When I realized Carlos’ tremendous heart towards the kids from the garbage dump, I wondered if he too had it rough as a kid. His first attempt to answer seemed like an old door with cobwebs creaking open only enough to let me know that there was something big inside. His second attempt to answer came like a flood.     

Carlos said, “Erik, concerning your questions of my past life as a child; they are very private and very tragic to bring up. But today, I will tell you what happened.
My fathers’ name was Jose Gomez. He was a peasant farmer who lived in the mountains in a very sparse area where he cared for other people’s cattle and grew corn and beans with my mother Hipolita Baez. I am one of 12 kids.

In the same house, my father had two other women who also had children with him and we all lived together.

             Brother, as a little child I never had pants or a shirt. I never had a toy in my hands; I never wore shoes as a child. I never had a bed; I slept next to my mother on the floor in a flower sack.

            At an early age we were taught how to cook the food and herd cattle which attacked me many times. As a child I never tasted chicken or meat. My father would hit me sometimes four to six times in one day.

            I was never given anything to bring to school. No one had ever gone to the school to see about me. I wrote with a battery carbon sharpened by a knife. My knap sack was a transparent plastic bag which read, San Antonio Sugar. My notebooks were handmade by my sister. Who told me she was raped by my father when she was eight. She fled to the streets of a city to escape what he was doing to her.

            My father was an abusive violent drunk. It makes me so sad to think about this. Every day when he arrived he would hurt my mother; kicking her and punching her like a boxer. He hurt the other mothers too.

            One was Carmen and after 5 days of giving birth, my father arrived drunk and he punched her so hard that it killed her. He was not condemned because we lived in the mountains and the authorities never knew and no one ever did anything about it.

            I will also tell you, that when my mother had her last baby, my father came in drunk, and because my mom slept on the floor on pieces of cardboard and banana leaves, this man tripped and collapsed onto the baby and fell asleep on him.

            Later that night, when he realized that he killed my baby brother, he beat my mother and us kids and we fled outside and huddled all night in a rainy season downpour.          In the morning we returned to the house and my father was scared and took us to the cemetery to bury the child.

            It is sad and lamentable and all this deeply shames me, but I told you Erik, that I wanted to share this with you, because for thirty five years I have carried this inside and have not shared it with anybody else until today. I think my conscience and anguished soul will now rest after carrying this for all these years.

            Every time I see a child in the street, I recall my childhood.  

             I will also tell you, that when all my brothers reached ten, they left home to escape the detestable things this man did to us. By ten or eleven, I left too.

            I came to the Catholic Church for refuge where I met a Scottish priest who was very good to me. His aspiration was that I would give myself to the priesthood at an early age. This filled me with joy because as a kid I wanted to dress like a priest because I thought they were like God, without sin and because I believed they never died.

I was taken to six Catholic seminars, one which lasted an intense forty days, where I obtained second place and was given charge of coordinating groups and reproducing the event. This I did in sixty mountain communities. The goal was to reach children. I was awarded many honors by many priests and nuns. I also taught catechism to children and even taught adults until I was thirteen. Between these seminars I would return to the horrors of my home.

            One day, I told one of the priests about my father’s abuses against my family and about my personal suffering and instead of intervening or comforting me and counseling me or working on a permanent place for me to stay, he harshly said, “Go back to your home and ask forgiveness from your mother and father, for going around divulging their lives. They know what they do is sin.”

I already had three and a half years with the church and felt betrayed, hurt and so angry that at my most vulnerable time sharing my torment that he did nothing for me. I told him I was hoping that he would grant me refuge in the church but I found no help of any kind. I stayed at home totally disillusioned and left at fourteen to volunteer at a military base.

            I told an officer that I wanted to join up to do my patriotic two years of military service. They received me and I entered the military school and there I found support from the officers and they instructed me well.

For five months I was taught in the infantry school and was distinguished as the youngest soldier with the highest marks. By fifteen I was the best soldier in the battalion. For us kids we had to only do two years of service in the Sandinista time. Serving in the military was obligatory and if you didn't’t do this time you went to jail. Some who tried to avoid it were punished by death. In my case I volunteered.

