VeNture Nicaragua Missions Trip

For all who are interested in taking a trip with us, you’ll need to download and fill out a copy of our Short Term Missions Trip Application/Policy (download the MSWORD DOC) and submit it to Eric Robertson either in person or via email (eric@venture-online.org) no later than Friday, Sept. 22, 2006.

The dates for the winter trip are: January 11-20, 2007.

The dates for the summer 2007 trip are: July 27 - August 4, 2007.

If you don’t think you can make the winter trip, PLEASE FILL OUT AN APPLICATION NOW SO WE CAN PLAN FOR THOSE! The deadline still applies, as we’ll need to give Living Water plenty of notice and book those summer trips early.  Right now there are only a couple spots left, so don’t delay!  If you are interested after the deadline, please email Eric, as there may, MIGHT, in some small way, be something to be done.
There are spots for men (drillers) and women (hygiene team). Please read up on the blog entries below to get a flavor for what the work entails, and get your application in early. The normal $100 submission fee is waived for this trip due to the great amount of interest and our need to do future scheduling.

The cost for the trip is $1,750 to cover travel and expenses, which will be raised via faith support letters to friends and family. It’s amazing to watch God do big things in that arena!

The team will be notified shortly after the application submission deadling, and our first meeting for the January trip will be Monday night, October 22 at IBC at 7:30PM. Time is short, folks! Don’t delay!

Props to Richard Wing for doing an INCREDIBLE amount of work uploading, cropping, and sorting through photos from our trip. You can see them all on our Flickr Account:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/venture-online/

Ready to go with us in January?

Hey, all you people.

I just want to give a run down of the day, as well as share a couple insights. We got up (which happens later and later as the days pass… ) and had a great devo by Chris with some worship before breakfast. We packed up and were out to the campo. It´s pretty amazing, the drive… it´s only 8 miles. It takes us almost 40 minutes to do it, the roads are so bad. We get to see life for what it really is, however. I met an American baseball player down here in the off season (Jason Wall? Cin´ti Reds?). We spoke for 10 minutes about what he wants to do with life, buy a place cheap on the beach, retire, party… It was a sad reminder of what we´re all going to ¨re-enter¨here in 2 days. The other part that was, well… sad, I guess, was the, ¨If you REALLY want to see Nicaragua, you´ve got to travel, surf, para-sail…¨ all these experiential things.  In my opinion, being out in the campo, working side by side with men who I can barely communicate with, but who gave us more food for lunch today (feeding 17 Americans) than they would see outside of a big party. The ladies cooked it all (corn tortillas, fried chicken, and a MESS of fresh vegetables) over an open fire in their house (150 sq. ft) and brought by hand to us. We had to wait when they served it because they were trying to find enough spoons for our rice. That´s the way these people live! THAT is the Nica experience, not surfing! I must admit, last night I was first angry, then really sad. Today, I´m more motivated to change that mindset than anything else.

ANYWAY. Enough rantings. The day. We went out to the site, got busy installing the 1 1/4¨rising main-the pipe that carries the pumped water. We set the pump cylander at 70´, 5´above our screen (filter). Hopefully, with a 5´tailpiece, a 12´screen, and the extra 5´before the cylander, there should be no clogging of the pump with silt or ¨fines¨.  I can go into more detail in person if you ask.

We then installed the pump, which, to our dismay, required a trip back to town. They are phasing in new pumps, and Phil had grabbed one of the burlap wrapped NEW style (different size) spout parts. No way to know, but… Dang. All I have to say is that the HUGE GMC 3500 series truck with big 16¨muddies on it gets used like it´s built for. Not like the big trucks in the US that never leave the pavement.

On the way back to get the pump, we stopped twice. First, to get a coconut (shirtless man in a horsedrawn cart, machete, straw from a plastic baggie. MMMmmmm. I hope I don´t get sick!) to drink.  Second, by the local authorities, who stopped him to check if he had his saftey triangles. LORD… That would have been a ticket of about 200 Cordobas ($50) if not. Or a bribe of a lesser amount. Phil was an old hand and had the triangles, but the stories he told of other times gave me pause.

We got back to the village, finished the pump, had the dedication, where we prayed and challenged the people with the gift God has given them. We took MANY pictures before we climbed in the truck one last time to leave. It was hard, but SO, SOOOOOO satisfying to see everyone in attendance take a turn pumping CLEAN water out. That will help many people, and even save lives.

