I wasn’t in Nicaragua for more than a month when a local woman who heard I was interested in doing something for the community of people we were hiring to develop the 2,700-acre farm we had bought into a resort found me at the site of our first building. She carried her two-year-old child, who had a cleft lip. I’d never seen one before. Through a translator (My Spanish was weak then), I learned that children with this birth defect in Nicaragua – particularly in poor rural areas – often went without treatment and grew up disfigured.
I was still developing my thoughts about charity at that point. But when I saw this kid and discovered she could have her lip reconstructed for only $500 (more expensive today), I didn’t have to think any more about the complications and challenges of this particular opportunity to help.