            As I left the base I was sent to take charge of twenty soldiers with a battery of heavy Russian artillery. Everybody was admiring me because the twenty under my command were older than I. I served in the mountains for 20 months.

            I was very happy there, partly because I wasn’t seeing what my father was doing to my mother. He never beat me again, and I would not have permitted him to. I felt such hate toward him and even towards my mother for not protecting us. She had never spoken up to defend us because she thought he would kill us all.

Then one day while I was in the field with the army, I heard that my father had died. He drank himself to death. I felt relief because I knew the abuse was over.

            As the Sandinista war raged on, I was in many battles in diverse places against the Contra Revolutionaries who were in Honduras and were supported by Regan. These people attacked the Sandinista Army but God kept me safe in all this.

One afternoon in July, with 4 months left to complete my service, I was traveling in a Soviet patrol vehicle with three top officers, two captains, a lieutenant and three more officials when we were attacked by the enemy. Only two of us survived. The others were destroyed by grenades and bullets. I thank God that I came out of that with only fragments of shrapnel from the grenades. I was sent to a medical clinic for my wounds.

While I was recuperating, a friend who was a police chief told me that I did not need to return to the front because he had transferred me into the Military Police. When I finished my service, I joined the National Police which in those days were Sandinista Police and studied at the police academy.

All this time I lived separated from my family. Today my mother is seventy five years old, she has received the Lord and I got to baptize her. Glory to God!”

            As the sun set over Somoto, it left the valley in the shadow of its peaceful mountains. Birds crisscrossed the sky and clouds lit up with hues of tranquility.

It was hard to imagine that this picture-perfect postcard had once been painted with the dark broad strokes of war, death, violent abuse and despair.

            Carlos continued his story…

            “One day, as a police officer in Somoto, I became very tired. This lethargy continued until I got so weak that I couldn’t walk. My nose began to bleed and bled for many days. Then I got hit with an uncontrollable high fever and began to rapidly loose weight. In the hospital many doctors examined me and no one was able to able to diagnose the problem.

I was treated for Malaria and for Tuberculosis but it didn’t help. During my ninety days in the hospital in Somoto, I went from one hundred thirty pounds to eighty.

I was moved to the hospital in Managua and given a powerful treatment for Cancer. My skin got blotches and my hair fell out, as did some of my nails and some of my teeth.

I tell you my brother, I was finally more dead than alive when two Christian servants showed up and mentioned that they were sent by Jesus, their faithful friend, and asked if I wanted prayer.

I told them that I would serve God if He would heal me. Then they prayed for me asking God for a miracle. Right after they left, I was instantly healed! Oh how great is Jesus’ mercy! I never saw them again and don’t know their names. They just did the work of the Lord.

The doctors tested me for twelve to fifteen days and all the examinations came out good. Fifteen days after those good reports they released me.

I returned to work at the Somoto police station and six months later, on a Wednesday night at eleven pm, I came in from a shift; laid down on my cot in my office, turned on the radio and heard a man speaking about the need to trust Jesus as one’s savior. Then the speaker began calling for souls to come to God, and gave an invitation to pray with him. The radio show was called Waves of Light and as I prayed, a wave of light must have crashed into me because I got washed up on the Jesus shore and have never been the same since then.

A month later I took a bus ride with many police officers heading to Managua for training. I was sitting and reading the New Testament when the woman beside me turned to me and quite desperately asked, ‘Are you a believer? Could you please pray for my baby? I am on my way to the hospital and my baby is burning up with fever.’ I looked over, and the baby was limp and reddish. The invitation to pray was a huge challenge because I didn’t know how to pray and because the row of police officers standing above me started to poke fun at me.

But I prayed and that baby’s fever broke and she thanked me and got off the bus and returned home. The officers were impressed and I was thrilled.”

Carlos grabbed a fruit drink that Lorena his wife had placed on the table and took a sip; separating the seeds with his teeth. The lone light bulb over his dining table cast a glow over Carlos’ face. Then as if another memory suddenly hit him he looked at me and said, “You know, I had two enemies.”