We got back, exhausted, cleaned up, and headed to the beach. We played around in warm Pacific waters, I ate a live crab dug from the sand (after watching our translator eat like 4. It was, well… Ever seen Fear Factor?), we sang some songs before eating a GREAT dinner right on the beach. We´re back now, packing up our things, getting ready for an early drive to Managua tomorrow. We´re going to shop in the afternoon, I think, then go for a Zipline ride that we are told is SWEET but no where near OSHA approved.  D. Black is less than pleased…

Finally, I can´t tell you all the things in my head. I can´t begin to describe the faces of people, how much they already have, how much they yet need. God is so much more visible here without the insulation of our ¨things¨ we cling to so hard.  His work, his character…

2 things as I close:

1.we need your prayer continually, as do all who work and live here. We still have a long way to go.

2. We all will need your help upon returning home. Ask us about our trip, ask us about the details, the impressions, the whole of the experience. Be patient with us as we try to explain things to you that have affected us deeply. It´s not unlike the experience of soldiers returning from the field-only those who have been can truly understand, but talking about it will help.  THEN, help us remember. Hold us accountable to the lessons we´re learning about life and work and God.  The insulation is thick there in DC, no?

Thank you all so much for making this experience possible. You are beautiful!

This post will be short because my hand is…ahhh…in agony (it may have had something to do with holding a little baby for 30 minutes, many many french braids, or cutting out a plethora of stuff last night in preparation for today). 

Today was the diarhea doll and ORS (oral rehydration solution - basically gatorade).  This lessons are some of the most important and life saving of the ones that we give.  Plus we did the wordless book bracelets and taught teeth brushing.  Lisa was attached to the huge set of teeth which her sister-in-law dentist allowed us to borrow.  I love the teaching - but it is exhausting!  I have felt like God perfectly organized our team with each person´s strengths.  Rich is the organizer of organizers - seriously - he´s amazing.  Every night he repacks our trunck of supplies and helps us make sure that we´re prepared for the next day.  Lisa plays with the kids so hard that she comes back every night looking at least as dirty as the drillers - I have no idea where her energy and passion comes from - but the kids love it (and we sure appreciate it too).  Jatana is our heart of compassion and the one who will take time to sit and read with a group of kids.

Eric brought his guitar today and spent time singing this afternoon.  It was wonderful because it gathered a whole group just before our adult hygiene class. (For the first time today someone from the community came wanting to create a tippy tap for his home - it was awesome).  We spent part of our ride home singing (Eric even broke out his guitar while we were flying along our paved road portion of the trip) - definiately one of the spontaneous highlights.

 I´ll close with the funniest story from my day.  I spent a half hour holding a little baby while the mom was in the hygiene class.  Afterwards she came back to retrieve her baby and was talking to me.  Of course, I had no clue what she was saying so I asked Dave who was standing a few feet away to come over to translate.  She somehow thought we were married - so Dave spent the rest of the time explaining that!  Sometimes being totally clueless can a bit inconvient!

 Tomorrow we will see each precious face for what will probably be the last time this side of heaven (which has streets of gold as we learned during today´s wordless bracelet lesson).  It is so good to know that our Father will never leave nor forsake them (although there will still be a sting in the present).  Buenas Noches!

Here I sit. In the R & J Conexion cafe del internet. We´ve finished our final day of setting up the well. From the driller´s point of view, today was WAY easy. Basically, we got up, had our usual breakfast…

(las empleyadas, Reina and …. good grief. it´ll come to me–cook us mad grub. It´s pretty cool, as it´s like the perfect amount at each meal, no more, no less. no one´s hungry, all the food is gone, and there´s no leftovers. Well, maybe for the kid we payed $1 ea. pair to get the layers of junk off our boots… I think he got tonight´s left-over food.)

Anyway, we had our usual breakfast, went to the village… MILADRO!!! that´s the other gal they hire when teams come in to help around the house. Love blogging. Stream of consciousness, right? ANYWAY. We got to our village, which is called Hato Grande Numero 2, and finished pouring our sand around the casing (to help fill in the area around the casing as well as sealing the ¨anulus¨ or area of the borehole not occupied by the well casing. The top 20´ needed to be concrete, but… here´s where stuff gets MUCH harder in the field… We had only brought 4 bags of concrete with us. We were going to use 1 bag, mixed with sand, to seal the anulus, and the other 3 were for the pump pad. (it´ll make sense when you see pictures). Well, we had gone through a silt layer near the top, and the drill pipe, in its banging around, had created a larger hole in the much softer formation. More volume, more concrete… we were short.

Another bag of Portland was a 2 hour drive, round trip.  Needless to say, Phil took a long breath and just climbed in the truck… D´OH!

