Truro team off to Nicaragua for mission trip

Published on February 19, 2014 Church members to teach English, take part in church services during nine-day visit

TRURO - Scrap metal houses cobbled with tin roofs and dirt floors crafted the grimy streets. Chickens roamed the ground, invading outdoor kitchens and outhouses of the village of San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua.

Baillie Saunders - Special to the Truro Daily News

Chantal Melanson, left, April Banks and Ken Banks of the Central Nova Wesleyan Church in Truro, reveal three suitcases filled with Spanish/English Bibles they took with them as part of a humanitarian mission trip in Nicaragua.

To many Nicaraguans, this was home. To Ken Banks, it was a trip that would change his life forever.

"I didn't know what to expect," said Banks, a pastor at the Central Nova Wesleyan Church in Truro, who along with local church members, visited the country on a humanitarian mission trip in 2011.

"Being exposed to people who have nothing makes you realize how blessed we are, not because of anything we were doing, we just happened to be born here (in Canada)."

Their group's first project was to help build a church, which was a frail shell, when they arrived.

"When we went to the church it was a tin roof stuck up with poles, that's what they were using, it was open air," he said.

"What we did was dig trenches, build a foundation, mix cement by hand, a lot of old-school construction. We also helped fund a well," Banks said.

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Truro team off to Nicaragua for mission trip