In 33 hours we will be on the plane to MedFest 2014.
We are meeting at the airport at 4:45 a.m. on this Thursday. We will get to Managua, Nicaragua around noon time and take a school bus into the village in a city of Los Conchitas (it is near Masaya) and set up the medical tents and carnival games and divide out all of the medications into zip lock bags and get the clinics set up. We will head to the hotel about an hour away that is in Granada. It looks very nice and has wifi, so I will email in the evenings when I can. http://www.hotelgranadanicaragua.com/
we will get up Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 6a.m. and have quiet time and breakfast at the hotel and ride the bus into the village to be there by 8:30. They have a chapel service outdoors each morning with the staff (there are 100 of us going from Lakeland, Bartlett Hills, Murfreesboro and Chicago) and also any natives that want to come. Then around 9:30 they line up for medical care. We will eat lunch in the village. Giles said it is usually a bowl of beans or rice and a piece of chicken that has been cooked over an open flame. Cliff said it won't look like any piece of chicken I have ever seen because they cut up these chickens with a band saw and just start hacking away. He said to be careful because it will be parts and bones that we are not accustomed to seeing. I am trying not to think about salmonella.
I started taking Chloroquine for anti-malaria 2 weeks ago and will take it for 4 more weeks. Malaria must be some bad stuff. It makes me feel yucky for a day or two then I feel better. It is a once a week tablet. We will take Cipro while we are there to prevent any sort of stomach virus. Cipro is my friend. Dr. Beaver also gave me some nausea pills and patches for car sickness. Did I mention we are riding on school buses............good times!!!!!
We will work until 4 or 4:30p.m. each day (did I mention we will be outside most of the time in 95 degree weather). They want us to be back at the hotel before dark because of the violence and limited lighting and the buses are not exactly state of the art grey hound buses....they worry about them breaking down.
We will clean up at the hotel and then walk over to the Irish Pub (Giles has eaten at the same place every night he has gone and never gotten sick so why mess with a good thing). He said the Irish Pub has the best fajitas around :O). We will then go back to the hotel or the pool or whatever.
We head back to Memphis on Monday and will be home in the afternoon.
If I have already told you this part, please forgive me.....I might have a touch of the OldTimer's like my Granny did.
I have been letting worry and fear creep in and I know who is responsible for this. But my friend who just went to Guatemala to a children's orphanage this summer told me that she had always heard that nothing is too BIG for God, well she learned on a 2 week mission trip to Africa that nothing is too LITTLE for God either. Smells really get to her and she was in Africa doing medical missions and after just 2 days the body odor was really getting to her and she emailed her mom and told her that she hated to even ask, but would she pray for her because she did not think she could make it 12 more days in the stinch....her momma called all of the ladies in her sunday school and they started praying and she said the next day she went back and the smell did not bother her. She said she did not know if she had just gotten use to it, but she believed that it had been an answer to prayer.
The cost of this trip was $575 for the plane ticket and then $800 more for me to go.....I ended up getting a little over $900 in donations. That is really great, I think. I got a card just yesterday with a check in it. The note said "it is not much, but I hope it will help a little bit". I had just that afternoon read an email that said there was an unexpected fee to get a temporary visa to get into the country. The check was for the exact amount. It shows that God is taking care of everything.
Anyway, these are the little, silly, selfish things that I am praying for for myself:
* flying - of course
* riding in the bus and not getting car sick on at least 2 trips per day for over an hour each leg.
* not having very much diet coke....I really am probably addicted to it
* having to drink water..... They said to bring crystal light. We will be each given a small supply of bottled water. I bet I drink every drop of it.
* the heat....it is mid 90's during the day and we will be primarily outside. No A/C inside (except at the hotel....thank goodness)
* any sort of sickness that I might get, stomach bug, flu virus, whatever
* any kind of illness or disease that I might come across caring for people who do not get medical care....you know I care for sweet little clean babies.
* that our luggage will get there (we have a 41 minute layover in Houston....that's not much time)
I am also praying for the people that I will care for, that I will be able to communicate with them and understand what they need and be able to help them (we will be sharing interpretors), and also that lives will be touched. I have a feeling it will be mine.
I have beanie babies that a friend donated to me. They were happy meal toys from the 90's and she had been saving them in her attic. She said she did not think her nieces or nephews would ever appreciate them but these kids who, at times, eat out of the dump might not have ever had a brand new toy. I got boxes of bubbles and I think that will be fun to blow bubbles while they are waiting in line. Stupid me did not think about how much bubbles weighed when I bought them. I have to put them in a checked bag....liquids and all.
Anyway, it won't be long now.............there will be more updates to come.
Have fun. Be safe and I'm praying for you.
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