Last week David and I had the pleasure of joining a mission trip with Olive Branch Ministries that traveled up the River Coco (along the border with Honduras). We went to a town called San Andres, which is the largest town in the area we wanted to serve. This trip was quite an adventure, and an unforgettable experience. It started last Saturday. We left Jinotega about 1:00 and arrived in Wiwili about 6:30 or so. We stayed the night there, in a little hotel that had TVs in every room, but not towels, toilet paper or much running water (we had water, but lots of other rooms didn’t). David and I decided that RVs have better quality sinks. We were up early the next morning for our 10 hour boat ride to San Andres. We had absolutely perfect weather! Cloudy, but no rain couldn’t have made for a better trip, and I really think the boat ride was more pleasant than the bus ride.

Four preachers from the churches in the North joined the trip to evangelize and pray with the patients. We were blessed with six baptisms, and another group is going again in October to do follow up.

The mission team from the states was a medical group, and David translated for one of the doctors and I worked in the pharmacy. Boy did David have a hard job. In this area, some speak Spanish, but most speak Misquito, so David had to listen to the English doctor, translate to the Spanish translator, who translated it to Misquito for the patient, and then do it all over again backwards for the patient to the doctor. There were four doctors and a dentist, and we saw over 200 patients a day.  I really enjoyed working in the pharmacy (I don’t want to see people’s medical conditions!).  This was a great group to work with too!  The dentist had been on 40+ mission trips to all over and it was interesting to hear him talk of his adventures on the Amazon, in Palestine, Vietnam, etc, etc.

The ride home was even more of a challenge.  This time we were traveling against the current, so it took 12 hours on the boat, and then we added the 5 hour car ride to Jinotega.  It made for a very long day!  On the boat ride home, we had sun, we had rain, we got stuck.  Just a taste of everything to make sure it was a full adventure!  I put more pictures up the gallery if you want to check those out.

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