St. John Goes to Nicaragua

Here is Lesbia's recipe for baked oatmeal. It is kind of like a cake, but it is really good in a bowl with some milk and bananas. She wrote it for me on Saturday morning, and I translated it for everyone -- there has been some talk about including it in the St. John cookbook.

Baked Oatmeal

3 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup oil
1 cup sugar
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
3 cups oatmeal
2 T cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix all liquid ingredients (eggs, milk, oil.)
Add the rest of the ingredients. Place the mix in a baking pan (9" by 13") and bake for 30-40 minutes.

Well, this morning is our final morning in Matagalpa, and the Rooster did not disappoint. In fact, he was up earlier than ever. I first heard him at 3:58 am, and I have not been back to sleep since. I finally gave up around 5:15 and got in the shower.

I laid in bed thinking a lot about Oliver and Perla ("Pearl" in English). They are the little children Mary Ann blogged about last night. I am still processing that experience...and really the whole week in general. But these two little ones got to all of us yesterday.

Oliver came in with his mother, Sonia, and she first sat down with me to be screened for reading glasses after she passed her distance exam. Ryan said he thought the little boy was blind, but maybe we could have Gary take a look after Sonia was done. Sonia did in fact need a pair of reading glasses. While I worked with her, I asked her about Oliver. She said that he had been born that way, and he could not see at all. The saddest part: she had two year old daughter, Pearl, at home with the same condition. I took one of our "registration slips" and filled it out with Oliver´s name and age, and Ryan and I walked them over to sit down with Gary. Sonia also shared with Alex (who pinch-hit for Luanne and interpreted for Gary yesterday, thanks Alex!) that Oliver had in fact had eye surgery in the past. Gary had a hard time getting a reading on Oliver´s eyes. He wasn´t entirely sure, I don´t think, what they had done to his eyes.

Gary asked Sonia about Pearl, and she said she was outside, so he asked her to bring her in. Pearl was a little peanut and like Oliver, looked younger than she is. As Mary Ann said, when he looked in Pearl´s eyes, her corneas were so cloudy and very blue. As Alex told Sonia that there was little we could do, and asked her to bring in the paperwork from Oliver´s surgery, Sonia got tears in her eyes. I couldn´t even imagine. She is 29, so almost exactly my age, and here she is with two children, 9 and 2, that cannot see. Pearl was grasping at her mother´s breast, trying to nurse. I am sure that since she cannot see, this still brings her a great deal of comfort.

Sonia returned later in the day with the surgery paperwork. I am not sure that it really helped provide much more information, but Omar said that there is a possibility of help being provided to them, and he took her outside to talk to her some more.

I wonder, what is next for Sonia, Oliver, and Pearl? I read these stories in People Magazine or see them on the news about Americans who bring children from other countries to the US so they can recieve medical care for serious problem. I wonder, is this a good idea? If, say, we were able to bring this family to the US for treatment, how would that go? How would we teach them about our way of life, our conveniences? Then how would we send them back home? Is the end result worth it? Would that be fair to them? I would think yes, but I would also think maybe no. I suppose the best home for them is that the government here can provide some kind of care, or maybe eventually medical treatment, that could help these children see. I doubt they get to recieve much education since they probably cannot attend a regular school. I doubt Sonia recieves any help. I am sure she cannot leave them alone, and that must wear on her greatly.

Finally, I worry, what if they have more children? What kind of burden will this put on her? Gary said it is very likely that this was caused by some sort of STD or toxoplasmosis, but we will never really know. Either way, it sounds like Sonia and her husband should not have anymore children. But how does she know that?

Before Sonia left, I hugged her with tears in my eyes, too, and I told her she was a good mother, and that this was not her fault. I hope she knows that. But I imagine that must haunt her every day, even though she does not know what caused it.

I don´t mean to leave such a sad post, but this is what we´ve seen, where we have been. It was a good day, Friday. And I think that we will all remember Oliver and Pearl. And we pray for you and your dear Mama.

Well, as you can see, the rooster was back at it again this morning. I slept less last night than any other night so far. My earplugs fell out and there was no going back to sleep. We came to breakfast and found out that Luanne had been up all night sick. She was so sick that she could not go with us to our location today. And for those of you who don´t know Luanne, she is a very tough cookie and would have to be seriously not feeling well to stay behind. After I posted my rooster song, she told me that we would need to give the rooster amnesty and put him in the rooster protection program because it was only the crowing of the rooster that gave her hope that her long night would soon be over. So, ok, fine. No roosters will be harmed during the remainder of this trip.

