Tanya Amador is on a mission and a growing number of people are willing to follow her.
Amador, a Maple Valley resident, is the executive director of the Corner of Love Christian mission. She organizes two to three trips each year to San Ramon, Nicaragua to provide medical, dental and eye care to the residents of the area. The group also provides family services.
The latest mission leaves Feb. 24 with a group of 78 including 25 licensed medical providers, 10 dental-care providers and an optometrist. Amador said seven pastors will be on the trip and volunteers to help provide the services.
Amador’s mission began nine years ago and was founded with her husband Nelson Amador, who was raised in the northern region of Nicaragua. His father, Alberto Amador, who is 89, was the mayor of San Ramon and it was his words that inspired the founding of the mission.
Tanya Amador met her husband while she was in high school. She went to France as an exchange student to complete her studies.
“I always thought I’d work in Europe,” Amador said. “Nicaragua was not really on the radar.”
In 1991 the couple married and soon after traveled to San Ramon, where she met her father-in-law, and found the mission of her life.
“He told me, ‘There is a lot more to life than your life in the U.S.,’” Tanya Amador said. “You need to come to Nicaragua and find out what you can do with your life.”
Amador said her father-in-law’s commitment to the people of Nicaragua and civic service inspired her to found the mission through the Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church in Maple Valley. It has been growing year by year.
Nelson Amador supports the family and the cause working as a meat cutter for Safeway, but each year he takes time off for the mission.
The couple has four children, 11-year-old Grant, 13-year-old Lauren, Elizabeth, 15, and Nelson, 16. All have been on missions to Nicaragua and Elizabeth will be traveling with her mother on this one.
Along with providing medical services on the trip, the group will open the doors of an 18,000 square-foot missionary home in San Ramon.
Tanya Amador said the facility will house a chapel, pharmacy, conference area and dormitory rooms for the team.
“Our vision is to invite other groups to do work like we do,” Amador said. “We launched a growth campaign three years ago and it is humbling to see it right on schedule.”
The mission also intends to plant a community garden to encourage area farmers to grow different crops. Amador said coffee, beans and corn have been the staple for generations, but global competition and political turmoil in Nicaragua over the years have caused a financial crises in the farming community of the northern region.
Amador hopes to bring people to Nicaragua who can help the farmers learn to plant a variety of crops and teach agricultural diversification.
The mission reaches out to a community of about 6,000 people, including San Ramon and the surrounding villages.
Amador said it takes about nine months of preparation for each mission, which includes working with the American and Nicaraguan embassies, the Nicaraguan Minister of Health and local officials in San Ramon
The group leaving Feb. 24, the largest Amador has gathered, includes 8,000 pounds of medical supplies.
“I never thought in a million years I would be doing this work in Nicaragua,” Amador said. “But the dream is real and it would not be possible without all those who help us.”