I picked up my pen and notebook again and started scribbling.

“Two months after I came to the Lord, I walked through another test. A woman walked into the police station to declare a robbery. She had sold five cows and her cow money had been stolen.

The lady said, ‘You have a crooked policeman here at your station. The thieves left this note.’

Then she handed me a piece of paper which read, ‘We not only robbed this lady but every time we steal, we give the money to that cop Carlos Baez as payment for releasing us four years ago. He is our leader in crime and makes us do this and we are fed up.’

Carlos said, “I stopped typing the statement, I was shocked! I looked up at her and stammered, ‘Señora, I am Officer Carlos Baez and I assure you that I have nothing to do with this crime or any other robberies and I will get to the bottom of this.’

I turned in my report and an investigation was started. I had to hand in my uniform and was pulled off the street. I found out that the two thieves had been detained as twelve year olds and not wanting them to go through years of reformed school, I released them into the custody of their fathers. But the boys went down hill and four years later they continued robbing and creating havoc with a gang.

Under suspicion of being the king pin of a home invasion ring, I fasted for seven days drinking only water and praying that God would vindicate me.

On Easter, the captain said, ‘Put on your uniform something has happened. We are understaffed and we need you to go to this address to check it out.’

It turned out to be the home of one of the thieves who had accused me, known on the street as Death Eater. He had taken two grenades, hugged his pregnant lover and daughter and pulled the pins and blew everybody up.

His partner, Enemy Number Two, known as The Yellow Crow, blamed his death on me and sent me many death threats. As the investigation proceeded Enemy Number Two fled north into Honduras . But the threatening phone calls kept coming and my friends were encouraging me to carry a gun while off duty for protection.

Erik; four years later I was north at the Honduran border on my way to preach in a campaign and got on a Trans Nica bus. The driver mentioned that there was an empty seat in the back. As I was sitting down, I glanced over and realized that I had just sat next to Enemy Number Two, whose eyes were wide open and starring at me. He began to yell out, ‘Don’t kill me, don’t kill me!’

Passengers turned their heads.  I nervously fidgeted with my bag placing it between us on the seat. Yellow Crow, thought I was going for a gun, ‘Don’t kill me, don’t kill me!’ I froze thinking he was about to shoot me.

Then Yellow Crow spat out, ‘You can to do anything to me that you want, but first let me to tell you something, I have been converted to the Lord and I am now a Christian. And I want you to know that Jesus loves you.’

 I felt I was slapped by an angel, and caught my breath and told him that I too, had become a believer and was serving the Lord as a pastor. Forgiveness flowed from each of us and we thoroughly enjoyed our company on the trip north.”

As the bus curved around the mountain roads through Honduras , the people sitting around seats 59 and 60 heard their best sermon ever. As Enemy Number Two, thief and hoodlum became a friend to the former police detective he tried to ruin and threatened to kill. The men exchanged phone numbers, speak on occasion, and today Enemy Number Two, The Yellow Crow, is Pastor Jose Eleuterio who is pastoring in the North Coast of Honduras.

Carlos continued...

 “After that baby’s fever broke, on that bus ride to Managua , my fellow officers were more respectful and I was more comfortable with my new faith. My joy became infectious. At the Police station, people were coming to the Lord including officers, secretaries and some families of the arrested. When the office became available we gathered to pray and read the word. At times we met at my home.

The prevailing thought by the Sandinista government of those days was that Christians and the churches were anti-revolutionary, connected to the United States who were fighting against them, thus some people thought I was fraternizing with the enemy.

As word reached up the ranks of the police that there was a policeman holding prayer meetings in a station and sharing Jesus with the inmates, I got reprimanded and relocated. I was moved nine times to different precincts, sometimes for three months here, and six months there. But God was with me.

My new police chief was unhappy with my passion and moved me into a tiny room of records and archives where from seven a.m. to five p.m. I could be contained. But through the opening of the glass window slit, faces would appear inquiring about my conversion and wanting to hear more about God. The Room of Records and Archives became my pulpit.

