My sweet friend Jessica has been sharing her version of our trip in her blog as well and I have been SO enjoying reading all the things I wondered what she had been thinking as we traveled.
Since she mentioned that I tried to smuggle an apple into Nicaragua, I thought I might as well share with you a funny little airport security story.
My darling sister, Rose, is hostess level saint and when I had mentioned to her that I did not want to spend money on airport food considering we'd be in the airport from 7:30am to 10pm when we would arrive in Managua, she began throwing out suggestions of food she had that we could take with us.
She produced several things for us, one of which was a 1lb sleeve of Summer sausage. Since our first flight was Omaha to Houston, I figured any sort of food would be fine to fly from Point A to Point B. Our group of bright lime-green tshirts was an obvious travel party in the airport and the fellow just ahead of me got his bag pulled off the line because his full-sized Bible was too thick for the scanner to read and looked suspicious. The airport security man pulled his bag, located the foreign object and said, "A Bible?? Good gracious, we need to scan this again." And they plucked out the Bible and ran it through on it's own, it passed.
Then was me. They pulled out my bag and said, "Any sharp objects or liquids in here?"
"I hope not!" I said.
He looked very purposefully and said, "AH HA!" And pulled out my summer sausage. "A sausage!" He took the sausage out of my bag and ran it through the scanner all its own and it passed.
My friend Todd just behind me got his bag pulled and the security man said, "Now what.. do you have any sausage in here?" He did not.
As I chuckled about my lunch getting us in a little airport trouble, someone else said, "Well, Josh had THREE scissors in his bag. And they let him keep 'em."
And praise Jesus for that because we used the scissors to cut strings for bracelets we made for the kiddos for children's church. 536 bracelets to be exact. I know that because that is the exact amount we were able to make and it was the exact amount we needed for the kiddos.
Jess and I split the summer sausage for lunch in the airport that day and it held us over for supper as well. Which is why when I was on my flight to Managua out of Houston at 7pm, I was not hungry enough to eat my American apple. We touched ground and I looked in my bag and was like, "Ahh!!! What do I do??" But I just kept it in my bag, until right before we went to get our bags scanned to enter the country and one of my team said, "If anyone has an apple in their bag it is a $2000 fine." And I quickly discarded the apple in the nearest trash bin. --- And that was the adventure of getting to Nicaragua.
You have to remember I had no use of my vocal chords at that point and so I mostly just laughed at the situation since I had no way to defend myself.
--
Now let's see, I forgot to tell you, On Sunday after I had rested on my bed and before we started our clinic, we had an hour or two to explore the town. We were an obvious crowd of greengos as we wondered through the streets looking for a store. My most favorite thing to buy from a Nicaraguan street shop is apple juice. It's one of the most delicious drinks the Lord ever made and it tastes very different in Nicaragua than in the U.S.
We found a little store and one of the kind men on our team declared drinks all around and they had apple juice in a little juice box. I was SO happy. One thing they do in Nicaragua to save their glass bottles and get their 5cents back is that they pour all the drinks into a plastic bag and tie them off. You just bite a little hole in the bag and sip on it. Since I had a juice box, I didn't need a plastic bag, but our team pastor had to sip his coke out of the plastic bag and it looked so funny but it was so part of the culture too. They eat and drink everything out of a plastic bag so as to not have to dirty a fork or plate or cup. If it can be squeezed out of a small hole, it goes in a bag. I remember looking at Mike sipping his coke out of a plastic bag with the interpreters and thinking, "We are home."
--
On Monday when I took a brief respite from dental surgery to practice my ukulele with the band, I had a time of waiting for my turn so I was sitting behind the stage with our sermon interpreter, Jeffry. Jeffry introduced me to a little girl, just 12 years old, and said she was wanting to practice her English and I needed to practice my Spanish so he told us to be friends. So she said to me, "Hello. How are you?" and I said, "Muy bein! Etu?" and so we attempted to speak, she in English and me in Spanish, Jeffry translating in between. But mostly we just sat by each other and smiled, not really knowing enough of each other's language to carry a substantial conversation. If I asked, "how are you?" in English, she would say, "Fine." She helped me practice my counting in Spanish and I helped her count in English.
