Volunteers act globally

Condo-owning couple sells up to help kids in need in Nicaragua

By Jim Redden

The Portland Tribune, Sep 4, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (4 Reader comments)

COURTESY OF FORWARD EDGE INTERNATIONAL

Portlander Helen Little (second from left) met brothers Gener (from left), Saul and Nahúm Arauz-Escoto when she traveled to Nicaragua for the relief group Forward Edge International. Little and her husband will move to Nicaragua to adopt two of the brothers.

Four years ago, all Helen and John Little could think about was moving into their new condominium in the renovated Meier & Frank warehouse on the edge of the Pearl District.

Today they’re selling the condo to move to Nicaragua to adopt two teenage boys.

“If you’d told me about this a year ago, I wouldn’t even have considered it,” Helen Little said. “I’d have just looked out the window at the view of the West Hills and thought how long we’d worked to get here.”

The Littles’ remarkable change of heart is the result of Helen’s work for Forward Edge International, a Christian relief agency based in Vancouver, Wash., that sends teams of volunteers to countries throughout the world. The destinations include Nicaragua, where the agency is working to build a village to house some of the hundreds of children who live at a large garbage dump outside Managua. The agency calls it the Village of Hope.

Helen coordinates the agency’s programs in Nicaragua, a job that prompted her to visit the Central American country several times in recent years. On one trip, Helen met two boys who were getting too old to stay in the orphanage where they were living. When her husband met them on a subsequent trip, the Littles decided to adopt them.

“They need a chance at life,” Helen Little said of the boys, Nahúm de Jesus Arauz-Escoto, 17, and Gener David Arauz-Escoto, 16. A third brother, Saul Isaac Arauz-Escoto, 12, is being adopted by a family in Indiana.

Because of American immigration laws and Nicaraguan adoption policies, the two boys cannot simply move to Portland. Instead, the Littles must live in Nicaragua for two years while the adoption is processed.

To do so, John Little is taking early retirement from his job as a Multnomah County sheriff’s deputy. The Littles hope to sell their home and move by January, when the Nicaraguan school year begins.

The Littles’ story is one of a series of reports KPTV (12) is running this week on Forward Edge International’s projects in Nicaragua. It was reported by “Good Day Oregon” anchor Pete Ferryman, who traveled there after hearing about the village the agency is building.

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