Mission Trip - DAY FIVE

Even though it's nice and cozy in our little tents, I had a hard time sleeping each night - I did miss my comfortable bed back home.....................I read a little bit each night with my head lamp and I always journaled until my eyes got heavy but as soon as I turned out my light and got situated, I seemed to be wide awake!

Breakfast was pancakes, oatmeal and fruit - but since I don't drink coffee until I've had my breakfast, I found they were already out of it by the time I got through the line!

We all moved just a little bit slower on Wednesday!  Marta, one of the translators, does a wonderful job with hair so Jaime asked her if she would braid her hair   -  check out the results - it was gorgeous!!

Not a great picture of us but after all it was Day Three!!

Antonio had told us the day before that he really wanted to learn a country western dance!!  He certainly asked the right person so Jaime found some music on her IPOD and I set out to teach him the 2 step and the 3 step.  The 3 step was a little much for him but he did awesome on the 2 step!  In return, he taught me a little salsa!

Antonio teaching Rayna a few steps!

I was thrilled to be asked to go out with the vet team that afternoon!!  I knew I would see some beautiful countryside and be a part of something special!!  A Nicaraguan vet had his pickup available and Carl, Steve, Caleb, Kari and I crawled in the back end along with Miguel, the translator.  We would just pull up to a place and the vet would yell up to the house and ask if there were any animals that needed shots!  First up was a cow - it was interesting to see the owners rope them and tie them to a tree and then use a couple more ropes to hold their head while they gave the cow shots!

When we got back down to the truck, a girl had brought her pig in on a rope and there were several people waiting with dogs - yup, they all got shots!!

Most of the places just had 1 or 2 cows - after the 1st stop it started raining - bummer!!  But we still had a good time!

If there were kids around, Kari and I would hand out sunglasses to the kids and beans and rice to the moms - these 2 little ones were so excited over their glasses!

The vegetation was very lush - here's a papaya tree and right behind is a banana tree!

One of our clients brought over a bunch of "little bananas" - Steve tried one out and said it was harder than a regular banana - I decided to pass on trying it!

I think we ended up giving shots to around 8 cows, 4 hogs and 15 dogs during the afternoon!!  At one time it was raining so hard we stopped at a nicer house and sat on their porch till the rain subsided!

These 2 little girls were happy to get sunglasses too!

I was pretty wet and dirty by the time the afternoon was done but they were still working in the pharmacy so I helped them finish up the last of the patients.  What an amazing 3 days we had serving the village people!!  Our final total of people seen were 4099 people over the 3 days, 11,078 prescriptions filled, 430 tooth extractions, 588 pairs of prescription glasses given out and 624 accepted Christ into their lives!!  WOW - THAT'S EXCITING!!!

We were all very tired that night BUT we weren't done yet as the medication that we didn't use had to be all counted and boxed back up - we did make quick work of it though and after a couple hours we were done!  A late dinner tasted great and we all went to bed with smiles on our faces!!

And so ends DAY FIVE - To be cont'd...................