Stan Geison, sixty years of age, is on his first mission trip to Nicaragua. A member of Wesley United Methodist Church, he is a resident of Bloomington.
Stan and his wife Martha are the parents of two daughters. He is retired from State Farm Insurance, where he had served as the Director of Information Technology. Currently he is part-time employed as a consultant for STL Technology Partners in Bloomington.
In 1996 Stan went to Lauderdale, Mississippi to help build a church that had burned down. After that he has done work for Habitat for Humanity, and service projects within the confines of Bloomington-Normal. Prior to this trip he has never done mission work outside of the United States.
“Ron Schaad was the trigger to my joining this construction team. He and I have worked together at Habitat, plus we attend the same church” Stan stated. “I knew that I wanted to do this trip some year. I didn’t decide until sometime last fall that this would be the year. But, I expected that I would do it sometime”
Stan has worked as a: hole digger, fence painter, and helped to erect sections of the wire.
However, on Tuesday evening Stan fell ill, and was ill for the next two days. He finally was taken by the orphanage’s missionaries to a hospital in Managua.
“The hospital was a modern, nice hospital named Hospital Metropolitano Vivan Pellasl. The people were very gracious, very nice. The emergency room doctor didn’t speak any English. Thus, Joel, our missionary who went with me was vital in translating. Then an internist saw me, Doctor Morales, and he had a wonderful kind spirit about him” Stan stated. “He put his hand on my arm and said ‘be happy’”.
Stan stayed overnight at the hospital for treatment of his illness and observation.
“It is a very strange feeling … being in a hospital at all is unsettling. But, being in a hospital, even where that Doctor spoke some English, it would have been difficult to get through without our missionary friend Joel. In my room there were at first two ladies who cared for me who spoke no English. However, the night nurse did speak English very well. I know some Spanish, but it would have been very disconcerting had I understood nothing” he said.
“I’ve lived my whole life in the majority. And when you think about people in the minority, how difficult it is where there are language barriers on top of that, it just gives you an appreciation for what others face” he said in ponderment.
“You can feel the warmth of people in Nicaragua even without sharing a common language. Everybody is so welcoming with their smiles and greetings. Every where that we’ve been in Nicaragua, that has been the case. The children are beautiful and just wonderful. The work team itself has just really clicked from the beginning. There were several veterans on the team, which has made it easier for us that are rookies. I felt very gratified about all that we accomplished the first two days. However, I was disappointed in not being able to continue helping on the work” Stan stated.
“I particularly enjoyed the teen orphan boys here. I connected with Moises, for we worked close together. He has a really nice spirit. Plus, they could communicate enough that we could talk and I could see what was going on at the orphanage through their eyes.
“I think that the two devotions that I attended were great, especially the first night. It was moving to hear what brought different people to this place, and on this trip. I didn’t know Margaret at all prior to this trip, even though she and I belong to the same church. Her testimony of where she was at four years ago, and where she was at now, was very moving … committing herself to this and to missions … that was wonderful” Stan commented.
“My disappointment over getting sick was not because I was sick, but because I missed out on the whole experience of being here, and all the work. I think my getting sick was circumstantial, for I was sick in the states right prior to coming here, and I’m not sure I was over it. That sickness probably reduced my immune system, making me more likely to get more sick once here. Yet, despite the sickness, I did learn that one can’t fully appreciate what one has, without also seeing what others don’t have … for then one sees the whole situation. We all love the same God, and He binds us together” Stan conluded.
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