Managua, Nicaragua

When he pitched a perfect game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 28, 1991, Montreal Expos pitcher Dennis Martinez made his fellow Nicaraguans forget for a moment all of their political and religious differences -- even the recent civil war that had left 50,000 dead. Today, Dr. Fransisco Moraga and his wife, Dr. Reyna Sanchez, are trying to help their countrymen get past some of that same divisiveness for a much better cause than baseball as they seek to help communities create better standards of living.

Their ministry, Asociacion San Lucas, is among the newest works of the Luke Society, but Fransisco and Reyna have already accomplished much in the 11 rural communities where they're working. Though there is much tension and rivalry between Catholics and Protestants in most Nicaraguan villages, they've developed a "Pastors and Priests" health-training program that has been met with much enthusiasm from both sides of the Reformation.

This spirit of partnership could be seen in the tiny hamlet of Naranjo, where Daniel Selva Chavez, the lay leader of the local Catholic church, opened the meeting for community leaders before calling up Matilde Selva Floresto, the local Nazarene pastor, to share a short message from the Bible. With only 36 families in El Naranjo, it's imperative that the two men work together.

"We have a commitment between us," Matilda said. "It's not common for evangelicals and Catholics to work together. San Lucas said they want to work with everyone here. It's not important what political parties and what churches you belong to. I'd like my community to have good health and better conditions."

Though Fransisco is very committed to the Nazarene church where his father is pastor, both Catholics and Evangelicals have appreciated that he and Reyna look to the Bible as their guide in how they work and how they live. They've helped some pastors discover a vision for community development by showing Jesus' concern for the physical, as well as spiritual wellbeing of the poor.

The work in El Naranjo, like much of what Asociacion San Lucas is doing in 10 other communities, is varied: helping construct latrines, training local community health workers, and providing technical assistance for agriculture and irrigation for a cooperative farm that produces additional vegetables for the town's children. Their biggest asset, though, is simply the ability to listen to the ideas of local leaders and patiently help transform them into realities.

In the neighborhood nearest their house, Fransisco and Reyna have been working closely with the leadership committee as they tackle tremendous challenges. A brand new water tank built by the government has stood empty for years as officials can't or won't find the money to complete the project. There are 284 families, but no schools. Children must walk to the next neighborhood, but overcrowding means that every day, some children can't even enter the building.

"Fransisco and Reyna are encouraging us in many activities," says community president Vicente Martinez. "They're always open with us and give us an opportunity to make ourselves heard. They're helping us to have better living conditions here."

The couple has also encouraged the committee to diversify so that more of the neighborhood is represented. A new sense of unity has re-energized the community.

"We've had trouble working together since 1983," Martinez said. "Now we have Protestants as well as Catholics and others working with each other. We have carpenters, builders, secretaries, women, and younger people. Our objective is a struggle against poverty. By ourselves, we can't do this, but with God we can. With help from friends like San Lucas, we can make it."

While the ministry is new, Fransisco has been working in rural communities for more than 15 years, always refusing to let the divisiveness in his country keep him from ministering to the needs of the poor in the name of Jesus.

With the help of Catholic priests and Moravian pastors, he spent much of Nicaragua's civil war in the 1980s and 90s traveling up and down rivers near the Atlantic Coast caring for patients and teaching community health to the indigenous Miskito people. Fighting raged on both sides of one river as the ruling Sandinista government held one side, and the rebel Contras controlled the other. Fransisco remained neutral, simply trying to respond to the suffering caused by poverty, disease and the seemingly endless war.

But when his small boat was seized by the Contras, he found himself surrounded by soldiers accusing him of being a Sandinista spy. For four hours their leader grilled him and the priest he was with about their mission, asking the same questions over and over, trying to catch the two in a lie. Finally in accordance with a local custom, the leader offered Fransisco a dish of cooked bananas with cocoa and salt. Since he was from a completely different culture on the other side of the country, Fransisco had never tasted the green mixture.

"It was horrible," he said. "But I thought that if I didn't eat it, they might kill us. I didn't know if it was toxic, but we ate it in the name of Jesus and we're alive now. After that we were never stopped."

However, when word spread that they traveled unharmed by the Contras, the Sandinistas became suspicious. Both sides began asking him for information about the other, but Fransisco refused to talk, managing to carry out his work through the rest of the brutal war.

During his time with the Miskitos, Fransisco contracted malaria 10 times, once losing 30 pounds and nearly dying when he had malaria and dengue fever at the same time. Now he is back in his home state addressing the same issues: lack of health care, education and resources.

"Poverty is the same everywhere," he said.

Reyna, who had previously worked for the national Ministry of Health, has been able to develop a good relationship with local government doctors. The Luke Society has provided some gasoline and medicines to enable physicians to visit communities much more often. Along with Fransisco and Reyna they set up temporary clinics in different villages throughout the year, treating skin infections, malaria, sexually transmitted diseases and other ailments.

Each time they visit a community, they meet with the local health committee and volunteer promoters. Each meeting begins with a word from the Bible before planning ways to improve conditions and providing additional training to the promoters.

They are also working with students in a child-to-child program, teaching them the Biblical response to issues like sexual and physical abuse, drugs and alcoholism, community health, prostitution, gangs, abortion and AIDS. The children are then able to share their knowledge with their peers. Each neighborhood committee has both a grade school child and a teenager plus adults the kids have chosen from among their communities.

"Many teenagers that we are training are abused," Reyna said. "Many have very little education because they have to work, and there's not enough time for school."

For these kids, the time spent with Fransisco and Reyna, playing games and learning about God, is a time to forget about the difficulties of home and to learn how to break the cycles of poverty and abuse. Like those nine innings of perfect baseball, the love of two doctors is giving Nicaraguans a sense of hope for the future.