My Spanish is very limited to things like, "how old are you?" or "how are you?" I can say good morning, good night, sit down, excuse me, and "Do you need the dentist or for your eyes?" I understand that is not a good sentence since it isn't correct in anyone's language.. but it was important to know since one day our interpreter was missing and a patient came and sat in our chair and her eyes became wide as dinner plates when she saw our dentist prepping a needle. She very quickly proclaimed that she needed glasses and we apologized for wanting to remove all of her teeth.
I chuckled at that a little. As in the U.S. you have to fill out a full medical history for anything and mark five times the reason you are visiting the doctor. And then sign your name all over the place.
Also, did I mention it was dry and dusty and windy? It was all of those things and we don't have glass window panes or anything, so I noticed that the table on which we set our freshly sterilized tools grew progressively darker and dustier and dirtier as the days wore on. It was kind of nice, though. Because you could see where a tool had been taken from and you could easily set it back in dust outline on the table where it belonged.
Another thing we do in the states is tell people not to eat the night before and all of that stuff.
We had a young girl bound up to our clinic at about 3pm one afternoon and she was chewing on a watermelon. Our interpreter asked what she needed and her mom said she needed a tooth removed. The interpreter told her to finish her watermelon first because she wouldn't be able to eat any more for a while after.
Another patient we had had a tooth with roots very deep in his gums that took a lot of work to get out. Our sweet North American dentist kept adding stitches to get it to stop bleeding and was very concerned that he not do anything in the hot sun. She had him wait inside our clinic so she could check the bleeding every ten minutes and add a stitch or two. After 45 minutes or so, it seemed like the bleeding stopped enough to let him go home, but Holly asked the interpreter a couple of times to make sure the young man knew not to lift anything heavy or spend too much time outside.
Since she mentioned that I tried to smuggle an apple into Nicaragua, I thought I might as well share with you a funny little airport security story.
My darling sister, Rose, is hostess level saint and when I had mentioned to her that I did not want to spend money on airport food considering we'd be in the airport from 7:30am to 10pm when we would arrive in Managua, she began throwing out suggestions of food she had that we could take with us.
She produced several things for us, one of which was a 1lb sleeve of Summer sausage. Since our first flight was Omaha to Houston, I figured any sort of food would be fine to fly from Point A to Point B. Our group of bright lime-green tshirts was an obvious travel party in the airport and the fellow just ahead of me got his bag pulled off the line because his full-sized Bible was too thick for the scanner to read and looked suspicious. The airport security man pulled his bag, located the foreign object and said, "A Bible?? Good gracious, we need to scan this again." And they plucked out the Bible and ran it through on it's own, it passed.
Then was me. They pulled out my bag and said, "Any sharp objects or liquids in here?"
"I hope not!" I said.
He looked very purposefully and said, "AH HA!" And pulled out my summer sausage. "A sausage!" He took the sausage out of my bag and ran it through the scanner all its own and it passed.
My friend Todd just behind me got his bag pulled and the security man said, "Now what.. do you have any sausage in here?" He did not.
As I chuckled about my lunch getting us in a little airport trouble, someone else said, "Well, Josh had THREE scissors in his bag. And they let him keep 'em."
And praise Jesus for that because we used the scissors to cut strings for bracelets we made for the kiddos for children's church. 536 bracelets to be exact. I know that because that is the exact amount we were able to make and it was the exact amount we needed for the kiddos.
Jess and I split the summer sausage for lunch in the airport that day and it held us over for supper as well. Which is why when I was on my flight to Managua out of Houston at 7pm, I was not hungry enough to eat my American apple. We touched ground and I looked in my bag and was like, "Ahh!!! What do I do??" But I just kept it in my bag, until right before we went to get our bags scanned to enter the country and one of my team said, "If anyone has an apple in their bag it is a $2000 fine." And I quickly discarded the apple in the nearest trash bin. --- And that was the adventure of getting to Nicaragua.
