The Road Home
March 2, 2008
It´s Sunday morning and we´re having breakfast at CEPAD before heading out to the airport to fly home. What an amazing week this has been. There are many more stories to tell and photos to post, so please check back throughout the week for more on our wonderful adventure. Read the rest of this entry »
Back in Managua!
February 29, 2008
Hope, faith and love
February 28, 2008
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.) Read the rest of this entry »
Health Care Crisis
February 27, 2008
We complain constantly about the health care crisis in the United States, and it truly is a crisis when millions of poor children and their families (and some not so poor, comparatively speaking) don’t have insurance and therefore don’t have access to quality health care. Read the rest of this entry »
Bringing Hope to the Sick
February 26, 2008
Another gorgeous morning here in Guadalupe. We are enjoying a breakfast of bananas, cantaloupe, toast and jam, plus fresh pineapple juice. I have been surprised that our food has been good, and we’ve only had beans twice!! The family who lives here at the farm has been preparing our meals each day and they do a great job given the limited resources. They do have a refrigerator and a blender, but that’s about all in the way of modern tools. The food is cooked over an open fire. Dishes are hand-washed. Read the rest of this entry »
Where in the world is Nicaragua?
February 26, 2008
A Day on the Farm
February 25, 2008
The view of the countryside from the farm.
If you’ve been reading the blog, you’re aware of the massive amount of over-the-counter drugs we’ve brought with us to Nicaragua. After we packed all those pills, I was thrilled at the number of people we’d be able to serve – it seemed like so many bottles and boxes! (It especially seemed like a lot when we were all lugging the 50-pound bags through airport security.) Read the rest of this entry »
First Day in Guadalupe
February 24, 2008
The Mission Team at the CEPAD Nehamias Center.
Refreshed and rejuvenated after a good night’s sleep at CEPAD in Managua, our team journeyed to Guadalupe this morning, arriving shortly after noon. We are joined by three CEPAD coordinators: Harold and Carolina, who are native Nicaraguans, and Kayon, who is from Philadelphia and is spending a year in Nicaragua with CEPAD before going back to the states to pursue a master’s degree in public administration with an emphasis in international development. We are fortunate to be traveling with this worthy team, all of whom speak Spanish. Carolina especially is a tremendous translator with very little accent and a brilliant command of English slang. Read the rest of this entry »
We have arrived in Nicaragua!
February 23, 2008
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. Read the rest of this entry »
Countdown to travel
February 22, 2008
We leave bright and early tomorrow morning for Nicaragua! I am riding to the airport with Carla and Nancy Lear (and perhaps Lance Jesse too) and my instructions are to arrive at Carla’s home around 3:45 a.m.!! Yow. Our flight leaves at straight up 6 a.m., but we’ll be on the ground in Nicaragua by early afternoon.
I’m posting from home today, where I’ve spent the day getting everything ready to go. I took photos of my nearly 100 pounds of luggage, but I can’t figure out how to post them (the Mac is great, Glen, but I can’t figure out how to use it!) , so you’ll just have to use your imaginations. Rest assured, it’s a lot of stuff. Two enormous bags plus a backpack. Yikes. With this much stuff, I could practically move to Nicaragua.
The most interesting thing I packed today was snacks. Granola bars, cashews, M&Ms, crackers and peanut butter packets, and cheese sticks. And, because I am impulsive, two Snickers bars which I couldn’t resist going through the checkout line at the grocery. I felt a bit like I did back when I was 9 or so and packing for a Girl Scout campout (which, incidentally, is probably the last time I really “roughed” it). But we’ve been told to expect to eat rice and beans, followed by beans and rice, for practically every meal while we’re in Guadalupe, so the supplementary snacks could help save our sanity from a culinary perspective.
The other thing that struck me as interesting today was pulling together all of my electronic paraphenalia. Digital camera, extra camera card, cord for uploading photos, digital video camera with two cords, iPod and cell phone. Clearly not all of this stuff is necessary, but as I’m intending to document the trip from as many angles as possible, I’m taking it all. Everything is charged, loaded and ready to go.
Keep us in your thoughts and prayers tomorrow and all week as we undertake this amazing journey. The next time you hear from us, we should be in country!
And if you’ll indulge me a little personal communication: Mom, it’s definitely too late to veto now!
Wish us luck!
