Nicaragua

Sunday
Greetings!  What a day!  We went to a 3 hour church service, lunch after and then finished gathering supplies to take to the hospital.  It is always quite a job sorting through totes and organizing what we need to take. 

We had a ditzel clinic which consisted of scar revisions, skin cancer excisions, mole removals, etc. and lots of teaching from the docs. We worked with 3 Nicaraguan doctors and an American living in Nicaragua.  For those of you Iowans reading this, he just happens to originally be from Ackley, IA!  He is a world renowned physician and is the founder of Nicaplast which is a group of plastic surgeons who do cleft lip and palate surgery in Nicaragua.  One of the doctors is a general and plastic surgeon, another and ENT dr. and the other is the founder of the medical school in Leon, Nic.  They are wonderful doctors and we have had a great time working with them already and have also enjoyed our interactions with them away from work.  We are looking forward to the week once the surgeries start in the morning. 

Sue, Tamra, and I helped the doctors in the clinic today and it is good to get back in the groove with old friends at work again. 

There have been some difficulties with no water in some of the bathrooms on the compound or no air conditioning.  Most of the rooms that missionaries stay in have air conditioning now which has been a blessing but equipment just does not last here.  Dean and I have been without it the last few nights and got moved to another room today after a Virginia team left.  Tamra and Cole have been without water off and on and I think Catherine and Sue and Karls accomodations have been good. 

Time to shower and get to bed.  Hope is all well with everyone at home. More blogs to follow as time allows.     Carolyn