Today we headed out to Waswali. While this week has gone by so quickly and without incident, I must say that I´m glad to know that I will not be auto-refracting people´s eyes tomorrow. We set up in their school and were all basically in the same room again. I don´t know why this seems to work better, but it does. The people here seemed more relaxed and their children more polite. We gave out 250 tickets and saw them all by about 2:30. For our last day it seemed like we finally completely got it together. It´s nice to go out on such a positive note. We had a different bus with a different bus driver since Carlos and the two Rafaels were in Managua picking up the next team from the airport. We had two new translators, Pedro and Roger. Lunch was one of my favorites from last time, a chicken stew with local vegetables including the most delicious chayote squash.

We had a sad case where a mother brought her 9 year old son and 2 year old daughter, both of whom had been blind from birth. The boy, Olivier, had had a cataract surgery on his left eye but it did not help. You could tell that their eyes and other facial features had not formed properly in utero. Gary said that the boy appeared to have been born without a lens but that the girl´s corneas were so cloudy that he could not tell what was behind them. Corneal transplants may help her depending on what the rest of her eye looks like. Unfortunately, we could not do anything to help either of them today. If a surgical eye team comes in the future, they might be able to do something. The mother´s eyes teared up when we told her we weren´t sure if anything could be done. This caused my eyes to tear up a little bit and Katherine´s too. It´s hard enough to have some physical impairment in the United States. In this country with so few resources, I can´t imagine what the future holds for these children.

For our final devotional, we sat in our usual circle and went over logistics for tomorrow first. Before we started, Stephanie had me get a stool from our room and said that no one should sit on it. This immediately made me suspicious that we were going to do an activity that would be awkward for me. I was right to be suspicious. Our instructions were that one person would sit on the stool and the rest of us would go around the circle and tell them one reason we were thankful for them or one way they had been a blessing to us. I´m not sure which was harder: sitting on the stool or speaking in front of everyone. Steph said that it was an exercise in giving and receiving, that sometimes it is harder to receive. Whew! It took a lot of energy not to cry and then to recover enough from sitting on the stool to be able to speak again. There were some tears from more than one of us, so it´s good to know that I´m not the only blubberer. Shirley said that you get more emotional as you get older. If that´s the case, Beth and I are in big trouble. While this was quite far outside of my comfort zone, I secretly loved it. It was great to hear all the nice things everyone had to say about each other. We had a really good team dynamic even before we got to know each other better. We all grew to like each other even more over the course of the week and as I´m sure many of you could attest to, that´s not always the case when travelling with a large group.

Georgia asked me to pass along this bit of good news: ¨Today we had the Ritz Carlton of outhouses!¨

Tomorrow we head first to a place called Masaya which is a national park with an active volcano and then to Managua to our FANCY HOTEL! THE ONE WITH THE HIGH-FLOW, HOT SHOWERS!

Just to clarify, the little children and elderly ladies love Ryan. He is not 'working it', but his openness and smile welcome all.

(For those of you interested in logistics, I am copying this post from my middle-school blog. If it seems like it's written for a younger audience, that's because it is... just thought some of you might like an explanation of exactly what we are doing.)

There are 17 of us in the group, and only one person is an optometrist. Only 3 of the 17 are Spanish-speakers. So how does it work? How do all of us work together to help 250 people get their eyes checked in one day? Here's a breakdown.

1. When we arrive in a community, people are already lined up waiting to see us. Leaders in those communities have helped spread the word ahead of time and to create a system for who will be seen first. Yesterday, the community leaders had made sure that the elderly people with the worst vision were in the front of the line so that they wouldn’t have to wait so long. The Nicaraguan people who have worked with us to make this happen have done a wonderful job. We definitely could not do this without their leadership.

2. The people in line are given a “ticket” with a number. They also fill it out with their name and age. Many of the people, especially the older people, have never had the opportunity to go to school, and some of them do not know how to read and write. One of the team members who speaks Spanish or one of our Nicaraguan leaders usually fills out the paper so that will be easier.

3. When a person enters the clinic, we test their long-distance vision. The person stands behind the line and looks at the eye chart on the wall. Since many of them don’t know the alphabet, we use the eye chart that has an E pointing in different directions. Shirley and Georgia point at the chart, and the person tells us which direction the E is pointing. If their distance vision is okay but they are over 20 years old, we send them to another area to see if they need reading glasses (see the pictures at the bottom of the post.) If they do, they get reading glasses and sunglasses.

