Members of the Carmichael church have learned a critical lesson about going on a mission trip: expect the unexpected.

Although their most recent trip, to Nicaragua this spring, took place during the dry season, so much rain fell in the weeks prior to the project date that preparations were delayed. However, it didn’t rain again until the two weeks of work were over — and after everyone had boarded the bus headed for the airport.

Then there was the nerve-wracking moment when the regional superintendent of public schools (in the socialist nation) hastily summoned the mission trip’s Vacation Bible School leaders to announce, “We have a problem.” The startled church members, including Sheri Fayard, feared the government wanted to shut down the children’s ministry program that she was leading. But instead he said, “You need to do this in all of our schools.”

Meanwhile, local church members asked Harriet Busch, one of the volunteer cooks, to teach a vegetarian cooking class. She quickly adjusted her menus and came up with last-minute recipes that matched the groceries available at the nearby market.

Volunteers on the medical and dental teams, who treated 947 patients, had their share of unanticipated situations, too, and the missionaries went with the flow. "We make definite plans, but we've learned to be flexible so we can respond when God closes certain doors and opens others," said Steve Case, the trip’s leader. "It has been a growing experience for us to learn how to follow God in this way."

A total of 71 missionaries labored in the Central American nation from March 18 to April 1. Their main mission: to build an educational and evangelism center — a large building that serves as a school during the week, a conference meeting center on the weekend and a community center all the time.

The construction project, built in partnership with Maranatha Volunteers International, took place in the town of Nueva Guinea, five hours east of the capital city Managua. It got the attention of local officials. The mayor, who had never heard of Seventh-day Adventists until a year before the project, offered to prepare the land for the building with his own earth-moving equipment for free. Both he and the police chief were on hand to lay the first block of the wall.

“Sometimes Adventists isolate ourselves,” said Case, a veteran of dozens of mission trips, “but this time there was more integration with the community.”

Eight project participants from Carmichael were children, some of whom raised money for the trip by selling homemade apple pies and tamales. All of them said the project changed their lives. “In America, everyone’s always wanting things,” observed 9-year-old Andreas Grellman. “After Nicaragua, we realized how greedy we were being.”

While dozens of people worked on the main building, some traveled to the outskirts to build a Maranatha One-Day Church, and some participated in VBS, which drew 85 local kids the first day, and 150 the second day.

Others, including doctor Rick Campbell, nurse anesthetist Arnie Meert and nursing student Jeffrey Schall, set up their medical shop in a pink hospital and performed more than a dozen surgeries, which included treating a girl with a large skin infection. Art Garbutt, a dentist who oversaw the entire health-care ministry, also led a dental team with four of his non-Adventist coworkers. They treated 187 patients on the busiest day, mostly for extractions and fillings.

"Watching the church family unite in service and sacrifice in Nicaragua gives me a living example of the church in Acts, growing daily in service, mission and faith," said Keith Jacobson, Carmichael church senior pastor, who went on the trip.

Maranatha will send four mission teams back to Nueva Guinea through October to finish preparing the new building for the start of the school year in February.