Nicaragua Day 4: Vertical Challenge

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Big day today with a lot of productivity! The main roof structure is up with cross purlings going on.  The interior walls are taking shape and the bathroom and two medical rooms are compete.  With a few design changes we’ve modified the pharmacy  and added two more much needed medical rooms  With some challenges, Nathan was even able to get much of the wiring pulled through the conduit! Needless to say today was a success!

The school next door was in session today so we had a large number of interested kids peeking through the doors.  Many of them were eager to get involved and help.  As three of them joined me to cut the opening for the bathroom door, they stated to show a bit of interest in my size.  One was specifically memorized at the size of my shoes.  As time went on more kids came out.  Before you knew it they were all wanting to stand next to me! Some of the kids came up with a plan to “beat” my height, and soon there were buckets around me with kids standing on top of them. It was quite a site!

Anton Van Dyk

 


Nicaragua Day 3, Part 2: The Important Things

Today,  we went to start building the medical clinic in Nicaragua. I realized very quickly how bad my Spanish is and the only way I can interact with the locals is by saying a few words like “hola, como estas & gracias”.

The best part though? Running around with the young children. They are so excited to see technology like power tools, cameras, and safety equipment( like ear muffs and sunglasses that we are using to erect the galvanized steel roof structure.)

 We have gained a lot of headway already being only day 1 of work. Its really heart warming to think we are making a difference with the local economy and helping with better medical care.I really loved to see all of the kids smiling faces. It brings me alot of joy to help out this community of great people.

I feel I can learn a lot from them and how they live their lives. I can really sit back and see how much we have to be thankful of and learn we don’t really need all of the material things we have. Spending time with the people you love is so much more important.

Learning lots and continuing to make headway!

Jeremy Ross

 

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Nicaragua Day 3-Skittles, Human Jungle Gyms and more

Today we started the hospital project in Nicaragua. We are working on a site that shares property with a school, so there are tons of young children running around watching and are entertained by the new faces.

If you know me at all, you know I love kids; So this was quite exciting for me.

My go to move since we got here was to break the ice with skittles. I carry skittles with me because I am diabetic, and in case of a low blood sugar skittles work to pick me up quickly.  They also work well to connect with the kids.  Once I break the ice with skittles, they usually like piggy backs, being tossed in the air as high as possible, and basically treating me as a human jungle gym. If I could I would spend the entire day playing with the children, hearing their laughter warms my heart.

This is one of the young boys who I spent time today.Like the rest of them, he is pretty darn cute and the friendship we have started I hope to continue to build throughout the week and remember it for the rest of my life. How could you forget a face a like that!

-Jake Vandermeer

 

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Nicaragua Day 2-Glad to be safe and sound!

What a start to the trip, not in any way we could anticipate. After many delays in Houston we finally landed in Nicaragua about 7 hours behind schedule. We met up with Wally & Rob loaded all of our luggage into the truck & trailer and started the final leg of our journey.

Unfortunately our bad luck had not run out and one of our vehicles was involved in an accident with a motorcyclist. Fortunately for us none of our team was physically injured, those in the vehicle were a little shaken up from it. The motorcyclist (Louis) was taken to the hospital and thankfully the most serious injury was a couple of broken bones in his leg. The driver (Rob) of our vehicle had to go with the police and so the rest of the team piled into 3 cabs. We finally arrived at the compound around 3:45AM local time,  24 hours after leaving Centra.

When we awoke Rob had been released by the police and at this point has been cleared of responsibility for the accident, which is a huge relief for Rob and us. We then enjoyed a delicious breakfast, had a tour of the property and saw a lot of variation in agricultural techniques as Wally experiments with the best way to grow crops here.

Later in the afternoon we loaded into 2 vehicles Nicaraguan style (sitting in the truck bed, hanging out of the back of the jeep) and headed down to Mojica for a Bible study and to see the work that was done by the previous team we sent two years ago. It was amazing seeing John & Corrine reconnect with some of the members of this community, pictures were updated (yes Garett we met the little girl who stole your heart) and we tried to communicate with our limited Spanish.

The community members expressed their gratitude for how we have made a positive impact on their lives and eagerly showed us around their homes. Jake made friends with all the kids by handing out Skittles but they still would not give him a high-five by the time we left.

It is now dark, dinner is done and the effects of about 8 hours of sleep for most of us in the last 48 hours is sitting in. Tomorrow we start the work on the medical clinic.

-Nathan Veenstra

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Nicaragua Day 1-Off we go!

At the Airport:

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Our day started bright andd early Saturday morning. Most of us met at Centra head office at 3:40 am.

Once we arrived at the airport we made the long journey through many check points.

Our flight was quicker than we expected into Houston but when we arrived at 1:15 pm we were told we would have to wait on the Tarmac for 45 minutes for a gate to open. Once we arrive we realized we just missed a tornado just south of the Houston airport.

Which led to a very long delay…. And many silly antics from our team. The airport had thousands of displaced passengers, cancelled flights, and a 3 hour customer service line up.

We were one of the fortunate groups and managed to all get on a flight to Managua at 10:30 pm Houston time….

Needless to say when our pilot arrived to take us on the rest of our journey the large crowd erupted in applause.

We were a little worried on boarding when myself and Anton were left behind because of the over booked flight. It was a nail biter… But we managed to just squeak on.

Our team is really looking forward to arriving at La Semilla to get a good night sleep. Our expected arrival is 1:15 am mountain time. Then the drive to the ministry.

Can’t wait to settle in and create some wonderful memories.

 

Tammy Cleven