Typical Nicaraguan village kitchen

Nicaraguan home

Girl with infected eye.

Multitudes hearing the Gospel! 4 or 5 preaching services every day.

The school's bathroom facilities 

El Higueral, Nicaragua 2010

“Holy Spirit, You are welcome in this place…” This song played in my mind as we entered the village of El Higueral, and continued running through my head the rest of the trip.  We entered the village prayerfully and continued praying for the village as we worked.   Without the work of the Holy Spirit the mission trip would not bear fruit.

Before we left for the village, brother Kent shared a devotion about showing love and compassion.  We are to remember we have come to serve, not to be served. We were also reminded that we come to the people in Jesus’ name, that they must see Jesus in us.  Even if we can’t understand their language we can communicate with our smiles. A smile and a hug = compassion.

We were told the village of El Higueral was in the hottest region of Nicaragua.  Even the villagers seemed to mind the heat this year, which is rare. One lady took a thermometer.  The highest it would read was 120 degrees.  It showed 120 degrees most every day.

Try to imagine treating over 3,000 patients in a small medical clinic with two Dr’s, 4 nurses and three doing blood pressure and weights, in 3 days.  It’s dark, the tropical heat is intense and there’s no running water in the clinic.  Our clinic is a class room that the week before was full of Nicaraguan students.   

Medical did 35 surgeries by flashlight.  Dawn, (First mission trip) from Michigan is a LPN.  She was diagnosing, prescribing and doing procedures. 

We were thankful for Travis, our medical Dr from the US.  Dr. Eric, the Nicaraguan Dr., also joined our team.   He’s had two years of collage and 1 or two years of med school which not only makes him officially a doctor, but he is also the director of a small hospital.  I was told that watching one of the US team Doctors perform a surgery, qualified Dr Eric to be a surgeon.  Tired of high medical bill in the US?  Go to Nicaragua to have your surgical needs met at a reduced rate! J

Optical, which was in one corner of the medical clinic, handed out 693 eyeglasses.   Besides handing out over $6,500 worth of clothes the “free store” also handed out $12,000 worth of beans and rice equaling 4,000 lbs.  There were over 2,865 cups of noodles and 3,200 bags of popcorn handed to the long lines of people.   Also 600 packages of snack crackers were given to the villagers.

The Dental clinic consisted of two portable dental chairs, set up in the yard.  Almost every night we were blessed with monsoon rains.   The donated umbrellas, hanging upside down in the tree above the clinic made great weather protection!  Our USA dentist, Dr. Debbie and Dr Vickie, National dentist, pulled 230 teeth.  One elderly lady gave the “widow’s mite.”  She was so grateful for her dental work that she brought the team a live rooster!  It would have offended her to refuse her gift so Joe took it, thanked her graciously, then gave the rooster to a family down the road who probably turned it into soup.

The classroom next door to the medical clinic was the pharmacy.   A pharmacist told us that while they were handing out pills, they were joined by three bats, two scorpions and one horse.  Eventually the bats moved outside to the outhouse.   The free store had to keep running a pig out of their room.

Speaking of outhouses, we were blessed to have 4.  Three of them had the luxury of a door.  Behind the medical clinic, out in the open, was a cement high rise with three holes that could be used, if modesty and privacy weren’t an issue.  J

There was also a photography station that took pictures of the nationals. Probably the first picture many have had taken.  The picture was printed out and put in a frame with the Spanish scripture from Mark 16:16  on it:   “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”  Michelle was telling of the little girl who brought the new white shoes I gave her.  She was so proud of them that she wanted her feet to be sure to show in the picture. J.  I think she’s the one who brought some changes of clothes that she got at the free store and wanted pictures with each outfit. 600 photos were taken.

The hair station gave 423 hair cuts, which may have helped out with the head lice situation.   I saw many walking around with bottles of shampoo, probably a rare commodity.

We brought 1,200, Bibles to give away, which wasn’t enough.  My last patient was a man asking for a Spanish Bible.  Said he’d always wanted one.  I told him to wait while I ran to track one down.  I visited several stations until I found Chris, our resident trumpet player.   Chris brought one along but didn’t know why.  The man was thrilled for it.  Another man said he was a teacher and knew a little English and said he’d always wished for an English Bible.  I ran to find Ed who had brought along an extra English Bible to give away.  1,500 Gospel tracts were given out.  God knew the needs of the people before we left the USA.

One of the ministers mentioned in preaching, that the important thing was to take Bibles to the people.  There may come a time soon, when because of the political situation, we may no longer be allowed to go on these mission trips.  If the people are armed with Bibles, the people can read and find comfort, strength and help.

