Cedars, October 2018

October 2018 8 OFF CAMPUS by Jacob Oedy F or the past five months, a raging fire of protest has broken out across Nic- aragua as citizens seek to oust the current administration. The government has fought back with a heavy hand, pushing the situation ever closer to a civil war. Like any war, the one in Nicaragua has caused collateral damage. That damage has forced missionaries out of the country, including the parents of Cedarville freshman Andrew Holsinger. In early April, the Nicaraguan govern- ment, led by President Daniel Ortega, an- nounced a new social security policy to in- crease taxes while simultaneously lowering benefits. The policy marked the latest in a series of costly economic blunders by Orte- ga’s administration and finally pushed the people of Nicaragua past the breaking point. Across the country, citizens rallied to protest the new policy and the president behind it. Ortega fought back. The protests took a deadly turn as the Nicaraguan authori- ties responded with lethal force, firing live rounds into throngs of angry, but peaceful, protesters. Months of civilian protests and police brutality have followed, resulting in more than 320 deaths, according to news- times.com. Holsinger, whose family has been de- ployed as missionaries to Nicaragua for multiple years, knows of a specific case of police cruelty in retaliation to anti-govern- ment sentiment. “There was one time during the pro- tests where the police wanted to borrow someone’s house for a sniper’s post,” Holsinger said. “The people who owned the house wouldn’t let them in, so the po- lice barricaded the house up and put boards over the windows and over the doors so they couldn’t get out and set the whole place on fire. [They] burned the parents and their three kids from four and under.” But death is not all that protesters have to fear, according to Holsinger. “They have a squad now where they go around kidnapping people,” Holsinger said. “Then they’re never heard from again. Any- body who’s in the protests could be taken away and you’ll never know what happened to them. People would rather be shot than taken away, because they don’t know what happens. The protests started back in Marc. It’s September now, and they still don’t know what happened to those people.” Meanwhile, the church is struggling to care for the wounded and mourning in a declining economy and increasing lawless- ness. As a response to the violence across Nicaragua, many mission organizations have required missionaries like the Holsing- ers to pull out of Nicaragua, leaving the country’s churches without a vital source of revenue. Missionaries usually serve as a financial go-between for American and for- eign churches, and their absence has left the Nicaraguan church overwhelmed, under- funded and confused. “The church is still going strong, but it’s hard for them when all the missionar- ies pull out because it feels like ‘We’re here, we have to stay here, we can’t leave, and yet you’re leaving when the going gets tough,’” Holsinger said. The situation has been taxing on the missionaries as well. “My parents feel like they abandoned their friends in Nicaragua and the people Forced Out of Nicaragua Missionaries, including CU student’s parents, forced to abandon ministry as Ortega clings to regime Photo by Voice of America, 2018. Wikimedia Commons. A woman raises a Nicaraguan flag near a burning barricade.