  A year after I became a Christian, I was moved to San  Juan Del Rio Coco, and that chief kept trying to seduce me with women to see if I would fall.  Later the captain apologized and received the Lord. Today he is a police commissioner and a pastor too.

I was sent back to Somoto to work with police communications and to administrate the police department’s costs, such as food, paper, fuel for patrol cars, and uniforms for five hundred officers.

As time went on I served as a detective and inspector. One day my chief needed me for an upcoming mission and was eager to know how I would fare as a Christian. At four a.m. I was handed an order from a judge to arrest a thirty five year old man, notorious for robbery, but also suspected of rape and assassination.

This man was so blatant he had even stole an AK 47 from the house of the police chief while the chief was at work. On many occasions this man made fun of the police after many attempts to catch him.

I arrived at a half wood half adobe house and positioned sixteen officers and soldiers. I knelt down next to the front door in case this man, Pedro began to shoot and knocked.

A voice rang out. “Whose there?”

 “It’s the police, please open up.”

 Pedro did not want to be taken. He had too many problems with the law and he knew it would not go well with him. He also thought the police would kill him.

Pedro’s voice came back, ‘I will not be taken alive. I am armed with two grenades and an AK 47 and a pistol, and I will not give up’.

Inside, two women could be heard crying.

Carlos went on, “I invited Pedro to talk and suggested that I could bring him a lawyer. I thought this would encourage him to surrender. The suspect invited me to come in unarmed. I handed my weapon to another officer, raised my hands and entered.

Pedro told me to turn around and saw that I was unarmed. He stood holding a grenade with the pin pulled. He was terrorized by the thought of being captured.

By God’s grace, I persuaded him to return the pin and offered to help him the best I could. I said, ‘If you let me use your phone, I will call that lawyer right now.’ Pedro’s mother begged him to let me call. He nodded and she led me to the phone. The lawyer came right over.

With God’s help, we won the man’s confidence and negotiated his surrender by guaranteeing a big cell, visitor’s rights and immediately dismissing the police and soldiers from the perimeter. The only sticky part was that Pedro wanted to be armed as he walked to, and into the station.

He said, ‘I don’t want to leave this mess here at my home; I will surrender it all there. And if I am attacked on the way or at the station, I will go down fighting.’

I agreed to that and Pedro, the lawyer and I, walked the ten blocks through town and into the Somoto police station. Pedro walked up to a table and laid down the rifle, pistol, two grenades and surrendered.

That was a good day because Pedro got off the street, went to prison for some time, where he gave his heart to the Lord, and I was awarded a Medal of Honor for Distinguished Service. When Pedro was released he was a changed man. I bump into him from time to time and he is always friendly and is still persevering in the Lord.

About a year later, I felt that the Lord was calling me into the ministry so I stepped into my Captain’s office and resigned. It so enraged the socialist captain that he began insulting me. The Chief’s final words were, ‘Take off that uniform and go home in your underwear.’  But the chief is very friendly to me now.

When I walked away from eight years with the police, things were very tough. The country was still in a depression and I was married with a three year old daughter and we needed to eat.

I began collecting firewood from the mountains to sell and was only able to buy enough milk for little Jensy and some food for the three of us. I even sent away my daughter’s little dog because I couldn’t afford to feed him.

One morning during this crisis, I was in prayer and that little white dog of hers came back into our lives, walking right in from the street with a $20 bill in his mouth. On a different day he again walked in with another $20. And the last time, her dog brought in a $50. Of course these were Cordobas which are less than dollars, but it was still a miracle. We never knew how he got the money or from where, we just received it as a gift from God.”

So Detective Baez became Pastor Carlos and took over the pastorate of a small church of five people on a rocky hillside over looking Somoto. The church grew and Pastor Carlos began creating new fellowships in small mountain villages all over his state.

One day Pastor Carlos bent over in pain. He went to a doctor who diagnosed him with a kidney stone. Due to his lack of funds, the doctor prescribed long walks on pavement. On one of his long kidney-stone-walks down the Pan American Highway , Pastor Carlos noticed a child walking down a dirt road. The next day when he passed there he noticed more children entering.

