A resident of the Jinotega dump receives food from Nancy Webb.

In a small, nondescript office building on Main Street in Boiling Springs sits the offices for a mission organization that has touched hundreds of lives in a small country more than 3,000 miles away. After traveling to the central American country of Nicaragua on several missions trips, David and Nancy Webb felt a strong call from God to start a mission there.
"With every trip we made to Nicaragua we felt God was calling us to a deeper commitment," says David Webb. "It was after our third trip to Nicaragua that Nancy and I felt God was initiating a call in our lives in an unmistakable way. God planted within us the same realization that if we would choose to be responsible and allow Him to work through us, then many people in Nicaragua could come to accept Him."
In 2009, David and Nancy founded United Christian Missions (UCM), and since that time they have led numerous missions groups to Nicaragua and have grown a number of ministries that operate out of the city of Jinotega, Nicaragua.
And now the organization is growing and will soon be able to reach even more Nicaraguans with their ministries. UCM recently announced that "In His Steps Nicaragua" (IHSN), a charity headquartered in Concord, NC, has now joined UCM. The addition of IHSN to United Christian Missions will more than double UCM's areas of influence in Nicaragua.
The former president of IHSN, Eric Harbinson, along with his wife, Wendy, will now serve as country directors for UCM Nicaragua. The Harbinsons have served as missionaries in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, for the last five years.
"We are excited to have such passionate and proven missionaries as the Harbinsons joining United Christian Missions and leading the day-to-day ministry in Nicaragua," says David Webb.
During 2017 UCM initiated the "Bed for Every Child" program, which provides bunk beds for needy Nicaraguan children.
"As a result of this ministry, children who were sleeping on cardboard on the ground in their shanty homes now have comfortable beds with mattresses," says David Webb.
Another program recently undertaken by the ministry was to provide cooking stoves for Jinotega families living in poverty - including in the city dump. The open-flame cooking systems previously used by these residents produced toxic fumes that were the equivalent of smoking three packs of cigarettes a day.
"The new stoves provided by UCM reduce carbon emissions by 70 percent, air pollution by 86 percent and the use of wood by 50 percent," says David Webb.
To learn more about UCM call (980) 220-1013, e-mail ucm@unitedchristianmissions.org, or check out the group's
web site at
www.unitedchristianmissions.org.

By April Hoyle Shauf

Special to Community First Media