Day 5

It’s hard to describe the feelings or emotions our team is feeling. Dinner and gifts last night from our host Pastor – awesome!

Going to “work” today and seeing people lined up (over 100) – humbling. People lined up to get glasses so they could see, but we experienced all week what God sees. It doesn’t matter where you live, how much money you have or don’t have, or the color of ypur skin – we are brothers and sisters in Christ.

The President of the Lutheran Church of Nicaragua stopped by for a visit today. He too saw first hand that through our work we have setup the building blocks for the Lutheran Church mission plant in Sebeco.

Caesar (the local radio & tv host) stopped by to film more footage and then invited one of our team members to go back on the radio and tv to talk about the work that was done all week long. During the radio interview people called in and poured “praise” and “love” to our team – for coming and helping, for being a Christian role model, and for treating them as “equals” in everything we did.

It was hard to say “see you later” to our new friends that we spent all week with, but this afternoon we did just that. A little after noon we closed our eyeglass clinic and packed up to begin our trip back home.

I peaked over Kevin’s shoulder (our team leader) and looked at the total numbers…

During our time here we saw 745 people and gave out 801 pair of glasses…those numbers might not be exacts but they are close!!!

Tomorrow (Saturday) we begin our trip home – it will be a long day of travel and we’ll have lots of time to reflect on the experiences of this past week.

Just because the “mission” part of our trip is completed don’t give up reading our blog just yet. Final thoughts, reflections, and more pictures will be posted in the next few days!!!

The radio/tv station where we were interviewed

Our hosts

Pastor Paul (Rockwall) & Pastor Luis (President of Lutheran Church Nicaragua)

The building where we held the clinic

Our host Pastor on his motorcycle

93 yr old man getting glasses

Pastor Paul being thanked by someone who received glasses a few days ago. He came to the radio station to personally say thanks!

 

Dinner with our host Pastor

I can not even begin to explain the love our whole team felt at dinner tonight. Our hosts presented each of us with a gift as a reminder of our time here. They are so thankful that we came to help them start a new mission start and these small tokens were one way they said THANKS!

 

Day 4

I wish we could tell you all the stories we have heard this week. People seeing things clearly for the first time, people thanking us for caring enough to come and share with them. People’s lives that have been transformed by the power of Christ through something as simple as eyeglasses.

Pastor Hector (our host Pastor) was presenting the Gospel message to the people in their heart language and MuLTIPLE times today when they heard tge story of Jesus and the free gift of heaven they STOOD UPvand APPLAUDED – i personally have NEVER seen that. THAT is truly the power of God at work!!!

As for the numbers today – at 8:00 am over 100 people were lined up to get in. At our lunch break we had seen everyone that had a ticket…but over 100 others were waiting to get in. Our team decided to work because it was our last full day and while I don’t have an exact count I know that over 230 NEW registrations happened today PLUS anybody that came from Monday or Tuesday!!! WOW!!!

A few pics of Sebaco, and the “radio man” while I was fitting him with glasses he took off his radio and turned it on. He was so thankful to be able to see clearly with new glasses – the only way he knew how to celebrate was to play his radio.

A street in Sebaco

The entrance to our hotel from the highway

Radio Man

We were asked to come back and do a final radio and TV interview on Friday and we also found out that we were on the nightly National news in Nicaragua with some of our team members being interviewed!!!

Tonight we are having dinner with the host Pastor and his family. I for one can’t wait!

 

Day 3

Today we started a little late because the night before was a late night. Imagine our surprise when we showed up and OVER 200 people were lined up 2 and 3 deep. (pics # 1 & 2)

I guess the word has gotten out we have gotten our bags out of Customs. We quickly setup and got to work. Total registered today was 157, total seen 274!!! We saw our last patient at 7:45 pm. The team worked hard, we saw a lot of people and it was all done to the glory of God.

When we took our lunch break we had seen almost 150 people. You can see the trash left behind (pic #3) Things were a little tense as people were pushing and yelling at each other while standing in line. God provides though- standing in line and hot temperatures are not a good mix. Shortly after we got started God provided substantial cloud coverage which cooled the outside temperature, and in turned cooled down people’s tempers.

The local food has consisted of rice and beans, some kind of chicken, and what they call steak smothered in sauce (it resembles beef jerky for consistancy). After our second long work night the team headed to the BIG city and had pizza for dinner. We ordered 4 pizza’s thinking that we’d have leftovers – I guess 12 hungry and tired people proved that wrong, we were licking the crumbs off the plates.

The last set of pics are people we helped today, or our team members working hard or…playing hard!!!