4. If the distance vision is not good, one of us takes the person to see Mary Ann, one of our team members who knows how to operate a machine called the auto-refractor. Mary Ann asks the people to look into the light and not to move their heads. She is able to get a reading from that machine that helps the optometrist decide what kind of glasses the person needs. Mary Anne has learned to communicate very well with a few words and phrases.

5. Next, the person sees Gary, our optometrist. He uses his instruments to look at the person’s eyes and decide what kind of glasses might help. Gary does not speak Spanish at all, so LuAnn works with him to translate.

6. We ask the person to wait while we find his or her glasses. To me, this is the hardest part. We have lots and lots of glasses with us. They were donated by people in the United States when they got new glasses. These are used glasses, the Lion’s Club collects them and sorts them by prescription. Allen and Charles are very organized people and understand how the glasses are sorted. I do NOT understand it. They look through the boxes and somehow pull out a pair or two of glasses that are close to the prescription we need.

7. Next is the glasses fitting. Letha, who is a nurse in our group, is very good at this. She takes the glasses to the person and tests them for close-up vision (for reading) and then sends them to Katherine to test their distance vision. Many of these people have never worn glasses before, so it is hard for them to get used to it. Lots of the prescriptions are for bifocals, and we have to explain how to use them.

8. If the glasses don’t work, we try to find something better. If they do work, the person gets a pair of sunglasses also, and he or she is ready to go! One thing that is very sad to me is that even the people who need the glasses the most often will not wear them out of the clinic. They are afraid that they will be damaged or broken, so they put them safely in the case to protect them. I hope they will wear the glasses later, because they do need them.

As I listened to the rooster crow his little heart out in the very dark, early morning hours, this song came to me:

(To the tune of Psalm 139 by Allen Pote, which we sang with the youth choir a few weeks ago)

Rooster, your crowing - it bothers me.
It awakens me from sleep!

When I rise (when I rise), or lie down (or lie down),
you are there making a peep.

Before the sun is in the sky,
you cock-a-doodle-doo!
I must admit
I want to harm you.

Where can I flee from your crowing?
Where can I go to get some sleep?

If I put in earplugs,
Or take a pill,
You are there (you are there)...

This boy had some mental and physical challenges, but he was able to see better with his new glasses.

Stephanie and Ryan made a valiant attempt to move the boulder, but in the end the bus just went around it.


Our first patient on Thursday was 100 years old. You can't see in this picture, but she was barefoot. The Nicaraguan people had made sure she was first in line.


People waiting before we arrived. The line wrapped all the way around the building at one point.


The 3-year-old who received glasses and exclaimed "The trees are so big!"

Me checking vision after people received their glasses.

Just wanted to share a photo of our fine feathered friend!

San Ramon. This community is about an hour outside of Matagalpa. To get there, we passed Santa Emilia, a place where we held a clinic on our last trip. One of our patients said a family member had been to that clinic a year-and-a-half ago and told her she should come to this clinic, that we would help her. So we did. We saw another 250 people. The auto-refractor was a little cranky and wore out both of its batteries by around 2:00. That means that Gary has to see everyone else himself without the ballpark figure the auto-refractor provides. It also means I am unemployed. I found work taking people from the initial screening room to either the reader room or the distance room. It was nice to get outside and stretch my legs a bit.

The facilities (I know you all are so curious about our bathroom situation each day) were similar to the previous day - one lone outhouse. I drank two cups of coffee and had to go as soon as we got there. I went with Georgia in case she lost her cookies again, passed out, and hit the side of the outhouse. It was a long walk out there and I wasn´t sure if anyone would be able to hear that thud so I thought I should go with her, just in case. I went first. I was pleased to find that although it looked scary, it did not stink. After I okayed it, she went in. Then along comes Kelly and he takes a picture of me hanging out by the toilet (if I had a nickel for every picture I have of myself standing near an outhouse...). Then I went over to look at the picture. A Nicaraguan man with a roll of toilet paper walked by. I noticed this and thought how nice it was for them to provide us with toilet paper. It did not occur to me that he would want to put that roll in the outhouse or that the door to the outhouse would not be fastened securely. He easily threw the door open, and a very surprised Georgia squeeled. The man smiled, handed her the toilet paper without shame and walked back to the school. If you want to ensure your privacy while using the bathroom in a third world country, I might not be your first choice as guard.

We had a few children who were legally blind without glasses. When we put the glasses on their little heads, their eyes lit up. One little boy left the room saying ¨the trees are so big!¨ In that instant we changed his life.