The men of the pueblo, who had thusfar been watching, jumped in and mixed the cement, in minutes, mind you, with only shovels, on the sidewalk. It´s pretty amazing to see how the other 85% live and work! They didn´t mind in the least, and did a GREAT job on the pad. It´s a way to give the community more sweat equity and hopefully prolong the life and care of the pump by getting them to buy in. We did a lot of playing with kids, I brought the guitar to day and we kind of limped through songs together, but they LOVED it.

I got to observe the hygiene team in action, and Jenn will talk about it more, but they are amazing. Props to them all. Chris, the hygiene coordinator has even commented that they are all doing really well.

We came home and after dinner listened to a presentation given by a Food for the Hungry representative, who also works for Nicamade (www.nicamade.com right now, it´s a static page, but I´ll get more url´s to you as I can find them). Hurricane Mitch killed thousands and displaced 10´s of thousands. The people in the village are learning micro enterprise, weaving, doing pottery and indienous metal work (BEAUTIFUL stuff) and embroidery as well. She gave us a 15 minute presentation and then we bought some of their wares. Check them out, they´re great.

We´re back for 1/2 day tomorrow, to finish assembling the pump (the pad will be dry) and have a closing ceremony. We´ll eat lunch there, then leave for good. The week has FLOWN. Praise GOD for a successful well, and thank you all for your prayers.  (for me especially, as my children have been, well…  both in the hospital during the week. Silly things, and all is well, but… silly things.)

Continue to pray us home please! see you in 3 more days!!!

I almost lost it when we watched clean water coming out of the well.  Today we began to develop the well using a compressors.  It blew shots of compressed air down into the well and pressed shots of water back out.   As the water became more clear and the amount of water coming out remained consistent, the leader of our team said;¨I think we have got them a well.¨  I am not sure how well I can describe that feeling.  It is so wonderful and deep a thing to know they will have clean water.  My eyes welled up(no pun intended), and if I had replied to Jim, I´d have been crying.  Amazing!

Our team is awesome.  I don´t think that you would need any proof of that as most of you already know that Jatana, Jen, Lisa, Rich, Dave, Eric, and Chris.  However, you do not know the rest of them.

Jim M.- our team leader and a strong man who God gave a spirit for missions, humilty, and a love for conversation and hard work.  He is the right man for the Job because God made him so. 

Jim- once of Houstons finest(and a police officer), this former SWAT team officer and homcide detective is just awesome to be around.  He is endlessly in good spirits with a great amount of patience.

Al- praise God that he has set before us a man who is finishing strong, he has served the Lord faithfully in business and in ministry.  Al just had his 70 birthday and still has forearms that are way bigger than mine.  He has always got a smile and graciousness on hand.

Phil & Chris- our in-country contacts(along with his wife Chris), facilitator of the drilling, and a man who knows drilling like Jim M.  I will leave, ´who knows it better,´to them.  When he is not hefting around 80 lbs sand bags, Phil loves to laugh.  I know that a lot of his thoughts go un-said but what he does share lets you know that He loves the Lord being in His service.  Chris is a woman of patience and a loving heart.  She is so concerned with the people of this country and the ministry that God has given her.  She is always working behind the scenes and never forgets to blesses us in even the little things like ice cream.

Oscar- a very thoughtful and intense man of God.  He loves watermelon and has had it for breakfast everymorning that we have been here.  His ministry is that of communication.  He is one of our transalators and certainly now one of our friends.

Ronald- almost always smiling.  When he is not translating he is outside working on the drill rig.  He wants to know more about each person that he spends time with but is sometimes is shy on the return of information.  He is much more interested in you than himself.

Stan and Pat are such wonderful gifts from God, too.  They are such a great match as well as ministry team.  They are always ready to jump in to the work, whether on the drill rig or playing with the kids.  They love on us as much as they do the people that we are ministering to.  They are both on staff with Living Water.  Stan is intense and passionate.  He is himself and wide-open right out of the box.  Not to forget, he is a huge strong man in his own right.  Pat plays off of her husband so well.  She has a great sense of humor and lights up around the kids.  It is so cool to see them in full time ministry together.

In this group I have been challenged by great men of God.  I have been spurred on to confidence in Christ as I watch christians who are unashamed to stand out if it is in the service of the King.  I have seen the wonder in a generous heart of servants.  

I won´t go into detail on the locals but they are are so cool.  They are so eager to be involved in the work and pick it up really quickly.  I am sure they see so much more in this well than I can imagine.

Done.

