Mission Trips: Country Club Christian Church

One of the highlights of this trip so far was the church service we attended on Tuesday evening. The church is in a tiny building that we’ve been using as a classroom for Sue’s daily workshops on health care. (It is also the room in which previous mission teams from our church have slept.) Dozens of people packed the small sanctuary, including many small children, some of whom danced and clapped in the aisle and others who peeked in through the windows. We were surprised to learn there is a new pastor in Guadalupe, Israel Sanchez. He visited the clinic on Tuesday before church, complaining of headaches after he finishes preaching, and it was easy to see why. His booming and animated voice reverberated throughout the small room in crescendo after crescendo, always punctuated by “en Su nombre!” (In His name.) The congregation was inspired by his enthusiasm and responded back in kind. They joyfully sang hymns and spoke prayers. Here, when the pastor leads what we might think of as the pastoral prayer, instead of listening to his prayer and praying silently to themselves, the church members also speak their own personal prayers aloud, which creates an amazing buzz of collective praise.

We were surprised that the service lasted just more than an hour – we were expecting two at the least! Pastor Sanchez seemed to recognize that it had been a long day for our team and we were exhausted. He did invite “Carlita la pastora” back the following evening to offer a reflection, which we politely declined!

Yesterday was a calmer day in the clinic – Kamille, Sue and Jane saw fewer critical patients. We sent Raul and his mother out again, this time to see a Nicaraguan doctor so he would have an acceptable referral at the hospital. The doctor he saw recommended he be seen at a special hospital in Managua which is equipped to treat dermatological conditions. One of the goals for this morning was making arrangements for this to happen. Kamille is concerned that his condition is so severe, even the hospital won’t be equipped to help him, but at the very least, this will hopefully be a better evaluation than he’s received to date.

The boy with hepatitis was also seen by a Nicaraguan doctor who prescribed medications which will help him recover. After a couple of frustrating days, we were encouraged that two of the most severe patients we’ve seen had positive news.

The young mother with the dehydrated baby did not return yesterday, but we spoke to her mother-in-law, who said that the baby was doing better. Sue encouraged this woman to bring the baby and mother back today for follow-up care.

Today there is a buzz of activity on the farm. James is helping the family which runs the farm fix a mechanical problem on a piece of equipment which runs their water pump. He quickly diagnosed the problem, but as is often the case, we don’t have the parts or supplies to fix it. Harold, our CEPAD coordinator, will go into Matagalpa today to try to purchase the $5 part they need. Fixing the pump will save them much time and labor.

Ken, Lance and Linda are building two more picnic tables for the farm. (Ostensibly, I’m helping…which I know my husband will laugh at the thought of!) The lumber they are using was cut yesterday from trees here on the farm with a chainsaw. It’s one thing to cut a tree down with a chain saw; it’s another thing all together to actually cut trees into useable lumber with one. Yet another example of the people here making do the best they can with the resources they have. Some power tools like a circular saw appeared on Tuesday sometime, so the process is moving along more quickly than the work we did on Monday. The table they built yesterday is beautiful and looks like something you could buy at Home Depot. Lance and Carty actually created it without a pattern, just a scribble on a piece of paper indicating what they wanted it to look like. We hope to make two more today.

Ken and Linda cut lumber for the farm´s new picnic tables.

Yesterday afternoon and again this morning, a group of us hiked along the narrow main road – which we’ve learned they call “the highway.” Seeing the village on foot is a whole new experience. There is so much natural beauty here, I’m simply in awe of everything I see. And yet, the reminders of poverty are inescapable, and I feel a little discouraged that we’re merely offering a tiny bandaid to people with gaping wounds. Last evening, Carla offered this meditation, which you might recognize from the cover of last week’s church bulletin:“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime: therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished along; therefore we must be saved by love.”

Reinhold Neibuhr

The people here have hope, they have faith and they have love. It is inspiring to share these things with our hermanos and hermanas (brothers and sisters) here in Nicaragua.