A Quick Update!

Hi friends...things have been fast and furious. We just finished with a medical team. It was a cool new experience for me. Tons of people came for the clinic. Many who had never seen a doctor in their lives...LIKE EVER. One young woman 18 or 19 came in with a few day old newborn that she had just had at home. SHE walked the several miles with the infant to get to the clinic.

I worked most of the time in the makeshift pharmacy that we set up. We saw all kindof things....most frequent was parasites\worms....most unusual was a gangrenous foot where a machete had gotten hold of a man´s toe.

We gave out lots of children´s and adult vitamins as well as prenatal vitamins. These are very helpful because a large percentage of Nicaragua eats the same meal, for each meal of the day, everday. Beans and rice (sometimes with eggs or chicken), tortillas and whatever fruit grows locally around their home or their neighbors home. This I have quickly realized is why many countries who eat the same foods for each meal are not overweight. When you have rice and beans for every meal you listen to your body when it tells you it is full (and I love beans and rice but you can only eat so much of them)

I have included a couple of pictures from the team this past week. Plus one of a really cool insect we saw and a cool toad. I mean who wouldn´t want to see a picture of a cool toad? Ha!

We are leaving tomorrow for a hiking team. We are going to Nawawas. Please pray for the HS to go ahead of us and prepare the hearts of the people. Pray for salvation and for God to raise up Gody leaders in their area. There is a small church that Loren has worked with there before.

Pray for Loren please. He has a heal spur that is really bothering him. He has been walking with a cane around the house for several days and now he has to hike on it. He is considering having surgery when we return. Pray for healing and for wisdom about the surgery. We have a bunch of teams scheduled back to back. In fact my church, Living Hope, comes in on the 13th of March the same day this week´s team leaves. I am super excited to see them. Pray with me that we are all in awe of what God does in us and around us.

Karen has started working from home for her job that she will be doing in Chile. She is good at it and I think she will enjoy this job. She is going to stay here this week but will go out with the Living Hope team.

Okay, gotta run for now. Maybe I will have time to post more before we leave. Thanks for checking in with me and for praying.

Rachel