Hola! It is Tuseday evening after a relatively short day in comparison to yesterday. The hygiene team is doing well, morale is great and we are bonding! Today we woke up - a bit groggie I must say - had a devotion ate breakfast and headed to the village (I still don´t know it´s name nor does most the team). The trip becomes smoother and smoother everday - the first couple of days were a little rough.

 We started out the day with the kids (my favorite part- they´re amazing). Jen and I taught first and second grade, we got to read them a story about washing hands and having Jesus wash our hearts. We also taught about how germs or microbios are transmitted and what they can do to stop it. I am surprised how well they paid attention. Jatana and Ricardo taught the preschoolers about washing there and read them the same story we did! The preschoolers are very cute and very small as are many of the children.

 After recess Jatana and Ricardo taught the third and fourth graders while Jen and I taught the fifth graders.  WE taught them about disease transmission and how to stop it and then let them tell stories. The fifth and sixth grade boys are a handful I almost had to separate them - the teacher in me came out!

 After we stopped teaching the kids we had lunch - PBJ a wonderful diversion from bologna. I stayed and played with the kids I taught them a little bit of English. They can now say ¨What?,¨ play soccer,¨ and ¨thank you¨(or sanque). While I played or got tackled and pummeled the rest of the responsible hygiene team talked to the village. As they were walkin´around Jatana and Chris got to look at some of the wells. One of the villagers question whether or not the well was clean and Jatana and Chris saw a small animal in it (definitely not clean). When we walk around the village there is animals and trash everywhere which produces flies, gnats and MICROBIOS! 

Then after rounding out the village we talked to the adults about similar things as we did the kids but we also talked the lack of the cleanliness in the water in hopes they will use the clean well! Again I played with the kids - trying to keep them quiet during the lessons for adults.

Did I say I loved the kids. Freddi follows me everywhere he is about eleven and kinda shy we play soccer and play with the platillo or frisbee - which ends up on the roof far to often and our monkey climb up and get them. Eliel is the pastor´s son and is tiny for a five year old who I have become his personal amusement park. I will miss these kids a lot, but definitely not the heat.

I look forward to seeing yáll in a few days - it has gone by too fast for me! 

Hola amigos!  Wow!  We had a great day today!  We kicked off the day with a slammin desayuno nicaraguense.  Man alive, tastiness!  Rice, beans, fried plantain, fried cheese…all cooked with a special mesaure of Reina and Milagro´s TLC.

We all loaded up on Fidel´s awesome truck (not sure if it was mentioned before) and rode out to the site.  I claimed my cutomary seat on the way back of the wooden bench that is strapped in where I can hang out over the road by holding on the the steel cross bar.  Yeah!

Today, our first task as drillers was to continue the pilot hole down to the full 200ft.  This was probably described earlier but it involves continually drilling and attaching more drill pipe.  We got down 190ft and then Jim called it and we decided to put a 12 ft screen down from 75ft to 87ft which was mostly gravel with a cross band of silt that we may be able to blast with the comprerssor and cuase some more gravel to drop.  (Dang, if we had know we were only going 87ft we could have casing in by now!)

After completion of the pilot hole, we needed to ream out the borehole to six inches down to the required depth.  So you attache a six inch reamer bit between the drill pipe and the pilot bit on the first drill pipe.  Basically, you proceed the same as driling the pilot hole.  We did not complete reaming today so we ned to finish about 25 ftt tomorrow then we can get the casing in.

That was about it although I am trying to think of some interesting things.  Well, for one as I was down clearing the trough that flows out from the borehole I pinched my finger between the drill pipe and the borehole.  I whipped my finger out luckiy but in doing so, deluged my face in a tsunami of drilling fluid!  To the uninitiated, imagine, mud, bugs, perhaps dung, whatever was on the emaciated hound that took a plunge in yesterday, mixed with water and a liberal dose of polymer attaining a consistency of brown gelatinous snot.  Oh so tasty… That seemed to raise the spirits of many and we realized that mucking out the mud pits provides endless opportunies to quote the Monty Python line ´There´s plenty of good filth down here!´

Oh, also this afternoon the drillers got to help out with the hygiene team which was monster sweet.  Eric and I helped the kids make butterflies out of coffie filters while Josh played soccer with the more boisterous niños outside and Bender watched nervously although determined it was safe to enter adult swim.  The butterflies were cool and then we made paper airplanes.  Nicaraguan boys are just like american in some ways…some many paper airplanes had bombs and guns drawn on them!

So it was a great day.  Nicaragua is muy hermosa!  We were treated to delicious steak, beans rice and plantain when we got home.  Me encanta!

Not sure what else to write but this keyboard is cool so I will end with some cool keys that we don´t have in AmericaÑ

Ññ çÇ ªº