Corinto, Nicaragua is Located in Central America between Costa Rica and El Salvador. This is where I have spent the last three months.   What did we do while we were there?   The Ship pulled into the Port on the 22nd of June 1998, and immediately set up for the screening process. This is the process where locals come to be looked at by the eye doctors to determine if a cataract surgery could help them. Shortly after that we set up the Optical Clinic, The main function of the Optical clinic is to fit people with eyeglasses and sun glasses.  The RD&S team went to work drilling wells in surrounding communities. Shallow community wells are often a source decease and sickness. One of the other teams that goes out is the CHE team. CHE stands for community health education, the CHE program teaches about health, cleanliness and sanitary conditions. Not only do we teach this, but we teach people to continue the teaching after we leave. The Medical Team went to remote communities, even several local remote islands, to provide the chance for the locals to see a doctor and be treated for any symptoms they may have. All the islands we went to had to be reached by boat. We also held a series of meeting for the local pastors. A group of pastors from Hope Church in Alabama came down to lead the pastors conference. Before we left the local pastors in Corinto were all meeting together, working together, and holding evangelical meeting together in local parks and ball fields. This was an exciting event to see happen. Our evangelism teams went out six nights a week to local parks, churches, schools and even a prison. The evangelism team has two parts, a praise and worship team that goes out sharing the gospel with music, puppets, dramas and testimonies. The other part of the team is the video team. We have six different movies that we show, all are sharing the gospel. We also show The Jesus film, which is a two hour movie from the book of Luke. After the movie we spend time sharing personal testimonies and talking with the locals. I  spent five nights a week going out with the video team, this made for long days, but it was well worth it. When we first arrived in Puerto Corinto, we were made aware of a village in desperate need for water. This village was about a fifteen minutes walk from the ship. The village had no electricity, so the well drilling team went in to drill a well and install a hand pump. The evangelism team decided to hold a meeting in this same village where the well was being drilled. God’s plans are not always what we expect, after a week of drilling and several hundred feet down, the well drilling team hit salt water. However the evangelism team had quite a different response. We found that this community had no churches and no known believers. The people where excited to hear the evangelism teams words of hope. We started holding Bible studies once a week in this village. At first five or six came then 20 or more, now there are over 75 believers in this little barrio. They asked about a church and we were able to find a pastor who was finishing up school in the capital city and had the town of Corinto on his heart, God had prepared the whole way, even though the water did not work out; it looks as if the city may run a pipe to give them one water spicket right in the middle of their village. When we left this village the new church had begun 75 + members and over 150 children . We will continue to help them locate a means to build a church/school building. In Nicaragua the parents must pay for the public schools, in the poor villages, like this one, the children just don’t go to school. The pastor plans on having a Christian school as part of this new church.

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