Brent Ellingson has done a lot of building in his life – first in the Fraser Valley, and now in the middle of a Central American rainforest.
He was a developer whose company Oakvale put up about 300 houses in Maple Ridge over his 30-year career. He and his wife Michelle built their dream home in Whispering Falls on 264th Street, with a putting green and a swimming pool in the backyard. They had a place at Sun Peaks Resort. They built a good life for their family of five sons.
Now they’ve constructed a school in the forest in Nicaragua. It’s a two-day travel from anywhere, via 4×4 then a river boat. As Christmas comes, they’re just finishing dorm rooms, so children don’t have to travel three hours each way to attend classes.
The Ellingsons sold everything in Maple Ridge in 2016, gave the business to their sons, and started a new venture. They’ve been spending most of their new life in a place with no running water, no electricity, no cell phone service, and certainly none of the trappings of an affluent society.
Brent explains he first started doing missionary work in Nicaragua in 1996, with a team of construction workers, doctors, dentists, and other professionals working with the poor. He also spent about 14 years doing this work in Costa Rica.
In 2015, Engineering Ministries International asked him to work for them in Nicaragua.
While he worked for the international construction non-profit, Michelle got directly involved with the people in one of Latin America’s poorest countries. There were hundreds of people who would go to the garbage dump at the capital city of Managua, salvaging to eke out an existence. Michelle would bring them water and fruit. She brought cardboard to sit on, and would visit with the young children and colour.
“It was sad to me that people have to live that way,” said Michelle. “And I wanted to do as much as I could to alleviate their pain.”
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The couple met a doctor who introduced them to the place they live now – the extremely remote community of Mango, which is a four-hour boat ride from the town of Tortuguero.
They found high illiteracy and little education, despite people who were starving for it.
They started a school project.
“Education is the key to getting out of poverty,” said Brent.
They got four acres of land donated, friends donated $130,000 toward the project, EMI donated a plan, and they broke ground on the school just as the COVID-19 pandemic was starting.
They needed 4,000 concrete blocks, and each one came to the school site on a riverboat, then loaded onto a horse. Most of the building materials took a similar journey.
In a rural area roughly the size of the Fraser Valley, from the Port Mann Bridge to Hope, theirs is the only school. It opened in February of 2022.
Soon they had 250 kids coming to attend at their new facilities – four classrooms and a large open-air auditorium.
Some of the kids travel three hours each way to get there, first getting to the river, and then riding in their school “bus” boats down, coming from up and down the river. Others ride for hours on horseback.
They are in the process of building 32 dorm rooms so kids can stay at the school through the week.
Soon they will need to expand the school. Presently it only goes to Grade 8, and next year they will need to add Grade 9.
They also want to add solar power, so that the high school kids can learn computer skills.
Those in the younger grades learn the three Rs and other basics, while the older students take vocational/technical studies, in project-based learning.
Brent explains one project was designing and building a chicken coop, which taught math, biology, carpentry skills, and more. Now the school has 50 hens, and gets about 1,000 eggs a month, which is a significant source of income.
He said the people are proud of their school.
“Now in those communities there’s hope,” he said. “The transformation is huge.”
As they help the people of Mango get a better life, theirs has changed dramatically.
“My wife cooks over an open fire,” Brent said. “It’s been quite a lifestyle change.”
“We get up every morning and go to the well for water, like everyone else.”
For entertainment they can read, play games like soccer or volleyball with the kids, or fish in the river. But he said mostly the people visit.
“We’re an independent culture (in Canada), but they’re very relational. Everyone is together, and everybody helps each other,” he said.
“I’ve learned a lot from them about what’s important. I’m a recovering self-alcoholic.”
They took over a non-profit, now called Amparo International, to help raise funds. When back in B.C., they rent a home in Chilliwack.
Theirs is an inspiring story, and when the congregation at Holy Spirit Anglican Church in Whonnock heard about it, they offered $2,000 from their walk-a-thon fundraiser.
Scott O’Dell said his children grew up with the Ellingson boys, and O’Dell coached them in soccer and other sports. The two men were on the board at Maple Ridge Christian School together.
O’Dell visited his friend in Nicaragua.
“I was there two and a half weeks, and I found it exhausting,” he said.
They were working in the sweltering heat and dealing with a much different diet – mostly beans and rice, while relying on an outhouse as their only washroom.
“But you don’t dare whine about it, because you’re better off than everyone else there,” said O’Dell.
They need about $10,000 USD per month to run their school. That pays for about 10 teachers and staff, meals for the children, their “bus” boats, teaching materials, school supplies for kids, and student uniforms – which are mandated by law in Nicaragua.
O’Dell is holding a fundraiser at his business, Haney Home Hardware, on Dec. 16, where he will dedicate 20 per cent of his sales for one day to Amparo.
“I love getting behind it,” said O’Dell of the charity his friend has created. “I know any money I give them is going where I want it to go.”
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