Nicaragua Mission 2010

A Note from Dave

2010-03-19T06:22:00.000-07:00

As I reflect on this past week and our Medical Team's experience in Nicaragua, I keep coming back to one word, "emotions." Last year's mission experience was my first. Everyone told us that we would be changed by the experience. I was open to the idea that we might be changed a little, but had no idea just how deeply the mission would get into my head and into my heart. I still struggle to maintain my composure while recounting some of last year's encounters without shedding a few tears.

It should go without saying that seeing 176 or 187 people in a single day requires a lot of focus, cooperation, and patience all day long on everyone's part. I can not come close to describing how well the team worked together. Several of us (Drs. Mike Smith and John Myers, Nurse Nancy Haegle, Miss Ann Simmons, Andi Wallace, and I) had worked together last year with assistance from Fedelina. This year we were blessed the addition of Dr. Keith Speed who had worked on several missions in Honduras, Dental Hygenist Shannon Richkowski, Nurse Virginia Cabero, Joy Anna Rowell, Charles Stanley, Pamela Rowell, Rafael, Alex, and local teachers and community leaders. We started with a little confusion at times, but thanks to the language skills, versatility, and flexibility of individuals like Virginia, Dr. Smith's ER management experience and guidance, and Joy Anna's quick study of Spanish instructions, the patients moved through the process pretty smoothly.
This year I had the previous year's experience to fall back on, but I was still surprised by the extent the people we met and our mission team moved me. The people we saw were patient and gracious. Everyone on the team gave a tremendous effort each day. Still we struggled with the questions of "What about the ones we did not see or could not help?" and "Who will help them once we have left?" This was tough emotionally. We would have liked to healed or given comfort to all, but clearly in light of the conditions there, this was not possible, for us. As we left each community we celebrated the numbers that God had enabled us to help and prayed that He would extend his care to those we had not seen.

Last year I had a little voice (Andi's) whispering in my ear to continue on the tasks, but remember the mission! This did not sink in so well until reflection on that mission experience afterwards told me that I had missed many opportunities to speak of God and his love. I prayed for opportunities and God's help to make this happen this time. My prayers were answered. Many of the patients I spoke with began a dialogue expressing gratitude for our help and offered a, "God bless you". This was followed with my response that it was our team's desire to serve and to share God's love.

We made a visit again this year to the rehabilitation center. It was a tough, long first day, but at the end I had the opportunity to address the assembled group. I explained that they were in the hearts and prayers of the church congregations we represented. I explained that while we came to provide medical assistance, our primary mission was to share God's love with them.

It was a great week.

More photos

2010-03-18T21:27:00.000-07:00

I really am frustrated that I can not figure out how to edit posts. Oh well, will just make another post of photos.

A few photos

2010-03-18T21:17:00.000-07:00

A few photos from the last couple of days. Some of the scenery photos were taken from the window of the bus. Sorry about the qua

Attention Missioners

2010-03-18T21:08:00.000-07:00

I haven't received reports from many of you. It is not too late. Please send reports and photos to me as soon as possible. Thanks!

Day 4 Medical

2010-03-12T04:54:00.000-08:00

It's Thursday day 4 and today we had the oportunity to provide care to the surounding town. Each experiance has been amazing. We saw 187 people ranging in age from 2 months to 86. This town had such respect for the elders and allowed them to enter first, the mothers were very caring for thier young and concerned for thier children's health. I was ammazed to see that all of the children despite their situation were always smiling and laughed at the silly things we would say. Visiting with the people of this town made our departure bittersweet. Working with Dr. Mike and Dr. Keith has been wonderful, they both have such great skill and two different personalities that brought great balance to the team.

Day 4

2010-03-11T20:26:00.000-08:00

Construction Team by Andi Wallace

In 4 days, one little boy stole the hearts of 6 adults. Elizondro, a solemn, hard working 10 year old, has been with us each day. He lives in the community of San Jose where we have been working. Today we saw his house -- a 20x20 wood shack with a dirt floor and sheets to sepearte the rooms. He is the 2nd youngest of 5 brothers and 1 sister and a mother. We didn't ask about a father.

His quiet spirit seems to magically appear out of nowhere, everywhere, working as hard as any of us. His smile was rarely seen but we felt his wanting, or perhaps needing, to be close to us. We spoke Spanish with him and taught him a few English words. When a group of the kids were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, few of them seemed to have ever thought about the future or even had a role model to emulate. Elizondro said he wanted to be a construction worker. He is such an amazing worker for his age that we figure he could round up the neighborhood kids in a few years and be their local forman!

