Walter Varela has been around New Song since the church’s inception in 2002. As a 21-year-old man he laughed when he witnessed the tent being raised that would be New Song’s first church. But even laughter couldn’t disguise the truth – his wild life was beginning to catch up with him and his life was in shambles.
When he heard worship music coming from that same tent, life presented Walter a distinct crossroad in the way only life can do. One road to maintain his present track towards destroying his life completely, the other to risk it all with the God he had heard of but never experienced. He said that he thought I will go to this church and see if God will love me. Upon hearing the Gospel, he responded in tears and repentance and a new life began. He became a disciple. He married the mother of his children. He was baptized. He began visiting villages to share the love of Christ he experienced not long ago.
After intense discipleship from New Song leadership, he was asked to become a leader in the church, and today he is the pastor of New Song’s first outreach church in Santa Matilde. He strongly desires to continue learning the Bible, sharing the love of God with those in Santa Matilde and fully embracing the love and forgiveness of the New Covenant that Christ offers. He wants to see the church transformed by this life-giving truth and he wants Nicaraguans to be able to enjoy God, not feel shamed by him.
Pastor Walter blesses community people with jobs in the 3-acre garden and runs the agriculture and chicken projects as well as directing a children’s feeding program.
The most common obstacle he faces is religious spirit in the community. Pastors emphasize how they dress and what they can and can not do with strong control and not the love of Christ. These groups talk negative of his church. This is a challenge for him, though he loves to show them the love of Christ to change their minds!
Pastor Walter and Claudia have walked hand in hand to help us birth 3 churches; Candelaria’s New Song base church, La Isla, where Pastor Saul serves presently and in 2007 they choose to stay and serve the church in Santa Matilde, a very poor village with many widows who Walter and Claudia have cared for passionately. They have served faithfully since 2003, when he would walk with Pastor Jose Matamoras to visit rural villages to share the love of Christ and preach the Good News of Jesus.
Pastor Walter and Claudia have walked hand in hand to help us birth 3 churches; Candelaria’s New Song base church, La Isla, where Pastor Saul serves presently and in 2007 they choose to stay and serve the church in Santa Matilde, a very poor village with many widows who Walter and Claudia have cared for passionately. They have served faithfully since 2003, when he would walk with Pastor Jose Matamoras to visit rural villages to share the love of Christ and preach the Good News of Jesus.
They are organizing to equip their different groups to prepare to be more effective to reach out into their community to serve the needs of the people. His strategy is to begin small but real. He and Claudia are visiting the neighbors to find a couple or a family who are open to having them come once a week for an hour to get to know each other and then look at what Jesus taught together. They are finding some rich and real conversations and building relationships and confidence of the people within their natural setting, instead of trying to get them into the church building. They are leading by example and are training their leaders of each group to begin to do the same. Walter plans to begin with training for his youth in Drama and dance to give the youth something positive to do together and give them something to draw the attention of other youth. He also has a small children’s feeding plan that the clinic is helping him with but he wants to expand to feed more children and develop trust and relationships with them and their families.
Pastor Walter’ church also has 3 acres of land that he would love to invite someone to help him utilize it to plant and process Moringa to create funding to someday make the church financially sustainable.