I think the saddest thing was the 11 yr old boy someone carried into medical who was writhing in pain and holding his abdomen.  I held the flashlight while the nurses tried to insert an IV.  The poor little guy was probably so dehydrated it was next to impossible to find a vein.  After injecting him with pain meds, and antibiotics, the diagnosis was that it was probably a burst appendix.   I tried to consol his crying mother by assuring her it would be ok.  The medical team gathered around, laid hands on the boy and prayed.  They loaded him up in the mission vehicle and someone drove him to the hospital quite a distance away.  We later learned that probably due to the antibiotics covering up the infection and the pain meds making him more comfortable, the hospital said he was “ok” and sent him home.  The Dr’s & nurses felt like his appendix had already ruptured due to the hardness of his abdomen.  We may never know the outcome, but unless God intervened, the little guy probably didn’t make it.

We were a team of 43, about half the size of some of our teams but we treated almost as many villagers as the big teams.  Most of us worked from early to late.  One evening the long medical lines began to crowd up on the porch to get out of the rain.  Some of the mothers were holding their babies above the crowd to keep them from getting crushed. These were folks who may have walked to our village for miles then had to stand in line for hours under the hot sun.  To speed up the process I went out on the porch and took blood pressures, standing on a chair to be seen and heard above the crowd.  It was dark and raining.  I had to keep wiping rain off the BP machine while holding the flashlight then recording the results on soggy medical forms.

The kitchen workers cooked wonderful meals, feeding around 100, three times a day, cooking over a two burner hotplate.  After traveling around 4 hours in a very hot bus we all set up our stations and kitchen served a delicious supper of spaghetti & sauce, tossed salad, garlic toast and pudding, with lots of ice cold drinks and coffee.  The kitchen did a great job of providing delicious meals and cold drinks.

The preaching was powerful and Spirit filled.  There were 4 services a day plus the night service, so everyone had opportunity to hear the gospel.  Our preachers and interpreters did an awesome job.  Sometime the preaching was in Spanish and sometimes English, but either way the message was interpreted.  The band did a wonderful job with the praise and worship music.  Adolfo, the Spanish minister preached and sang and played his maracas.   He’s my whistling buddy.  We can’t communicate because he doesn’t do English and I don’t do Spanish so every time he sees me we start whistling the old hymns together.  We’ve been communicating like this for years. J

Our water system was interesting.  A water hose went from the one faucet up to a water tower filling it and a hose ran from the water tower down into several 50 gallon barrels, and from there a hose was rigged to a water pump that pumped the water up over the side of the folding metal shower stalls standing in the middle of the compound.  Our wonderful maintenance men rigged a piece of PVC pipe, put a cap on it and drilled tiny holes in the cap and put in an off/on faucet. We had a first class shower.  The cold water felt good in this heat.  One night I took my shower outside in the rain and lightening and thunder.  There wasn’t much room to hang our clothes so I threw them over the top, and turned on the faucet.  Five sprays of water came out.  On spray hit my watch and glasses, another hit my dry towel, another hit my clean clothes, the forth hit my dirty clothes and the other spray filled my plastic cosmetic bag that held my bar of soap and shampoo that was hanging on the side.  Guess what didn’t get wet?  Me, who was standing in the middle of the shower, dry except for the rain that was starting to come down at a pretty good rate.  I eventually figured it all out and it felt wonderful after such a hot busy day.  Just hoped the lighting didn’t get too serious before I finished.

Our week in Nicaragua wasn’t all hard work.  We enjoyed gathering shells on the beach (Pacific Ocean side) and ate in a very nice restaurant under thatched roofs.  We had a choice of steak, chicken or shrimp.  We visited the market and Mychia, Dawn Rosa and I, rode in a horse drawn cart back to our bus.  Some of us visited the live volcano at Masaya and others visited the volcano lake.

A year’s worth of prayer and preparation went into this trip.  Thank you Sharon and Joe! ...and also the Kentucky team members!   The best part of the trip was the 30 souls that made commitments to Jesus!  To those whom numbers are important, 30 may not sound big, but many villagers were blessed, the Christians who were already there were strengthened and encouraged, many were helped with physical needs and much seed was planted.   1 Corin. 3:7   “So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.” God doesn’t need us, but God wants us - that’s grace!  Because we love Him we want to obey, serve and follow.  “Where he leads me, I will follow…”   It’s not our responsibility to convert souls, that’s the work of the Holy Spirit.  Our calling is to love, serve with compassion and tell! The results are up to God!

We had an awesome team in many ways.  I believe each was hand picked by God.  We were probably the most diverse group I’ve ever served with.  Team ages ranged from 18 to 83 years.  Effie, our “wise” 83 yr old R.N., says she plans to get a new pacemaker next year and should have at least 10 more good years to go with the team. There were Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, a Catholic, two Chinese, three blacks, one from Iraq, three from plain churches (Anabaptists), team members from Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Oklahoma, Indiana, California, Delaware, Mississippi, etc.  We laid aside denominational & cultural differences, prejudice and individuality, to serve as one body united by Jesus. 

GOD IS GOOD!!!