Sharing the week with Elizandro reminded me of Pastor Mark's story from Nicaragua last year and about how he left this country without being able to tell his young worker friend about Christ in his own language. Mark seemed to agonize over that one lost sheep, just as Christ does for us. With that in mind, I didn't want to have the same experience. Pam just happened to have a coloful, artful children's Bible in Spanish that she offered me. While I didn't talk specifically about Christ, I did ask about his attendance at church (he goes regularly) and mentioned several times that the friends I was working with were from my church.

Today we brought the Bible and an El Paso hat to the site. Right before he had to leave at 11am to go home and change for afternoon school, we gathered around him. We presented him with the Bible and I showed him his name written on the inside, along with the name of our church as the giver. We then gave him several photos Pam made of him, with Jesus Loves You written on the back. One photo was of the entire team, with our names on the back. In English, he said "Thank You." He turned away shyly and we think he was holding back an amount of emotion that couldn't match what we all felt. He left for home as we tried to wipe our eyes and deal with the love we have for this young man and his seemingly hopeless situation. We just wanted to scoop him up and make it all better.

We are not the first team who has felt a strong connection to his quiet spirit. We have to be comforted in the fact that we surely won't be the last team to fall in love with him. And we have to believe that God will allow the new teams to continue to care for this young man just as God gave us that opportunity.

Day 3

2010-03-11T05:24:00.000-08:00

Dr. Mike

The line to get into the clinic

Joy Anna in triage

Bathroom necessities

Virginia and a little patient

Day 3 Medical/ Dental by Nancy Haegele
Today we went to San Jose where our construction team was working on a feeding center. It was so neat to see the children and young teens working side by side with our people. The first thing that I noticed sitting up on the hill was an outdoor latrine. (See photo). I did not venture into it as we were warned, so the pack of the shed looked much more appealing. this I see as a number on e problem- the lack of water and hygiene. As I watched on young man enter the outhouse and exit and then continued to go about his day. Many of the people we saw had stomach problems, and I can see why. I pondered with others on the team what a difference it would make if these people could only wash their hands.

We had an extremely busy day on the clinic, but with our great system, we were able to care for 175 people on the medical side. We worked side by side with our dentist John and hygienist Shannon who were extremely busy. They saw 36 patients and extracted 61 teeth. Because of our system, we were all able to float around and help in any area of the clinic where there was a need. What a blessing to have this team.

In San Jose, they have no running water, no electricity, and I am told only holding tanks where people can go and carry water to their homes. The three school houses were filled with children when we arrived. They graciously stopped school in two of them and allowed our teams to set up. Throughout the day, all these children would peek in, laugh, and smile. Many of them were seen by either the doctors or dentist.

The highlight of the day for me, was holding the young children and comforting them as Mike examined and cared for them. Such beautiful children, but mom wouldn't let me take one of the little girls home. I feel that so much is missing by not being able to hold conversations with these children and their parents. Once again this year my goal is to try and learn more Spanish or at least speak what I do know - which is very little.

The latrine

Dr. Keith with a small patient

Dave dispensing meds

Nancy and one of the tiniest patients.

Lyle working on forms.

Jerry working on forms

The local children excavating

Becky and Rick working on a form

the afternoon crew of excavators

Day 3 Construction by Jerry Wallace
Wednesday was a good day in the mountains south east of Matagulpa. The dental medical and construction teams worked together in a remote mountain village on an old coffee plantation building a feeding center and attending to the needs of the village of about 300 people. The construction team fabricated steel forms for footings and columns to complete the center. We were surprised at the progress made by the local children using pick axes, shovels, and wheel barrows to excavate the construction site.

We are all sore, bruised, blistered, and tired, but the smiles and thank yous of the people help to renew our spirit.

The little guy in the photo is Elizando. He is a most industrious little guy who has learned every task that we have worked on since Monday.

Another photo link

2010-03-09T21:24:00.001-08:00

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=206278&id=650285760&l=7a9a174496

Just Call Me Walgreens (photo lab that is)

2010-03-09T21:05:00.001-08:00

Today we went to a village that is basically just up the hill from the team house. It is quite a hill. The road had pretty much washed out all the way to the village. The 8 K took about 45 minutes each way. The vegetation this direction was very different from what we encountered yesterday. It seemed less tropical and more like you would see in east Texas- even pine trees. The village where we worked today was the same one where the construction team spent their week last year.

