Other evangelical groups “are fearful of what’s happened with that congregation and disagree with the accusations of the dictatorship,” says Attorney Martha Patricia Molina.
By La Prensa
HAVANA TIMES – The hitherto close relationship that evangelical Protestant leaders enjoyed with the Ortega regime has begun to shatter.
Over the course of several years, the official media have highlighted many different scenes of Nicaraguan pastors, public employees, and even the children of Ortega himself, participating in large events, revivals and concerts of the evangelical Protestant churches.
On March 29, 2023, the media filmed the scene in the protocol reception salon of Managua’s Augusto C. Sandino Airport, where an ostentatious welcome was given to missionary John Britton Hancock of the Mountain Gateway Ministry [known in Spanish as Ministerio Puerta de la Montaña] who was arriving to participate in the third Good News Evangelizing Crusade for Nicaragua.
On November 9, the government website El 19 digital rejoiced that the Mountain Gateway Ministry and its Managua pastoral team were preparing for “two great nights of praise, to mark the closing of their Good News for Nicaragua Crusades 2023.”
Nonetheless, just 41 days after this publicity, the Ortega-Murillo regime’s National Police announced the detention of 11 members of the Mountain Gateway evangelical organization and accused them of money laundering.
According to the accusation presented by the police, US citizens John Britton Hancock, president of Mountain Gateways, and Jacob Britton Hancock, a member of this organization, first came to Nicaragua in 2013 with financing from fellow countryman Bruce Wagner, owner of an aviation company and head of the Shaking the Nations evangelical mission based in the United States. The Police now claim their real goal was “bringing money into our country in order to obtain more money, real estate and properties, and to do business.”
In the organization’s last massive events on November 10 and 11, a number of high functionaries in the Ortega-Murillo re