You have to remember I had no use of my vocal chords at that point and so I mostly just laughed at the situation since I had no way to defend myself.
--
Now let's see, I forgot to tell you, On Sunday after I had rested on my bed and before we started our clinic, we had an hour or two to explore the town. We were an obvious crowd of greengos as we wondered through the streets looking for a store. My most favorite thing to buy from a Nicaraguan street shop is apple juice. It's one of the most delicious drinks the Lord ever made and it tastes very different in Nicaragua than in the U.S.
We found a little store and one of the kind men on our team declared drinks all around and they had apple juice in a little juice box. I was SO happy. One thing they do in Nicaragua to save their glass bottles and get their 5cents back is that they pour all the drinks into a plastic bag and tie them off. You just bite a little hole in the bag and sip on it. Since I had a juice box, I didn't need a plastic bag, but our team pastor had to sip his coke out of the plastic bag and it looked so funny but it was so part of the culture too. They eat and drink everything out of a plastic bag so as to not have to dirty a fork or plate or cup. If it can be squeezed out of a small hole, it goes in a bag. I remember looking at Mike sipping his coke out of a plastic bag with the interpreters and thinking, "We are home."
--
On Monday when I took a brief respite from dental surgery to practice my ukulele with the band, I had a time of waiting for my turn so I was sitting behind the stage with our sermon interpreter, Jeffry. Jeffry introduced me to a little girl, just 12 years old, and said she was wanting to practice her English and I needed to practice my Spanish so he told us to be friends. So she said to me, "Hello. How are you?" and I said, "Muy bein! Etu?" and so we attempted to speak, she in English and me in Spanish, Jeffry translating in between. But mostly we just sat by each other and smiled, not really knowing enough of each other's language to carry a substantial conversation. If I asked, "how are you?" in English, she would say, "Fine." She helped me practice my counting in Spanish and I helped her count in English.
My Spanish is very limited to things like, "how old are you?" or "how are you?" I can say good morning, good night, sit down, excuse me, and "Do you need the dentist or for your eyes?" I understand that is not a good sentence since it isn't correct in anyone's language.. but it was important to know since one day our interpreter was missing and a patient came and sat in our chair and her eyes became wide as dinner plates when she saw our dentist prepping a needle. She very quickly proclaimed that she needed glasses and we apologized for wanting to remove all of her teeth.
I chuckled at that a little. As in the U.S. you have to fill out a full medical history for anything and mark five times the reason you are visiting the doctor. And then sign your name all over the place.
Also, did I mention it was dry and dusty and windy? It was all of those things and we don't have glass window panes or anything, so I noticed that the table on which we set our freshly sterilized tools grew progressively darker and dustier and dirtier as the days wore on. It was kind of nice, though. Because you could see where a tool had been taken from and you could easily set it back in dust outline on the table where it belonged.
Another thing we do in the states is tell people not to eat the night before and all of that stuff.
We had a young girl bound up to our clinic at about 3pm one afternoon and she was chewing on a watermelon. Our interpreter asked what she needed and her mom said she needed a tooth removed. The interpreter told her to finish her watermelon first because she wouldn't be able to eat any more for a while after.
Another patient we had had a tooth with roots very deep in his gums that took a lot of work to get out. Our sweet North American dentist kept adding stitches to get it to stop bleeding and was very concerned that he not do anything in the hot sun. She had him wait inside our clinic so she could check the bleeding every ten minutes and add a stitch or two. After 45 minutes or so, it seemed like the bleeding stopped enough to let him go home, but Holly asked the interpreter a couple of times to make sure the young man knew not to lift anything heavy or spend too much time outside.
It were those times that I thought about how much I liked the ease and simplicity of this way of doing things. Perhaps it sounds un-safe or sketchy, but it was so relaxed and..simple. People walked in, we treated them, we gave them antibiotics, we sent them home.