We set up the clinic and everyone got busy. I had taken the printer and supplies to do photos, print them, and give them to the locals. I had no idea it was going to be so well received.

When I asked about electricity, I was told there was a solar panel. That was great, I just had no idea exactly what that meant. It did provide electricity by powering a car battery that connected to an outlet via small jumper cables. The printer ran non stop for about 5 hours. It took that long to print out the 150 photos. It started out that I was doing the mom and the kids. When they they realized they were actually going to get the photos to keep, it went to everyone wanting a group photo (at least one) and then a solo. I was trying to keep it to each person having one photo. That didn't go well. They would get in another group and then another. They would hold a different child. Some even went home and changed clothes to come back to have me take a different photo.

The printer was set up in a corner of the room near the window. The young adults and older teens would stand outside the window and watch the printer. They would try to guess whose photo was printing.

I didn't receive many thank yous, but the excitement over receiving the photos was evident.

They didn't smile much at all. Most all of them were solemn. Remember photos from the last century - the old sepia toned ones your grandmother had? Remember hos no one smiled? Today I kept remembering how my grandmother said they would act when a photographer would come through and take photos for people. They would take so many group photos and no one would smile. Today I felt like that photographer must have felt.

Today Joy Anna and I attempted VBS. That many kids with two non spanish speaking gringos did not go too well. Tomorrow we are going to focus on helping out with the little ones whose parents are waiting to be see. Hopefully, that will go better tomorroe.

The dental team did 51 extractions. The medical team treated over 135 patients.
I am excited to see how tomorrow goes.

2010-03-09T16:06:00.000-08:00

Today we continued to excavate dirt, preparing the site for construction of a house to build a kitchen. After a couple of hours most of the team moved across the road to measure, cut and tie rebar. What we are preparing for is the pillars for concrete support.
Kids from the school and surrounding area were already moving dirt when we arrived and it was not totally safe to work around them. We worked to the side and remained in a safe area as much as possible. We are all aware that is not about us.
We worked very hard and all of us are very tired, however it is refreshing to believe that we are doing the work of the Lord.
A young boy, about 10 years old, was working near me. I looked up and he was standing right in front of me, looking me in the eye and doing something with his hands. I could not understand what he wanted, so I called Andi over and she attempted to find out, but could not. A few minutes later he was in front of me again, and this time I realized that he wanted to wear my work gloves. I handed him my gloves and he picked up a shovel and started moving dirt. He would stop and hold his hands high in the air, with those gloves on, then start moving dirt again. This went on until I had to get the gloves back. This kids are starving for attention.
Cecil Trawick

Photos from the Rehab Center

2010-03-08T20:38:00.001-08:00

all lined up

cooking rice in a huge pot

the kitchen

beautiful out door kitchen at the rehab center. They have a new one, but they do not want to smoke it up.

Nurse Virginia in triage

Dr. Mike visiting with a patient

Dave discussing triage with our hostess

Nurse Nancy in triage

Dr. Keith checking out a patient

The Medical Clinic

Joy Anna & Ann manning the pharmacy - Dave manning patient information

Shannon & Dr. John working on a patient

Joy Anna and Moses

Nurse Nancy & Nurse Virginia prepping for the day

The Medical Team: Nancy, Virginia, Shannon, John, Keith, Dave, Mike, Ann, Joy Anna and Charles

Medical Team at the Rehab Center- Monday

2010-03-08T20:02:00.000-08:00

The medical team spent a very emotion day at the rehab center. We saw 143 ish patients. They were all so brave and very appreciative. 38 extractions were done on some very grateful dental patients. The Doctors were amazing and we are so fortunate to have them with this team. Being part of the dental team I truly witnessed Gods work. We did some very difficult extractions that would typically turn out to be very challenging even with the most advanced equipment. However we were blessed because we did not have any major complications. The compassion that was shown today made me very proud to be apart of this mission. It was a very humbling experience. We are all looking forward to what God has planned for us the rest of the week. `Everyone is doing well. Please continue to pray for our team and the people in Nicaragua. God is doing amazing things.

Shannon Richkowski

This trip has just started off pretty amazingly. The scenery is beautiful, and the people are so kind. Today at the rehab center I got to interact with most of the patients. There were a few that were able to speak English, which was great, because I speak hardly any Spanish. It was great to hear why people were in this situation. There were people as old as 55 and some were as young as 10. One person who I will probably never forget is 10 year old Moises. He was so sweet, kind and had a very touching story. When he was little he had a mosquitoe net catch on fire while it was around him so he was burned pretty bad. And when we asked why he was there, he said 'because I was on the streets too much.' I cannot imaigine being 10 and not having my parents taking care of me. Please be praying that the rest of this trip continues to be a true blessing.