Dinner consisted of the most delicious tacos ever. They looked like what I call taquitos but Pam and Beth informed me that no such food exists in Latin America, it´s just something Taco Bell made up. Kind of like Sweetest Day and Hallmark - don´t even get me started on that one. So the tacos were wonderfully seasoned chicken rolled up in homemade tortillas and fried. SOOOOO good. They also had a sort of cole slaw and something that reminded me of thousand island dressing. It may sound weird, but it was a most delicious combination.

Now we´ve stuffed ourselves and it´s almost 8:30. Most people are already in bed. The work is not overwhelming and we all love most every minute of it, but it is exhausting. It´s a good kind of tired that I have not experienced much except when I am on these trips. I would encourage any of you who are reading this and think you might want to come on our next trip to be brave and do it. You won´t regret it.

Gentle Readers,

Beth, Mary Ann and the Rooster are our best roving reporters. Stay tuned for more adventures. Tonight we also share a couple of photo segments (See Below).

One a personal note, the team is amazing. Thank for your support and encouragement. Your donations and prayers pave the way to an exciting and meaningful endeavor. We are working through El Ayudante in Matagalpa. However, beginning in January, this location will be known as Bridges of Hope and will become a separate organization. Pray for the transition. Pray for the family that coordinates this ministry. Pray for the people of Matagalpa. Pray for this team and St. John. Nicaragua is holy ground for many of us and we seek wisdom as we explore methods to support the ministry here.

Meanwhile, it's midweek and I am blessed by the gifts of this team:

• Gary's smile and enthusiasm are contagious.
• Katherine's eagerness to understand is delightful.
• Mary Ann keeps us laughing and pondering - two of life's greatest essentials.
• Kelly's gentle and deep spirit nourishes us (and Sarah - he misses you and Evelyn).
• Claire's can do attitude surpasses language.
• Beth is a bit woozy, but she continues to share her gifts of organization and communication.
  
• Charles and his black gloves serve us and organize us. And his smile touches all.
• Allen sports a twinkle in his eye and brings quiet wisdom to each of us.
• Ryan engages and invigorates - the ladies and the team. He is our treasured greeter and maitre d'.
• Shirley is beaming. Her body is happy and her spirit is soaring.
• Judy perseveres. She brings us spunk and energy.
• Joan is the pied piper loving both team members and clinic patients with mucho gusto.
• LuAnne serves as Gary's ventriloquist doll. She consistently connects and engages.
• Georgia is a pro. She is the first person folks meet and she ushers them in with love.
• Letha is steady. We need her and her consistency (and she makes us laugh).
• Pam loves the children and feels every one's suffering. She reminds us to look beyond the physical needs and see the individual.

1. The toilet paper does not go in the toilet. It goes in the trash can beside the toilet, which fortunately magically is emptied every day at our house. I am grateful for whomever has that job.

2. Turn the hotwater from "on" to "off" when you are done taking a shower. There is this nifty little gadget on each shower head that heats the water instantly. Very cool, very efficient...except that to have warm water you must only turn the shower on a little. But as Mary Ann previously stated, who´s complaining?

3. Take my water bottle to the bathroom sink to brush my teeth. I don´t even need the slightest chance of getting the dreaded traveler´s diarrhea since I can´t take the cipro or immodium to treat it.

4. Where the @, ?, and " are on this dang keyboard. It is Nicaraguan and set up for Spanish speakers, just like most of the things we´re using here. Go figure!

And now a few random thoughts...

I brought some Halloween candy to share with the group on Friday that was left over from some goodie bags we made before we left for Charles´unit. There were only 7 Reeses cups among the bag, so I must confess that we ate them tonight. And by we, I mean 7 others who shall be named now...Mary Ann, Charles, Claire, Steph, Pam, and Joan. And they were delicious.

It is great to smile here. Everyone smiles back. It also makes me smile to see Charles waving to every single person he sees along the side of the road as we drive by in the bus. And Gary´s smile makes everyone happy.

I am having trouble swallowing. That is weird and is not making me happy. But I can´t complain. The last thing I wanted to do was cause more trouble than help by coming along, so I hope that´s not been the case.

There was a giant weird moth-type thing in our room today. Very cool. I will try to use Steph´s computer to upload photos later on. Until, I´ll leave you in suspense.

Thank you, Justin, for sending us Fake News today. It made my day, and Charles´too.

As one final caveat, several of us have been posting from said Nicaraguan computer, so we apologize for any glaring spelling errors.