I really like simple.
I have mentioned before that one of the ways to get past the blood and gore of the dental clinic was to have sweet conversations with everyone in there.
One night after getting out of the dentistry, Our interpreter, Jeffry asked me "something something nueva amiga" something.. it was in Spanish and I was thoroughly confused. Jessica translated for me and let me know he was asking about my new friend. After some confusion about what new friend he was talking about we sorted it out that he was referring to the little girl at the church tent and I told him all was well.
He asked Jessica in Spanish how her day was and after she responded she asked what he did that day.
I don't know Spanish well at all so I didn't find much interest in the conversation. Jessica turned to me and explained, "he asked me about my day so I asked about his and what he did today. He said he's been lazy all day." I chuckled. And she said, "I know in English we joke but I think he's being serious. He said he's the right hand of Darrel so he just supervises." I laughed again and said, "He interprets for all the church services." Jess didn't catch that I said that I guess and went on conversing in Spanish. Just as I was heading toward church for the evening Jess caught up to me and apologized that she had mis-informed me that Jeffry was being serious. She explained that he was joking about being the right hand of Darrel and it was all confusing and they both decided that being the right hand of anyone is a joke in both English and Spanish. I assured her that, yes, I knew he was joking and she did not accidentally make me to lose all respect for the guy. (We both shared a good chuckle over the ordeal all the same).
Later that night at church, they invited our team captain up to share a few words with all the people. Being clever, I suppose, The Captain decided to speak about how we are all the body of Christ and some of us, "are the right hand of God, " (At which point Jeffry, who was translating this, smirked a little as he relayed this to the people) and then The Captain said, "And you guys are the left hand of God." (Jeffry giggled when he translated that.) And Jessica and Jeffry made eye contact and realized that maybe it's not always a joke.
---
Monday night was also the night I discovered one could drag a plastic chair into the shower stall with them so one doesn't have to risk dropping one's sleeping pants onto the sopping wet ground when grabbing them from the hook in the stall. Also, the conversation before the showering was so rich and wonderful. As we gathered in our chairs awaiting an open stall, we all began taking turns sharing our God stories and delighting in all the Lord had done to bring us to this exact moment that we would be sitting in plastic chairs in the middle of a school yard in Nicaragua waiting to run a little bit of water over our dirt matted heads.
God is good, guys. How else would you explain a moment like that? It makes you feel small and precious all at once.
I think it was also Monday night that the "Tooth Brushing Squad" was established as an official group. It was me and the 15yr old, Josh, as well as the 14yr old Evey. There is one accessible water source for drinking and teeth brushing once the sun has gone down and humans have begun go to sleep and that is the cooler just outside our make-shift kitchen. Josh and Evey were brushing their teeth by the cooler and as I joined the party we decided to make it an official thing and we rather loved to meet up by the cooler in the nights after.
That's a silly thing, I know. But, it was one of those beautiful moments where I appreciated that age is just a number and maturity is everything to do with how well you love the Lord. They could have been my age or I could have been theirs... but we talked more of how God was encouraging our hearts and the things we were enjoying in the precious minutes by the cooler. I LOVED that. I really did.
----
Tuesday morning my voice was almost back and one of the girls asked if I might help lead our devotions group in a worship song. We did Amazing Grace (Chains are gone).. she on her guitar and me on my Uke. Some people might say that you can't sing at 6:45am.. but seeing as we all were well awake by the point, it was a beautiful sound and it was another moment I treasured in my heart.
I remember when I received my breakfast pancake Tuesday morning, I wasn't actually hungry and couldn't make myself to eat it. I ate some of my pineapple, but soon brought my plate over to Josh, who would eat anything and everything for anybody.. what a kind soul. That is only significant to know because I didn't start out in Dentistry on Tuesday. I was in pharmacy/ Family pack to start but wasn't doing anything that couldn't be done by any of the other bodies present and right about 9am I was all the sudden starving hungry. I had told Connor that I would relieve him dentistry where he was stationed and felt real nauseated and it wasn't even that hot out yet.
