By Paul A. Reid, Staff Reporter
Members of Fresh Bread Ministries conduct a children's rally in Nicaragua.
WESTERN BUREAU:
HOW MANY times have we walked past Christian missionaries and wondered why they are in our country, seeking 'to save the lost souls' and wondered why they did not stay home. After all aren't there lost souls everywhere, even in the United States where most missionaries are from?
The more cynical among us will go as far as to equate the local presence of missionaries as another attempt at brainwashing the natives.
These were just some of the issues I had to deal with when I was asked by my Pastor, Philemon Samuels of Fresh Bread Ministries International (FBMI) in Montego Bay, in January to consider being a part of the team that he was putting together to visit Nicaragua - a land populated by five million people.
He had just returned from a 'reconnaissance' trip to the country of 127,849 sq. km and saw the needs of the people. This was to be a missions outreach with a difference, at least for FBMI as we were planning on dealing with the medical and physical needs of the people. Included in the team were a doctor, a pharmacist and two engineers who are both employed by the National Water Commission (NWC).
We had collected hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of medicine mostly through donations; clothes, mostly for the children, some snacks and sweets.
INVITATION
After belatedly accepting the invitation, long after most of the others had started their collections drive, I was constantly asked "Why Nicaragua? Don't you people see needs right here in Montego Bay? Open up your eyes and look around you? Why are you going so far when we have serious needs right here in Jamaica?"
Some even suggested that if we ever had local-based outreaches they would be more than willing to do more than just contribute, they would be a part of it but did not feel they were comfortable going all the way to a foreign country when we had needs here as well.
So back to my Pastor. He, reminded us of the scriptures where Jesus issued the Great Commission where he said that as Christians we were to go to "all the world, preaching the gospel".
On Sunday morning July 6 at 4:00 a.m. the 15-member team gathered at Sangster's International Airport ready to leave for the poorest Central American country via a short stop in Miami, long enough to change flights.
It was there that I started getting answers to my question if the trip was the right thing to do.
Upon arrival at the airport we encountered a much larger group of young Americans sleeping on the outside of the airport. They had just completed a missions trip to Jamaica and were on their way back home and apparently could not afford to stay in a hotel for the last night and decided to sleep at the airport and catch their early flight home the next day.
The thought came back, they did not have to come here as I am sure wherever they are from they could find people to preach to as well.
When we were lining up to get our seating assignments, I was approached by a woman who asked if we were going on a mission trip and when she was answered in the affirmative, she told me she and a group of 15 women called 'Sisters with a Mission' had just completed a similar trip to the Hanover area and had also brought a doctor with them and medicine as well. She said they had been doing this for a few years and never thought of going public with it.
When we got on the American Airlines flight, one of the flight attendants commented that they had just brought in a group the night before but had never seen a group leaving Jamaica.
SISTERS WITH A MISSION
Sisters With A Mission and the group the airlines brought in the night before never had to come to Jamaica but they did and we are the better off for it.
On our way back 11 days later while changing planes in Miami, we met another group of mostly young women coming to Jamaica for missions.
For years Jamaica has benefited from short-term mission trips of all kinds. Some of these visiting groups don't even go preaching and having street meetings.
The missions trip consisted mostly of medical clinics led by Dr Arthur Malcolm and pharmacist David Tavares; children's evangelism workshops led by Donna Werdenie and sharing at the three churches that hosted the team.
In Mateare, a Spanish-speaking Barrio 30 minutes drive from the capital Managua we were hosted by Pastor Hoysis Onansis Reyes at the Centro Familiar Christiano La Seda church; in Bluefields- an hour away by plane we were hosted by the 45 year-old Revival Tabernacle Church. In Pearl Lagoon, a sleepy fishing village on the edge of the Lagoon, an hour from Bluefields by 'panga' a glorified fibreglass canoe that seats 20 and powered by an oversized engine, we were hosted by Pastor Benito Morales at the Revival Tabernacle.
Dr. Arthur Malcolm saw over 500 patients in six clinics two in each of the stops we made, all taking place in the churches. He reported that the people in the English-speaking places we visited, Bluefields and Pearle Lagoon, had similar complainants to the ones he saw here in Jamaica on a daily basis high blood pressure and diabetes among others. The picture was slightly different in Mateare where he said he saw mostly stomach complaints and lots of worm infection.
The first day of the clinic, the team was scheduled to work until 2:00 p.m. but went on until after 10:00 p.m. due to the overwhelming response.
This was the same picture in the other places as the team had to reluctantly turn back people as it was physically impossible to see all who wanted to be seen.
In a few cases, the medical team had to refer people to hospitals where the need was greater than they could handle in the limited facilities they had.
They also saw a four-year-old girl who was born with a potentially fatal heart defect but whose family could not afford the US$40 it would need to pay for the tests that would help the doctors at the hospital in determining exactly what the problem was.
The FBMI team wasted no time in making the funds available and towards the end of the trip we got news from Pastor Reyes that the test was done and she was on her way to the operation table.
The team also saw others outside of the clinics including an old man who had a stroke and could not leave his home and others who came to visit the team in the respective hotels and Jamaicans who were there and came to see the team members.
The NWC engineers Richard Meggo and Eric Jackson who made the trip also did water treatment clinics in Bluefields and Pearl Lagoon. In both areas the water quality is very poor and members of the team were continuously warned to use bottled water to brush teeth and drink etc.
Bluefields was the worst of the two towns with a lot of pit toilets and a high water table as it rained hard every day we were there and the people got all their water from wells that were in every yard not far from the latrines.
They reported that in Pearle Lagoon while doing the clinics, one of the officials asked them why they have come all that way to help them. The answer was simple, they were told that God had sent the team and they should consider it a blessing.
The children evangelism ministry was done mostly in the afternoons after school, which was still in session, and the turnout was overwhelming. There were Bible lessons that members of the team acted out in mimes; games that involved all the children of various age groups.
The first day in Mateare, the team was expecting maybe about two dozen or so children but was surprised when at least twice that amount turned out. The single session in Pearl Lagoon was maybe the biggest turn out and for some, the best as it went on for nearly three hours before the children started to get restless.
Lots of tears were shed when it was time to leave the three locations as in the short space of time the team was there, there were some serious bonding with the children and members of the team.
In Mateare two little boys refused to leave the church to go home even though it was dark until every member of the team had piled into the rented bus, then they reluctantly walked barefooted away, heads down.
In Pearl Lagoon, one member of the team who had helped one little boy with a bag to put the toys he had won in games during the session, was surprised the next day when the boys mother turned up with a jar of home made jam as a gift for his kindness to her child.
Of course it was not all work as during the trip we had time to share at the church services, even if we needed translation in Mateare as they spoke only Spanish. In Bluefields and Pearl Lagoon it was much easier as they spoke English quite close to our patois.
FULL RUN
Members of our team either shared in songs, testimonies or delivered the message at the respective church and in each instance the team was given full run of the respective service.
There was also a little time for sightseeing and for shopping and we found out that Jamaica does not have a monopoly on overly eager mobile vendors who were not afraid to approach us trying to get us to buy their pirated mixed tapes of Jamaican music. Not even patient explanations of "Yo vive en Jamaica" (I live in Jamaica) were enough to put them off.
At the end of the trip however it was the consensus that all had gained tremendously from the experience and at least two persons were ready to come home to do their laundry and head back out on another missions trip.
For me, it was a tremendous learning experience and the opportunity to serve and be used was one I will never forget.
