cuapa 1

San Francisco de Cuapa is a town in Nicaragua...

with a population of 5,000 situated in a small valley in the Municipality of Juigalpa, in Chontales. 

Its people are very simple folk, small cattle ranchers who live a rustic lifestyle and raise cattle for family consumption.

This peaceful corner of Nicaragua... 

is where Our Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, began to manifest herself to one of the local farmers, who received a message from the Queen of Heaven in 1980. 

Two years later, the Auxiliary Bishop and Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Managua authorized the publication of the Report on the Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Cuapa.

The farmer's name was Bernardo Martínez... 

and he was the sacristan [koster] of the town. 

From his childhood he had helped clean the chapel, wash the altar linens, ring the bells for the recitation of the Rosary in the evening... All this he did with sincere desire to serve God, in spite of those who made him a laughingstock.

[bron]