Good night everyone! It´s just after 8 pm and bedtime is coming soon! (Yes, Lindsay, you read right, bedtime comes sometime between 9 and 10. Seriously.) In fact, the night owls that Mary Ann and I are, we are the only ones not in bed.

Dear Rev. DeMore,

I overheard your mission team talking about your previous blog comment earlier this evening. I just felt compelled to reach out to you myself and share my apprecation for your kind words and support. I´m so glad that someone finally understands me!

And Gary...mind if I call you Gary?...I feel as though since we´ve found this connection that I must warn you; I heard talk of certain members of the team calling you via Skype whenever they hear me crowing in the so-called-middle-of-the-night. Good thing for you they are two hours behind you so my 4 am crows will only be 6 am calls for you. I sure hope you are a morning person! However, there´s also been far too much talk of fried chicken around here, so perhaps I should hold off until 5 am tomorrow. What do you think?

Oh, and I don´t know any monkeys, but there are a few cows living at the nearby farm. Do you think I should give them a holler and see if they could help me out one morning this week? Hehe.

Well, I guess I better get to bed since I have to get up early!! Maybe I´ll fly up north sometime so we can meet personally!

All the best,
Rooster

Wednesday! Today we were in a small community called Quebrada Honda, which means¨"deep creek." We set up in the school so the classrooms we occupied moved their desks outside and had class there. They gave out 250 numbers and we ended up seeing about 280 people. They triaged the people so those with the worst vision problems were seen first. Most of them were quite elderly and almost all of them had cataracts. Wear your sun glasses, dear readers.

We had a great lunch of beef stew and rice and we were offered Creamas for the first time! They were so popular and were the first to go. Speaking of going, we were still faced with the prospect of outhouses when we arrived but when Georgia ventured out and lost her breakfast trying to use one of the outhouses, Fidelina said we could go down the road to the health clinic and use their indoor toilet. Thanks, Georgia!

The auto-refractor was a good little worker today. Sometimes the amount of muscle tension required to keep it steady translates into a sore neck at night. Next trip, we are definitely bringing a team massage therapist. Mary O? Anyone interested? See Mary Ann or Beth to apply. Demonstration of ability required.

As I am typing this, there is no electricity. I am using Word and the laptop battery and will copy this into the blog once we are up and running again. We have had at least three power outages since we have been here. The most significant one was last night when the power went off at 3:00 am. We were getting critically close to leaving and I was still holding off on showering since I knew without power we would be back to freezing cold water. Miraculously, the lights came on an hour before we left so there was time to save the people from the horror that is my hair when I don't wash it in the morning. We asked Rafael about how often the power goes out and he said "According to the government, there are no power outages."

OK! Power is back on. I think part of the problem is all this wind. We have not had any rain today but there sure has been a brisk breeze a blowin´. I think I will not press my luck and will end this here. Plus, as Beth mentioned, it is getting close to 9:00 which sounds like bedtime to me.

Pam, one of our team members, is keeping a great blog for her middle school Spanish classes. The website gives a wonderful description of our activities along with photo and assignments. Check it out at www.plight.edublogs.org

As you can see from our earlier post, we did not eat any rooster wings. The rooster lives.

We headed back up the mountain to Selva Negra today. When we were there last year, we did a clinic after a full day at the hospital. Since by then it was after school, we set up in the school. School was in session today so they asked us to set up in the dining hall. We have never done a clinic with all of us in the same room (usually we have a room for screening, a room for reading glasses, a room for distance glasses, etc.). There was plenty of room for us and we made a system with good flow. The problem was that the kitchen is right off the dining room, separated by metal bars only. In Nicaragua, the cooking fuel of choice (or necessity) is wood. The plantation has a lot of hungry workers so the cooks had to start cooking lunch about the time we got there at 9 AM. There were about eight giant pots of rice and beans and pasta all being cooked over very smoky wood fires. The smoke filled the room where we worked. I adjusted somewhat to our conditions but we all smelled strongly of smoke after just a few minutes of being there. Blech.

We found out that the plantation workers are served food based on how important they are. Coffee pickers are the low men on the totem pole and they get only beans and rice. The next level gets you some pasta to go with the beans and rice. If you are really important, you get something red on your plate like hot pepper salsa. Ryan sweet talked the ladies in the kitchen and scored a homemade tortilla, beans, rice and something red! I would not have a lot of incentive to advance under this system since it doesn´t get any better than beans and rice for me.

