Nicaragua: We came, we shared, we opened their eyes

Twelve members of our church, St. Mark Lutheran, have just returned from a trip to Nicarauga. We handed out 500 Bibles, nearly 2000 pair of glasses and saw 1079 folks. A total blessing and a terrific trip for all of us.

We flew to Managua on TACA airlines and thence to San Carlos at the mouth (the boca) of the Rio San Juan in a twelve-seater plane. An hour-long boat ride took us to Sabalos Lodge, a cluster of huts looking like the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse at Disneyland. We stayed there five nights.

The centerpiece for the trip was four days of eyeglass clinics–two days in El Castillo and two days in Sabalos proper. The humid weather was 35 degrees warmer than it is today in northern California, and monsoon-heavy rains fell daily. I wore an OFF insect repellant machine and took malaria pills. Fried plantains appeared at every meal. We slept under mosquito netting and took cold water showers in a hut without windows or screens.

I had a fabulous time.

The best part was the people we served. Dignified, stoic, neatly-groomed and patient, they held up a card at arm’s length so I could determine their dominant eye. Some had a distance screening exam. If they were over 35 years-old, their eyes were “read” by an autorefractor. John determined their need for glasses and we found and fitted a pair that matched the need in their dominant eye.

Some people got both reading and distance glasses; everyone under 35 got sunglasses as did most of the folks who only needed reading glasses to see. To see the total joy on their faces, was a gift everyone –including you–should have.

It was an honor to serve; combining satisfaction and grace and bestowing good news to so many people in the poorest corner of the poorest country in central, and possibly all, America.

My  husband, daughter and I were one of three family groups on this trip. Two teenage boys and their parents joined us, along with a couple and a woman without her family. Our San Juan Rio Relief Nicaraguan liason, Rafael, and a Managuan optometrist, Delores, traveled to San Carlos with us. Five Peace Corps members joined us as translators and livened up our group with good cheer and local knowledge.

We could not have accomplished half of what we did without those seven “locals,” nor would we have wanted to try.

This was the fifth time our church sent a group to the Rio San Juan area. We worked out of a community hall in El Castillo and took over several classrooms in an elementary school in Sabalos. In addition to the free glasses, we handed out 125 Bibles a day, along with Snoopy dogs (reflecting the hometown we shared with the creator, Charles Schultz), Bible story books and bouncy balls for the children.

I’ll be writing for the next several weeks about the experience. Join me and share our joy!