Looking forward to another fun filled, action packed day on Thursday.

 

Day 2 clinic…

So we started this am still not having our bags – our leader went back to the airport (90 minutes away) to try and get our stuff…AGAIN

Meanwhile back at the clinic…we started off testing people – thinking that our bags would join us by lunch. At lunch time we had tested 87 people and still no bags and we weren’t sure WHEN or even IF they would arrive.

All day yesterday and today while testing we told people to come back at 1:00 pm to receive glasses thinking that we would have our supplies. When we returned back from lunch over 100 people were lined up to be tested and another 100+ were in line to receive their glasses.

Menwhile back at the airport…we were getting the run around. One official said one thing, another said something else – wait 10 more minutes…I need a signature…this letter isn’t right…

Back at the clinic we continued testing. All total today we tested 179 people plus the 90 from yesterday and they ALL wanted glasses!

Around 3:30 pm we received word “the Eagle has landed”…in other words we had glasses in hand – they were on their way back.

The local Pastor asked if we could put glasses on people as soon as the glasses arrived. A plan was made and at 5:00 pm when the glasses arrived we became a full fledged dispensing clinic. We had 5 stations dispensing glasses, 3 team members were pulling prescriptions, and 2 team members were stationed at the fitting table.

At 5:30 the doors were opened and we began fitting people with glasses. NOBODY was turned away and at 8:37 pm we saw our last patient bringing our total number of people fitted with glasses today at 139 – and total tested today at 179!!!! WOW!!!!

God is good! It was a late night – but exciting to get our materials FINALLY and to share the love of Christ with people through an eyeglass clinic.

People waiting after lunch to be TESTED

People waiting after lunch to be FITTED with glasses

More people waiting to be FITTED with glasses

Who is this? Geraldo Rivera in Nicaragua????

 

Day 1 of clinic

Even though we still don’t have glasses in hand we opened our clinic at 2:00 pm and PRAISE GOD we tested 87 people in around 4 hours.

Tuesday will be FUN as we continue to test AND fill the prescriptions from today. A very busy but good day.

You can see the pics of the teams testing people for glasses. Please continue to pray for our bags to clear Customs…maybe tomorrow! The Mayor of Sebaco has written a letter and has asked Customs to allow our bags entry so we can help the people of his city.

 

Quick update

Good news…Bad news kind of day.
Good news – radio and TV interviews were GREAT lots of people wanting more information. Bad news? Customs still has our bags.

Going to start testing today – will pray we get our bags tommorrow. If everything goes according to plan – people that are seen today will have to come back to pick up glasses tomorrow.

 

Pray pray pray

This morning our team lead is going to meet with the Customs officials and hopefully get our stuff released. It has been advertised that we will start at 1:00 pm today. Also this morning one of our team members will be interviewed on the radio and on TV.

 

A Pentecost driven week – end

…and you will be my witnesses in Jeresalem, Judea, Samaria, and to all the ends of the earth Acts 1:8

Yesterday we saw the POWER of God at work in the active volcano at Masya (pronounced Messiah). What was interesting was even though that volcano was “smoking” with the possibilty that it could errupt at any time – on top of the hill was a cross overlooking everything. We were all quickly reminded that God is in control of EVERYTHING even the power of a volcano.

Today is Pentecost, and the team is going to worship in a church where English is not spoken, but I know we will see God’s power at work. The church is struggling as they have had to overcome many different obstacles but we know God’s power is at work. Our eyeglass clinic has been delayed a day or so, but already we’ve seen God’s power at work.

We are truly seeing a Pentecost week -end, filled with God’s power and with God ALL things are possible.

So off we go to start another day filled with God’s power to see what He has in store for us.

Walk with Light and with His power

 

Free day recap

Today was a fun filled “free day” – visiting an active volcano, shopping in the market, AND of course eating lunch at Papa John’s!!!!

Tonight at dinner we were visited by the local pastor with whom we will be working with throughout the week – what a nice surprise. He shared with us how excited he is that we are here to partner with him to share the Gospel message.

I’m telling you God has a plan that is going to be AWESOME! Maybe, just maybe that is why our bags are still being held at Customs. We found out tonight that one of our team members is going to be interviewed on Monday morning on the radio about our mission trip – God is working here!!! HOW EXCITING!

Sunday morning we will be attending church at a mission “start” that has been experiencing some “trouble” (loss of Pastor, no direction etc) Can’t wait to see what God has in store for us tomorrow!!!!

We closed our night by singing With the Lord Begin Your Task. What a GREAT reminder that we START all things with Him!!!

Phil. 4:13 – I can do ALL things through Christ!!!