I walked over to the kitchen, bleached my hands and popped my head in, which is usually completely off limits (Distracting the cooks is a huge no-no) and asked what the chances were that I might cheat the rules and procure some fruit. They invited me inside and gave me a whole bowl of fresh cut pineapple and a glass of water.
I felt so entirely loved.
I took my pineapple outside to the shade and enjoyed it while feeling a little guilt since I wasn't doing anything more than sitting in the shade eating pineapple. I was almost finished when Connor came out the Dentistry claiming to be in much need of water as he had never experienced almost fainting at the sight of blood to this point of his life. Connor is an old farmer man. Well.. he's only 21 years old.. but he's an old farmer man anyways. He bought his first house and farm acreage at the ripe old age of 20 and lives his bachelor life with his cows and corn and bean fields and is on the county board for soil management..or something like that. He's a little difficult to explain. But my point is, you know it was a bad one if HE is nearly fainting since farmers see blood all the time. To be fair, though, they did make him hammer the chisel into the patient's gum. I finished my pineapple and told him I could take over since his muscles were more useful for lifting the 100lb sacks of beans in family pack anyhow.
And so there I was, rubber gloves and flashlight in hand, washing tools and handing gauze to the dentists to stop the bleeding. It was a slower day than the one before.. only 36 patients that day. That's not many considering we had 8 hours to see them. But it was another good day of getting to know people and talking about Jesus.
Those are the hours that can't be written because there are not many good words to describe them. Micah and I shared a particularly bloody patient, him holding the tools basket and me holding the light.. asking him why he loved the Lord and how he ended up in Nicaragua was a good distraction. Having our interpreter explain to me the actual CULTURE of Nicaragua and why it is so important to our witness that we greengas wear skirts instead of pants or shorts and how he came to know the Lord what God has been doing in his life these many years and why he leaves his family for a week to be our interpreter in a village that is not his village... those are rich moments. Sobering moments. The ones that you have to think about for a long time after because they bare more weight than the moment allows.
I'll write more about those precious moments in the next blog. This one is already getting too long!
Stay tuned!
He asked Jessica in Spanish how her day was and after she responded she asked what he did that day.
I don't know Spanish well at all so I didn't find much interest in the conversation. Jessica turned to me and explained, "he asked me about my day so I asked about his and what he did today. He said he's been lazy all day." I chuckled. And she said, "I know in English we joke but I think he's being serious. He said he's the right hand of Darrel so he just supervises." I laughed again and said, "He interprets for all the church services." Jess didn't catch that I said that I guess and went on conversing in Spanish. Just as I was heading toward church for the evening Jess caught up to me and apologized that she had mis-informed me that Jeffry was being serious. She explained that he was joking about being the right hand of Darrel and it was all confusing and they both decided that being the right hand of anyone is a joke in both English and Spanish. I assured her that, yes, I knew he was joking and she did not accidentally make me to lose all respect for the guy. (We both shared a good chuckle over the ordeal all the same).
Later that night at church, they invited our team captain up to share a few words with all the people. Being clever, I suppose, The Captain decided to speak about how we are all the body of Christ and some of us, "are the right hand of God, " (At which point Jeffry, who was translating this, smirked a little as he relayed this to the people) and then The Captain said, "And you guys are the left hand of God." (Jeffry giggled when he translated that.) And Jessica and Jeffry made eye contact and realized that maybe it's not always a joke.
---
Monday night was also the night I discovered one could drag a plastic chair into the shower stall with them so one doesn't have to risk dropping one's sleeping pants onto the sopping wet ground when grabbing them from the hook in the stall. Also, the conversation before the showering was so rich and wonderful. As we gathered in our chairs awaiting an open stall, we all began taking turns sharing our God stories and delighting in all the Lord had done to bring us to this exact moment that we would be sitting in plastic chairs in the middle of a school yard in Nicaragua waiting to run a little bit of water over our dirt matted heads.