The morning was a little bit slow, but after lunch things picked up. We think we saw about 200 people there. Pam had a great side adventure. She went to give the school kids some letters that her students had written and also to give out some play-doh. The teacher asked if she would mind to substitute so that she could go get her eyes checked. Of course Pam agreed. She taught the kids some multiplication and they taught her their school song and made her write down the words so she could take it home and teach her kids. Experiences like that are the very reason we are here. I encourage everyone to check out her blog for this trip (the link to it is on this page).

We shut down the clinic at 3:00 and headed back to the lodge. Rafael, Carlos, Ryan, Charles, Kelly and I went for a little hike around the lake. On our last trip here, we stayed at this resort for the whole week since the house where we are staying this time was not ready yet. Every day for the whole week I went outside hoping to see a howler monkey. Every day for the whole week I came back disappointed. When we were a little bit into the jungle, Carlos started making some crazy monkey sounds. Ha Ha, Carlos, I thought. But then! A monkey actually answered! And then that monkey came closer to better hear what Carlos was saying. It sounded to me like Carlos was saying some pretty incendiary things but I don´t really speak monkey that well so I´m not totally sure. Since that monkey was apparently a baby, his mom came over to check us out too. I got some pictures! When the papa monkey started to come our way, we decided it was time to move on. We don´t know what howler monkeys eat or how fast they can run on land but we didn´t want to personally find out.

After drinking some delicious coffee on the deck, we got back on the bus. We decided not to eat at Selva Negra but instead went into town to one of the nicest restaurants in Matagalpa. We stopped at home quickly to get out of our smoky clothes. As soon as we decided that we would go to this restaurant, the two Raphaels started telling us that this restaurant had a delicacy and we all needed to try it. The delicacy: bull testicles (huevos del toro). Stephanie and Ryan were all gung ho about this but the rest of us really just wanted beans and rice. And by the rest of us I mean me. Our first course was seviche. I know that this is raw fish marinated in something and that you eat it on crackers. The first dish to come around was a white fish in a delicious lime marinade. The next dish looked like little chunks of salmon. It was not. It was the Huevos. After a successful attempt at the white fish, more of us were feeling daring. I will now list for you the members of our group who tried huevos for the first (and maybe last?) time:
Ryan, Stephanie, Pam, Claire, Me, Katherine, Gary, Alan, LuAnne and of course Raphael and Carlos. I did not gag. I did not feel the need to eat more than one bite, but I did not feel the need to purge, either. The rest of the meal was delicious and uneventful. Some of us had steaks, some had shrimp and fried rice. Beth got an entire half of a chicken. The whole meal for the 19 of us, including the usual though optional 8% tip, was $150 US dollars.

All of that bravery made us tired. We came back to the house for evening devotional and most of us are ready for bed. Tomorrow we are heading to a different town about 20 minutes away. It´s supposed to be more rainy than it has been so far. Another day, another adventure.

Three other notes of interest:

1. We figured out that the key to hot showers is low water pressure. If you just barely turn on the water, it has enough time to heat up. I´ll gladly trade a little shampoo left in my hair for a steamy shower.

2. Kelly told us today that instead of telling people the needed to go get sun glasses, he was saying something like "you need glasses by herself." What does that mean? We don´t really know but somehow the patients figured it out.

3. Dear readers, please post us some comments! We want to hear from you. Don´t be afraid. You can even be anonymous...

Dear Rooster,

We realize that in every relationship one must have patience and understanding. But you are causing me to quickly lose my patience. Really, 4:39 a.m.????? I mean, if you had started in after the car alarm went off around 5 am, I would have understood. Who didn´t want to start yelling at that point?

Do you remember when you started crowing around 6 am, just when my alarm clock went off? Yeah, that was great! Then you continued every 5-10 minutes, like a snooze button! PERFECT!

I don´t want to tell you how to do your job, I really don´t, but have some sympathy for us missionaries. We may be doing ¨God´s work,¨ but we won´t be afraid to eat you for dinner.

Just as a final reminder...the time to crow is when you see the SUNLIGHT. If it´s dark, and you feel like crowing, please resist the urge, roll over, and go back to sleep. That´s what we are trying hard to do when we hear you at ungodly hours of the night.

Cordially,
Beth and Mary Ann

Photos from travel, church and the first clinic!

No rooster alarm clock today. Did he just decide to sleep in? Or was Letha right and the chicken wings we had for dinner last night were really rooster wings? The world may never know.

I think I mentioned that we went out into the country for church yesterday. That was not even the country compared to where we went today. El Jobo is a tiny town about an hour past where the powerlines end. If your friends lived here you would not visit very often.

