NICARAGUA MISSION EXPERIENCE

WOW! Our week serving Christ and the people of San Juan del Sur Nicaragua was an awesome experience that none of us (Suzie, Bernice, Brianne, Katie and Mark) will ever forget! We flew out of Chicago O'Hare at 6:00am on Saturday Jan 11, 2003. We linked up in Miami with additional doctors and opticians (2 from Minnesota, 2 from Kentucky, and several from Connecticut and the Boston area) and flew on to Managua, the capitol of Nicaragua. In Managua we linked up with even more volunteers, mainly a group of optometry students from California Berkeley school of optometry.

We had a little delay waiting for a bus to transport us to San Juan del Sur (about a 3 hour trip on some bumpy roads!) but we made it ok. We set up our home base at the Casa Joxi in San Juan del Sur (SJdS). The Joxi is a little rough by american standards, but we were comfortable there. Brianne, Suzie & Bernie shared a room, while Katie and her dad had a room upstairs. Each room had its own bathroom & shower (cold water showers only and a couple of times the town suffered from water shut offs, but on the whole we were well taken care of.)

On Sunday we had an organizational meeting. Doctor Matt Blondin and his wife Audrey did a fantastic job coordinating and planning, and Monday morning our team headed up the hill to open the vision clinic. Each morning we took with us a large suitcase filled with school supplies, books, medicines, and an assortment of clothing & beanie babies to give away. Our church family really pulled together and donated a lot of much needed and much appreciated supplies!

After morning devotions & prayer, we would all join together for a quick breakfast before opening the clinic. We ate well all week. Breakfast & lunch were eaten at the clinic (the clinic was a school that was closed for their summer break) and at night we ate at several different local eateries, one of the best of which was the Chicken Lady (an enterprising woman who cooked up chicken,beef,rice and fried bananas on a grill in front of her house!)

Everyone (usually 700 to 900 each day!) would first go to the clinic pretest area where they would complete a short questionaire and then read an eye chart to see what their visual acuity was. Katie teamed up with 2 other "doctor's kids" and worked hard all day recording acuities! Even though the spanish letters look like our english letters, they are pronounced very differently, so a,b,c,d become ah,bay,say,day!

The lines each day at clinic were long, but somehow with the grace of God we were able to see everyone and always had just enough resources and supplies to accomplish our mission. When you "let go and let God" it really becomes obvious that God is there and that God does care!

Mark had a great group of optometry students in his clinic room to work with. It was a joy to be able to teach and advise the students. 3 of the 4 students had no prior clinical experience but they were all pretty sharp future doctors and very quick learners! Here is Mark showing Fabian how to perform tonometry (checking ocular pressure for glaucoma). We took enough medications with us to treat a variety of ocular diseases.

Retinoscopy is a quick method to find and measure refractive errors that could then be corrected with the donated spectacles that we brought with us. Each patient was told "No mire la luce. Mire la mas grande E!" translated = "Don't look at my light. Look at the big E!"

This mother/daughter both had great vision, but they also both had conjunctivitis!(bacterial infections, left eyes of both!) Again, we had medication with us and I have every reason to believe that both mom and daughter made a quick and total recovery!

This gentleman had a scarred left cornea and also a bad cataract in his right eye that left him with pretty poor vision that we couldn't do much about. It was difficult to have to tell people "lentes no ayuda" which means "glasses can't help you" but again God stepped in to make things work out. We were able to give him sunglasses to help with the extra glare that was caused by the cataract, and he was happy for even this little assistance!

Brianne put her 2 years studying spanish to good use as she worked as a clinic room attendant. She would help control access into a clinic area. Here she is letting Rafael know he has to wait his turn! (Rafael was actually a local that helped us at the clinic. We had him pose for this picture!)

Bernie & Suzie worked hard in the dispensary, where patients would come to get their glasses. On their feet all day long, these ladies worked non-stop and were an inspiration to everyone around them. More than once I heard much younger volunteers say they had trouble keeping up with the "church ladies"!

Suzie got the hang of reading and understanding lens prescriptions well enough to assist with the job of finding a matching pair of glasses for a doctor's written prescription. It often required ingenuity along with persistence to find the best possible match.

One morning we had devotions on the beach. Considering the temperature back home was hovering around zero, it's obvious that Nicaragua in January has it's attractive side! Katie is opening a small gift. Katie's mom (Lisa) had sent several thoughtful surprises for all of the mission team. It was reassuring to know that we had many people thinking about and praying for us while we were away!

Here is Orlando's house. Orlando is a young boy that the Blondins have helped by donating money for his care & schooling. His house is typical of the primative structures that serve as homes for many of the nicaraguan people.

[child]

This young lady has her hands full! It was not unusual to see children taking care of children in Nicaragua.

The children of Nicaragua were like children everywhere, a pure joy to behold! Despite severe poverty, the people of Nicaragua are a happy people. Our materialistic society could indeed benefit by realizing that having "stuff" doesn't lead to happiness. Having God is a joy that never ends!

It is hard to express the joy we experienced traveling and serving. God has blessed us all many times over! He gave us the resources-including abilities, skills, and materials-so that we could reach out to more than 3,000 people and to give them the gift of sight! We saw many people who would be classified as legally blind by american standards- their vision was so poor that they could not even see the big "E" on the eye chart! And what kept them from seeing the world around them? Only one thing, they needed glasses! We got to see their faces as they put on their glasses and saw the world clearly, perhaps for the first time in their entire lives. We gave away glasses and collected smiles, hugs, kisses!

We were also able to deliver much needed school supplies, toys and books, thanks to the generosity of our church and community. Again we witnessed how much good can result from just a few suitcases of supplies. The spanish and bilingual books we gave to the newly established library in SJdS will be read and re-read by the many residents of SJdS.

And the truest joy was feeling God's presence! So many times we wonder - Are we following God's will completely? Are we hearing God's voice clearly? Well, for one glorious week in January, we had no doubts. We gave our all - we gave our money, our time, our sweat and a few tears. And in return, we spent a week in the courtyard of our Lord! And it is true, a day in His courts is worth 1000 elsewhere!

God is Good!

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