Mission Trips: Country Club Christian Church

After meeting Carla and Nancy and Greg Lear (our chauffer) at the ungodly hour of 3:55 a.m., we picked up Lance and arrived at KCI by 4:40 a.m., meeting the rest of our delegation. Checking our 28 bags was a bit of a challenge – some of the medical bags we diligently weighed on Monday night weighed way over on the KCI scale, so there was a mad shuffle to pull stuff out of some bags and put it into others. After a very brief stopover in Houston (and by brief, I mean we barely made it across the terminal to our departing flight in time), we arrived in Nicaragua shortly after noon.  Two things have run through my head multiple times since we stepped out into the Nicaraguan air: 1) It’s deliciously warm here! Hurray! After the long, cold Kansas City winter, the tropical climes are a very welcome change. 2) I keep thinking to myself, “I can’t believe I’m here.” Somehow it’s all been very surreal so far. Tonight we are at CEPAD’s Nehimias Center in Managua. (CEPAD is our host organization – the Council of Protestant Churches of Nicaragua.) We spent the afternoon in an orientation given by Dr. Pajaron, the founder of CEPAD, leaning a bit about the history of Nicaragua, and how CEPAD was formed after a massive earthquake in 1972 to help cities and villages here recover. He was a interesting and engaging host, who, in addition to being an American-trained medical doctor, is also the pastor of a local Baptist church. After a brief tour of parts of the city of Managua tonight, we’re going to bed early! It’s been a long, exciting day. First thing tomorrow we set out for Guadalupe, the mountainous village where we’ll be doing the medical clinic and undertaking a construction project.

 Lara Schopp for the Nicaragua Mission Team