behind a couple of old boxes! Matthew 9:14 - 17

*Erica- name changed