Canadian CRC Members Experience Adventure Mission Trip in Nicaragua

February 28, 2008

People flocked to the banks of Nicaragua’s Coco River as a group of Christian Reformed Church members from Canada sped by in two boats on their way to visit remote Miskito Indian villages.

Accompanied by Christian Reformed World Relief worker Mark VanderWees, the group recently took the unusual adventure-based mission trip to see firsthand the work that CRWRC and others are doing in a number of far-flung communities accessible only by boat.

“The trip itself had so many incredible sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches,” says Jim Stevens, one of the members of the Community CRC of Meadowvale near Toronto who went on the trip. “As we traveled along the river … all of the indigenous people would stop what they were doing, move to the riverbank and watch our ‘parade’ go by.”

Besides the chance to experience a challenging, jungle boat ride through crocodile-infested waters, they went on the trip to assess the extensive damage that occurred in the area when Hurricane Felix swept through that part of Nicaragua – known as the Mosquito Coast -- early last September.  Felix was a Category 5 hurricane that packed winds of 160 mph. More than 200 people died.

Before they made the trip, the group from Canada raised $10,000 (and had that matched by $40,000 from the Canadian Food Grains Bank).  These funds were donated to the overall cause of helping the Miskito Indians “grow different foods,  keep animals out of planted areas, irrigate, replenish soil nutrients, alternate crops and more.”

“There is so much to be done,’’ says Duncan Stacey, of Georgetown, Ontario. “Government support in these sparsely populated rural areas seems non-existent.”

Other reasons for going included providing encouragement for mission workers as they try to help residents in these towns recover from the hurricane and move forward in making life easier and healthier for themselves.

But there was the adventure part as well.

“It is a beautiful land of jungle vegetation, heat, humidity, insects, heavy rainfall and … crocodiles,” says Derek Maat, another Meadowale CRC member. “The Miskitos are friendly to visitors, quick to smile, and have a culture that is centered around their community and their church."

Fallen trees, debris and flooding from Hurricane Felix dealt a devastating blow to the rice harvest and other crops in the area. There was also widespread damage to homes and other buildings. “I quickly became aware of the challenges facing the Nicaraguan people in health care, basic public services, living conditions and economic opportunity,” says Dr. Ray Postuma, another of the travelers.

Despite the poverty and needs that he saw, says Postuma, “I experienced an amazing, once-in-my-lifetime changing journey on the Rio Coco (the river).”

A few of those who went on the trip had been to Nicaragua before, but they never had the chance to travel by boat through the jungle to the far-flung area that sits on the border of Honduras. This is the area from which the Contra rebels in the late 1980s staged many of their raids in the effort to unseat the then socialist government.

All of the travelers credit Mark VanderWees with coming up with the idea for the trip and for serving as a guide when they got there.

In a letter describing his work, VandeWees says that the CRWRC, along with the Acción Médica Cristiana, a medical mission group, are working “to bring change to the forgotten people of Nicaragua … This is being done by teaching new and practical agricultural methods and by training Miskito men and women as agriculture technicians to spread these ideas up and down the river and its tributaries.”

“Mark kind of commissioned us that it was now our job to get the word out regarding the need for aid for the people in this area - that is what the short term goal is. I am sure also that at least a few of us will be back to Nicaragua sometime in the future,” says Derek Maat.

by Chris Meehan, CRC Communications