Joy Anna Rowell

Construction Team day 2

2010-03-08T19:34:00.000-08:00

The construction team consists of Andi, her sister Becky, her Uncle Cecil, Jerry, Lyle and myself.

Our task is to work on a feeding center for this school. Where the group is standing the kids line up along the wall with their plates or bowls and they eat their meal standing along that wall. The feeding center will provide them a place to sit down and eat.

First we had to remove these two old swingsets

Then we have to clear space for the center which is 8 meters (about 25 feet) deep and 14 meters (about 44 feet) long. It's aslope and we have to dig down about 3 1/2 to 4 feet. Weare moving a lot of dirt. The school age kids, some other adults and other older kids all pitched in.

We still have a lot of dirt to move.

Day 1 from Rick

2010-03-07T18:53:00.000-08:00

Our accomodations are excellent and the food is good.

Church this morning was interesting. The service discussed walking the walk as opposed to just talking the talk, but it was in sharp contrast to the message we just had in the "When Christians get it Wrong" series. For what it's worth, I liked Mark's message better. I did appreciate the interpreter's hard work as well.

We had the opportunity to go to a coffee plantation this afternoon and see some of the countryside. It is very beautiful and green and thankfully not so warm that the humidity made it unbearable.

Our devotional this evening gave us all some insight into what drew us all to this mission. It was very enlightening.

Thanks to everyone for their continued prayers.

Post Continued

2010-03-07T18:47:00.000-08:00

I published early and can't figure out how to change it. So, here goes again.
After church we came home to a wonderful meal of chicken and rice. The best rice. The chicken was really good, too.

Later, we rode about 14k out to a coffee plantation. The scenery was beautiful. The poverty of the people that we passed on the way was heartbreaking.

Tonight we celebrated Andi's birthday at our devotion time. We have our schedules for the week. Four days of work and then we will be heading home. Mission trips never seem long enough when you see all that needs to be done. Tomorrow we will hit the ground running.

Link to Photos

2010-03-07T18:46:00.001-08:00

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=205790&id=650285760&l=b71f625368

Day one in Nicaragua

2010-03-07T11:41:00.000-08:00

The weather is beautiful and so is the countryside. We arrived after dark last night, so it was truly a wonderful sight to see all the green vegetation and beautiful blue sky.

Breakfast was a pancake feast. The tub of country crock spread was so big, Joy Anna called it Paula Deen sized. We had watermelon with the pancakes. We all thought it was orange juice, but we decided it wasn't. Of course, there no consensus as to what it actually was.

We went to First Baptist Church for worship. The building was packed. They were trying out a new interpreter. He was young and made us smile. When the pastor would get animated, he would try to do the same.

Today is the Day!

2010-03-06T06:49:00.000-08:00

I have never been on a mission trip where we didn't leave at the crack of dawn. This is a very nice change. I am feeling so much better this morning, so the late leave time is great- it is giving me an opportunity to do many of the things I wanted to do before we left.

We are meeting at the church at 11 for a send off. Many of our prayer partners will be there.

The next post should be from Nicaragua. We have a very short layover in Houston, so there will not be time to post then.

Thanks so much to all of you for praying for us!

Only a few more days

2010-03-02T20:29:00.000-08:00

This is Tuesday, and I am still completely unprepared. Part of that is the fact that I am sick. I have asthma and bronchitis. Last night and today were not good. This evening I am some better. I know so many people are praying for us. Please pray specifically that I will stop coughing and stop hurting. I know that God is concerned with all phases of this trip and all of the participants. Thanks for praying for us.
pam

One Week and Counting

2010-02-27T22:18:00.000-08:00

This time next week we will be in Nicaragua. Judging by a few facebook posts, several missioners are packing and preparing for the trip.

Tomorrow we will have prayer squares in the worship services. We do appreciate your prayers. I am hoping tomorrow I feel so much better and can actually work on preparing to go.

Keep watching for updates!

Welcome to the blog!

2010-02-21T13:22:00.000-08:00

Hopefully we will be able to update this blog daily while we are in Nicaragua. We can post photos and experiences to share with our family, friends, and prayer partners. Check in often to see what is happening.
Blessings!