Adam and I just returned from a week-long mission trip to Cayanlipe, Nicaragua. This was Adam's fourth trip and my seventh trip to this country to serve. When I look back on all my summers in Nicaragua, each trips run together. So, this year I decided to keep a journal during my time in the village. I did this for two main reasons. First, I want to be able to look back and remember the details of this trip in years to come--the hard things, the funny things, and the GREAT things God did. Second, my Dad was not able to be with us on the trip this year, and I want him to be able to read about how each day went. So, I'm going to attempt to record a journal entry from each day of the trip during the coming week. Here goes....
June 27, 2010
Today was a day of firsts. It was my first day in the village of Cayanlipe, Nicaragua. It was my first trip to Nicaragua with Adam since we have been married. It was my first day to ride a bus into a Nicaraguan village without my Dad leading our team.
We arrived in the village later than expected. The travel from the mission home in Managua took longer, particularly our snack stop. As we neared the village of Cayanlipe, we passed the village of Canafistola. This was the first Nicaraguan village that I visited as part of a medical mission team ( in 2002). It was neat to see it again after all these years. When we arrived at Cayanlipe, I surveyed that it was very similar to Canafistola and about as primitive as they come. Roberto told us that this village would have running toilets (some villages do and some don't), but when we arrived we found that the toilets were "out of order," if you will. We will be using the banos (aka..outhouses) for the week.
Getting our ministry areas set-up and organized was chaotic as always. There were MANY boxes to be hauled to different areas of the school. Everyone worked together as a team to get things put together quickly. We were all dripping sweat as we hauled things to and fro. I spent most of my time helping in the pharmacy, getting medicines organized into various baskets and packaging worm medicine into individual bags.
We saw the first round of patients late in the day--almost supper time. The first church service started around 5:30, and we didn't finish until around 8:30 (all the patients have to go to a church service and hear the Gospel before getting their card to come see the doctor. So, there is a church service before every group of patients). The clinic saw about 250 patients this first night. I recorded weights on patients' cards before they entered the clinic. This was a challenge, since it got dark around 6:30. I had to do everything by flashlight. Ed Howard preached at the first church service and several responded and put their faith in Christ. What cause to rejoice! This is why we come. We had a late supper and completely missed the first evening church service. Adam went to preach, and none of the people showed up because it was so late. We had our first cold showers of the week around 11:00 and fell into bed exhausted.
The Bano
First people I saw upon arrival in the village
About 1/4 of the boxes we had to carry to get set-up
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