Newsletter December 2010

Dear Family and Friends, This will be the last newsletter we send out this year. I guess it’s the first in about 6 months, we’ve been a little bit slow on writing our “monthly” newsletter. Our Wings Facebook site has taken over much of our information dissemination. It is updated almost daily. It can be accessed from the menu on our web page at www.wingsovernicaragua.org The last 6 months have held a lot of progress. We have started on a water filter project in our village. It is a bio-sand filter. If it works well, we will expand the project. The largest project is an antenna tower for two-way radio communication with the remote villages. We currently have our antenna’s mounted in trees, and 2 of them have broken and been fixed. The tree allows too much sway and they whip around in the wind. Height is also a concern; this new tower will give us about 50% more height. That is crucial because hills block our signal to some villages. We already have the materials for the tower, and have started on the cement anchors for the guy wires. The aviation program is going well. We have been flying an average of 1 to 2 times a week for everything from snake bites to broken backs. We are also actively flying doctors and dentists for mobile clinics. A year's record of our flights can be found at this link: http://www.wingsovernicaragua.org/uploads/thankyou2010english.pdf This is made possible by the generosity of many people in America who donate the gasoline and airplane expenses to save the lives of the Miskito Indians. Wings of Hope in St. Louis deserves a special thank you for their tireless work in keeping the airplane running. Synergy -- all together, we can accomplish much more than separately. The nutrition program that Marilyn is running is going strong. There are now 8 children in the program at $10/month each. It is nice to see the difference we can make on children.  Read about one child below. We are actively working on gardening. It is a struggle with all the bugs here that eat plants, and also all the diseases. We have a soil tester now so that will help.  We have already gotten some sweet potatoes, green beans and okra. As you may remember, we got our truck engine rebuilt in April. It is a diesel, so it was expensive. Unfortunately, the engine quit working in October. It is either the rings or the head, either one is very expensive. For the last couple months we have been using the bus. We don’t have a problem using the bus, but the medical transports in the night or in bad weather that we are unable to transport, they are a real concern. In January I plan to go to Raiti and help them finish their runway. They are half done. That runway is in the most remote part of Nicaragua I have seen. I have never been there by ground, just looked at their town from the airplane. It will serve an area that takes 2 days (through rapids) to the nearest hospital via river, there are no roads. There are 10,000 people in that area.
Medical The end of June saw us in Waspam helping a group from Church of God as they did some medical clinics.  We were blessed to have them visit our village of Tronquera and attend patients.  Then Marilyn went to Waspam and helped them with translating and other various items. Nutrition Program One of the last patients see one of the days was a 7 month old baby, Chris.  The baby weighed less about 7 ½ pounds.  He had diarrhea, scabies and severe malnutrition.  The doctors with the Church of God group treated him for scabies and diarrhea and gave him vitamins for his malnutrition.  I immediately started him in our nutrition program, providing formula for him.  He has been in the program receiving daily milk now for 2 months.  His scabies and diarrhea are now gone.  And he is starting to gain weight.  His last weight was 8 ½ pounds. Update: After three months in the nutrition program, Chris again got sick.  He was still so malnourished that he had no extra energy to be able to fight it off.  He passed away.  This is one of the instances where our help was too late. But we keep praying and working towards saving these children. The other children in the nutrition program are doing well.  For more information about them, please visit our nutrition page at our website. We thank you all so much for all your prayers and support you have given this last year. We have been very blessed. We are honored to be able to distribute your help to the Miskito people of Nicaragua! Merry Christmas, Clint and Marilyn Hanley Tax deductible Donation information: Wings Over Nicaragua Mission 185 Harris Rd Goldendale, WA 98620 We also welcome Visa, MC and Paypal online at www.wingsovernicaragua.org http://www.wingsovernicaragua.org Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wings-Over-Nicaragua-Mission/88284357463