God is good, guys. How else would you explain a moment like that? It makes you feel small and precious all at once.
I think it was also Monday night that the "Tooth Brushing Squad" was established as an official group. It was me and the 15yr old, Josh, as well as the 14yr old Evey. There is one accessible water source for drinking and teeth brushing once the sun has gone down and humans have begun go to sleep and that is the cooler just outside our make-shift kitchen. Josh and Evey were brushing their teeth by the cooler and as I joined the party we decided to make it an official thing and we rather loved to meet up by the cooler in the nights after.
That's a silly thing, I know. But, it was one of those beautiful moments where I appreciated that age is just a number and maturity is everything to do with how well you love the Lord. They could have been my age or I could have been theirs... but we talked more of how God was encouraging our hearts and the things we were enjoying in the precious minutes by the cooler. I LOVED that. I really did.
----
Tuesday morning my voice was almost back and one of the girls asked if I might help lead our devotions group in a worship song. We did Amazing Grace (Chains are gone).. she on her guitar and me on my Uke. Some people might say that you can't sing at 6:45am.. but seeing as we all were well awake by the point, it was a beautiful sound and it was another moment I treasured in my heart.
I remember when I received my breakfast pancake Tuesday morning, I wasn't actually hungry and couldn't make myself to eat it. I ate some of my pineapple, but soon brought my plate over to Josh, who would eat anything and everything for anybody.. what a kind soul. That is only significant to know because I didn't start out in Dentistry on Tuesday. I was in pharmacy/ Family pack to start but wasn't doing anything that couldn't be done by any of the other bodies present and right about 9am I was all the sudden starving hungry. I had told Connor that I would relieve him dentistry where he was stationed and felt real nauseated and it wasn't even that hot out yet.
I walked over to the kitchen, bleached my hands and popped my head in, which is usually completely off limits (Distracting the cooks is a huge no-no) and asked what the chances were that I might cheat the rules and procure some fruit. They invited me inside and gave me a whole bowl of fresh cut pineapple and a glass of water.
I felt so entirely loved.
I took my pineapple outside to the shade and enjoyed it while feeling a little guilt since I wasn't doing anything more than sitting in the shade eating pineapple. I was almost finished when Connor came out the Dentistry claiming to be in much need of water as he had never experienced almost fainting at the sight of blood to this point of his life. Connor is an old farmer man. Well.. he's only 21 years old.. but he's an old farmer man anyways. He bought his first house and farm acreage at the ripe old age of 20 and lives his bachelor life with his cows and corn and bean fields and is on the county board for soil management..or something like that. He's a little difficult to explain. But my point is, you know it was a bad one if HE is nearly fainting since farmers see blood all the time. To be fair, though, they did make him hammer the chisel into the patient's gum. I finished my pineapple and told him I could take over since his muscles were more useful for lifting the 100lb sacks of beans in family pack anyhow.
And so there I was, rubber gloves and flashlight in hand, washing tools and handing gauze to the dentists to stop the bleeding. It was a slower day than the one before.. only 36 patients that day. That's not many considering we had 8 hours to see them. But it was another good day of getting to know people and talking about Jesus.
Those are the hours that can't be written because there are not many good words to describe them. Micah and I shared a particularly bloody patient, him holding the tools basket and me holding the light.. asking him why he loved the Lord and how he ended up in Nicaragua was a good distraction. Having our interpreter explain to me the actual CULTURE of Nicaragua and why it is so important to our witness that we greengas wear skirts instead of pants or shorts and how he came to know the Lord what God has been doing in his life these many years and why he leaves his family for a week to be our interpreter in a village that is not his village... those are rich moments. Sobering moments. The ones that you have to think about for a long time after because they bare more weight than the moment allows.
I'll write more about those precious moments in the next blog. This one is already getting too long!
Stay tuned!
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