My assignment today, our first work day, was the Auto-Refractor. On our last trip, I was accidentally made the auto-refractor operator after a little debaucle. I don´t think it´s really that hard, but people tell me I´m skilled at it so I´m happy to be useful. It is a eight-inch square, two-inch wide machine where I look with one eye into the pupil of the patient's eye. They are supposed to look at the red light and stay still. I move a little green X back and forth around the pupil until the auto-refractor beeps in a happy tone so I know I've got the right distance. It then takes a reading and says "ta-da!" Unfortunately, cataracts are common here because so much time is spent out in the sun and they make it hard to get a reading. The other challenges for me are that my glasses steam up in the humidity (I'm realizing that the rainiy season is also the humidity season) and that most people's eyes are so dark brown it is hard to even find the pupil. If I can't get a good reading, I send them on to Gary's magic lenses. Happily, most people did not need distance glasses so we were not too busy for our first day. I was able to reacquaint myself with the machine and Gary and I could figure out how to best work through these patients. It was also nice for the patients because we had enough time to check everyone with the auto-refractor and then Gary could also see each one. I doubt that this will be the case every day.

In addition to the rain, I also jinxed myself with the beans and rice. I have not seen them since breakfast the first morning. We've had lots of rice but it´s just not the same without the beans. Alex (one of the translators) told me that the price of beans is currently very high because of a drought last summer so I´m guessing that´s why. Dang.

Tomorrow we go back to Selva Negra, the coffee plantation where we stayed last time. It will be good to see Eddie and Mausi and hopefully Vicki and Raquel, too. Keep your fingers crossed for beans and rice on the dinner buffet.

Today was our first day in the ¨field.¨ After a delicious pancake breakfast, we left at 8 a.m. for a 2 hour drive to the community we would be serving, El Jobo (pronounced Hobo). As Mary Ann said, it is the end of the rainy season, and the roads to El Jobo are not paved, so they were a bit muddy in places. We are so grateful for our bus driver, Carlos, who kept us moving.

We arrived at the school in El Hobo to find a large crowd of children and adults, as well as chickens, pigs, horses, and cows milling about in anticipation of our arrival. Okay, well maybe the animals were´t so much anticipating our arrival, but they were fun to see. Our favorite pig, the spotted pig, gave us a great deal of enjoyment throughout the day.

We had three classrooms to work in, so we set up shop: sign in and screening in room one, the distance glasses and our eye doctor, Gary, in room two, and the ¨readers¨ in room three. The system worked well and we were able to see 180 folks throughout the morning and afternoon, and we gave away lots of sunglasses at the end of the day to the dozens of children standing about, entertaining us through the windows and out in the breezeway between classrooms.

It was a good first day as we all became aquainted (or reacquainted) with the process. Kelly and Claire and I were in the readers room. We saw folks who had passed the initial screening for distance glasses (by our standards 20/50 or better) and so they were sent down to us for screening for reading glasses. We were fortunate to have 2 interpreters with us, Alex, and Carlos (our famed bus driver) so I was able to do my own screenings and I didn´t have to do much interpreting myself. Joan was our ¨bouncer¨ at the door, and also helped get glasses and sunglasses for me when I was getting tired later in the day. (So yes, Mom, I was smart and asked for help).

I have to say, the lack of running water equated to outhouses. My heightened-sense-of-smell-pregnant-self just couldn´t deal with this, so it was a long bus ride back down the mountain for me. We packed it in around 3:30 p.m. The rain was falling harder and we knew the roads would not get much better. Carlos got us safely home and I was grateful for running water in our bathroom. An instant reminder that we have so much and the people we saw today have so little.

Lesbia´s famous chicken cutlets and potatoes were for dinner tonight, so needless to say those of us who came in 2007 were more than excited. We have been extolling the virtues of this, our favorite meal, since we got on the plane Saturday, and she did not disappoint.

On a personal note, Charles and I found out yesterday that someone very dear to us passed away late Saturday night, and that has certainly put a damper on our emotions. We loved you, Larry McGehee, and your mark on us and everyone who knew you we will carry with us always. We hope our being here would have made you proud.

Loading the crates on top of the bus in Managua for the drive to Matagalpa

A woman washing her clothes in the river across the street from the church we attended this morning



These are some of the children in front of the church we went to this morning. The kids were fascinated by our group. One little boy ran behind the church for quite a while!


We spent some time preparing and sorting glasses for the clinic tomorrow morning. We have a two-hour bus ride through the mountains tomorrow to get to the place we will be working.