Carlos said, “I was curious and went down that road to see what these children were up to. That’s when I found that it was the Somoto garbage dump. I followed the boys in, and there saw thirteen kids and five adults scavenging for tin and plastic to sell for food. I remember very well. There was Franklin, Devin, Gelin, George, Elmer, Martin, Byron, David, Rolando and Eric who was then about two years old.” Pastor Carlos had met .

The Kids of Cascabel

The ex-detective began to visit and feed the children. One day he went to the mayor and asked if a home could be built for them. The mayor was working with a ministry from Europe that was still helping devastated families rebuild after Hurricane Mitch which was the deadliest hurricane in over 200 years.

Construction was started down the street from the dump and in moved a grandma with some of the Kids of Cascabel.

When I met the kids, I was told they had slept on the concrete floor in the sacks that once held rice and beans. I stepped into the house and there was nothing. No furniture, no beds, no windows, no doors or bathroom, no electricity or water.

The meeting started and I played my Kiowa Love flute and then asked the kids to pick three numbers from zero to five. Then I played their numbers and finished their song, to show them that everyone had music inside of them.

Then my puppet Lulu greeted them and sang and asked the kids if they wanted to hear a story. As I ended my time, I asked if anyone would like to give Lulu a hug and a four year old boy jumped up and wrapped his arms around her and then went back to his spot on the concrete floor.

Later Pastor Carlos told me. That he marveled at that boy’s ability to love, having been violated at the dump by a man.

After my sharing we passed out toys given by a pastor in the US . We prayed together and said good bye and I climbed into the jeep thinking these kids not only needed a toy, they needed everything. Then Pastor Carlos turned to me and said, “These children are the future leaders of Nicaragua .

The next day, Linda and I bought the kids mattresses and wood to build two bunk beds that would sleep eight.

I really thought that I would never see the Kids of Cascabel again.

Linda said, “You know I would really like to start sending Pastor Carlos at least $25.00 of my grocery money every month to help.”

When the outreach was over, the missionary team from the US went to a tourist market in the south to buy souvenirs before flying out the next day. At the market I hunted the narrow isles stuffed with crafts for bird whistles.

I bought a few dozen and later sold the whistles and sent the money to Pastor Carlos to help feed the Kids of Cascabel. Carlos was so thrilled that he went to the Bird Whistle people to buy more to send me. When the Bird Whistle people heard what he was doing, they gave him the whistles for free and a lifeline to the Kids of Cascabel was born.

Once at home, I kept thinking about the kids. I was invited to do a chapel service at a school and 300 kids bought bird whistles to help. We raised $1,500 and bought the Kids of Cascabel two and a half acres of land. Pastor Carlos created a children’s organization called, ‘A Heart to Love’ and the land became its first asset.

With another offering from a school, we had the land cleared and fenced. The kids planted fruit trees and beans and corn to eat, they helped build a storage building and we put in a well and water tank. Before the water was flowing 6 kids moved into the storage shed.

Then we bought another property to put a bakery on. The owner had even mentioned that he would throw in his old beat up adobe house too, but he changed his mind when he realized that he wanted to take the old tiles crusted with lichens with him to be his roof in the mountains. I mentioned that we could buy him new tiles which would cost three hundred dollars so he could throw in the house and we had a deal.

I returned to Nicaragua in 2007 with David Vick known as Elmo Twist the clown.

We traveled through the state of Madriz performing. During the down time, Elmo taught his balloon tricks to Carlos’ young ministers and by the time we were ready to leave, those ministers were doing the shows. Elmo the clown met a dentist in one of his audiences who was willing to help the kids of Cascabel. And the kids were treated.

In 2007 Linda and I became Flutemaker Ministries a non profit tax deductible entity to help the Kids of Cascabel to eat, get an education and have a decent roof over their heads. The first High School graduate from the group has been given a scholarship and is now studying medicine.

The proceeds from the sales of our missionary flutes and whistles continue to provide help for the Kids of Cascabel.



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