Preparing forms for the clinic tomorrow

Sorting glasses

Relaxing at the team house

Today was a lot of hurry up and wait. After a somewhat bumpy descent into Atlanta, we waited for a few more hours to get on the plane to Managua. When I got on the plane, I looked for my seat - 23A. I was glad to have been assigned to a window on this plane with two rows of three seats each. However, when i got to row 23, there was an elderly Hispanic lady and her two daughters taking up the whole row. I knew there was no hope in trying to talk it over with them so I looked for the flight attendant. She apparently agreed with me in thinking it was a bad idea to try to move them and so she asked if I would be willing to sit in 24B. Middle Seat. I made the slightest wrinkle of my nose and she said that she would look for another seat but the plane was pretty full. I could see there were some seats in the exit row! She asked me how old I am (do I really look like I am under 18? Thanks, flight attendant!) and since I am at least 18, she let me sit in the window seat. To make it even better, the girl sitting beside me had a husband in the next row and so she changed to that seat as soon as the fasten seatbelt sign was turned off! Whoo-Hoo! Exit row leg room and vacant seat beside me! Sometimes the squeaky wheel does get the grease!

Several folks asked for a schedule, so that that they may pray specifically. Voila:

Saturday: Travel Day
Sunday: Worship, tour the city, practice for the week
Monday: Clinic for El Hobo
Tuesday: Clinic at Selva Negra
Wednesday: Clinic at Yaule
Thursday:Clinic at La Corona
Friday: Clinic at Los Cardones
Saturday: Tour Day
Sunday: Travel Day

I am sure that the church grows weary of my push for mission trips. However, short term ministry changed my life.

We often think about going far away to help 'those poor people' in dire straights. However, my experience has been the opposite - I am the one that has been saved.

Indulge me for a few moments...

My first freshman year in college was challenging. I was the brightest, most likable, most likely to run the world, person in my small town. At least, that was my perception. Simply put, Georgia Tech kicked my ass. Calculus Three was my nemesis, but Jack Daniels was my comforter.

I attended a conference in the spring where I committed to working as a summer missionary near a National Park. A few weeks later, I started drinking - a lot. My grades were horrible before, but then I quit attending classes. Two days before leaving to be a summer missionary, I had one last blow out. I knew life was about to change and I was both glad and fearful.

My appointment was to Smoky Mountain Resort Ministries in Gatlinburg, TN. The drive from Cherokee to Gatlinburg was so long. The mountains are a holy place for me and that summer I learned to stand on holy ground.

I lived in a dorm on a church camp with 20 of my closest friends and neighbors. I helped with day camps in the morning and worked in a gift shop at night. On the weekends, I would lead worship in one of the campgrounds. It took me most of the summer to warm up to everyone. I was dreading the return to Atlanta and fearing that other staff members would think that I was unfit to do ministry. That experience was so awkward for such a social person.

Several weeks in, Georgia Tech sent me a letter confirming my failure. They suggested that I try a community college. At that point in life, I had experienced death, loss, fear, and uncertainty, but never failure. FAILURE. In that moment and through that summer, I experienced grace. I learned to be aware of god's presence, to accept grace, to speak and receive blessing.

I had preached sermons on the tenant that you cannot earn god's love, but that concept was for other people. I was good enough. I could give grace and acceptance to others, but my pride made it challenging to receive. The summer was challenging, yet incredibly formative.

I am who I am, because of that summer. I returned to Gatlinburg and worked with Smoky Mountain Resort Ministries for five years. My faith and theology are entrenched with the lessons of the mountains. See the next posting for more on this.

As our group prepares to travel to Nicaragua, I am reminded of the power of shared ministry. Do the folks in Nicaragua needs us? Sure. Do we need the people in Nicaragua? Sure. In the end, I suspect that we are the greater beneficiaries.

Maybe we learn a little grace. Maybe we learn to see god in a new light. Maybe we broaden our understanding of the world. Maybe we learn a new way of loving. Maybe we come to understand ourselves better.

Through it all, I pray that we are able to be fully present and tuned in to the movements of god in and through us.

As we prepare to travel, we ask that you pray for the team and the folks we will meet in Nicaragua.
Specifically, we ask you to pray for:

• Safe and Smooth Travel
• Good Health
• Strong Backs
• El Ayudante staff who enable us to serve
• Selva Negra: a coffee estate that is dear to many of us. We will be hosting a clinic for the plantation workers.
• The kids who tend to congregate where ever the Americans are located.
  
• Pray for wisdom and generosity for our team as we interact with large crowds.
• Pray that our service will reflect the love of Christ.