EL TRIUNFO, Nicaragua -- When I was 12 years old or so, my family went to Disney World. I complained when we had to leave a 365-degree multimedia show before it started. I complained when I wasn't allowed to spend my own money on a soft drink. I complained when the family decided to leave the park early because it was hot and crowded and everyone but me was tired of it.

Alyssa Schroder of Clarksville is 12 years old. This month, she, her parents and her 14-year-old brother Travis went to Nicaragua. She had to use an outhouse for a week and bathe herself by pouring cold water over her head. Each of the children roomed, not with a parent, but with one of the other members of the mission team.

If she or Travis complained, it must have been in private; I know I never heard it.

"John," Alyssa told me one day, "there's a bat under your chair." She was as matter-of-fact as if she were telling me that my shoes were untied.

Travis and Alyssa Schroder are my new heroes, young people who displayed a truckload of maturity while still managing to seem like normal, healthy children.

"You're not very far away, John," Alyssa observed, thoughtfully, when I was on the row in front of her and Travis on the final leg of our flight back to Nashville.

Their parents, James and Laurie, are looking seriously at going into the mission field full-time.

James and Laurie Schroder met in Russian language school when both were in the U.S. Army. Laurie left the Army; James stayed until his retirement, and then as a civilian he got a contract as the lead writer for the official history of U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan. The family attends a church that is part of the charismatic Vineyard movement, and Laurie in particular is passionate in talking about that aspect of her faith.

The Schroders and I were members of the LEAMIS / Christ For The City team which visited Nicaragua Jan. 9-22. This was a remarkable team, and I feel privileged to have been a part of it.

The team

Each of us had a designated "prayer partner" on the team. Bob Johnson of State College, Pa., was mine. Bob, an engineer, worked for 25 years at Penn State and then 16 years for the U.S. Navy before retiring. He has one of the sweetest spirits I've ever encountered; a caring and gentle man. During our training in Managua before heading to El Triunfo, we made a point of praying together for each other's concerns, and when I was at a low point in El Triunfo Bob made a point of taking me to the local cafe for a soft drink.

Bob's wife of 43 years, Bonnie, also has a heart for mission, but her health doesn't permit her to travel internationally. Bob felt bad about being separated from her and wasn't completely at ease in Nicaragua until he managed to reach her by telephone.

Another Bob, Bob Willems of Long Beach, Miss., played a key leadership role on the trip. Bob, a retired oceanographer with the University of Southern Mississippi, is preparing to lead a mission team from his church to Ghana. Bob was often called upon to speak in worship services and the pastor's conference. But he isn't all serious; his talent with balloon animals made him a favorite with the children of El Triunfo.

Amber Anstadt, from Maryland, is a quiet, seemingly shy, woman, someone who you might not notice at first. But she turns out to be a woman of strength and compassion who added a lot to the team.

Cari Gongwer, who lives in Kentucky just across the river from Cincinnati, Ohio, where she works for a utility company, is a veteran of mission trips both domestically and to places like Bolivia and Ghana. Her honesty and practicality were essential to the team.

Carolyn Schussler of Mississippi had been part of our team since before our training in November. A veteran of mission trips to Nicaragua's southern neighbor, Costa Rica, she served as our official team photographer. A gentle and thoughtful woman, she could always be counted on to say the right thing and make everyone feel better. She's now happily married, but her testimony about having been a single mother considering an abortion was gut-wrenching when she delivered it at one of our church services in El Triunfo.

Originally, Christ For The City was going to provide us with two missionary contacts who could serve as interpreters for the team. When one of those had to withdraw from the project, Carolyn recruited her daughter, Michelle, a college student majoring in International Studies who, after our Nicaragua trip, was scheduled to go to Cuba as part of her degree work. Even though Michelle hadn't been a part of our team-building in November, she fit in immediately. Her enthusiasm and her willingness to serve as our backup translator were essential to our success.

I have to take a little detour here. Michelle is a vegetarian, although she's not dogmatic about it. She did, however, try to make her wishes known to her host family. She explained that she didn't eat red meat but that she did eat, for example, fish.

After her first morning of work, Michelle returned to her host family, and saw something new on the shelf.

Nine cans of sardines.

At that point, she expected she'd be eating sardines the rest of the week; in fact, they only served them once or twice. But it became a running joke among the team members.

Michelle's roommate for the trip, Sonja Goold, passed on the sardines. I've known Sonja for years through our mutual involvement in a domestic missions program called Mountain T.O.P. Sonja has spent her past few summers working as a staffer in Mountain T.O.P.'s Adults In Ministry home repair program. She's a cheery, good-natured soul who can pick me up with just a smile. She has an outstanding smile. She's married and lives in Brandon, Fla., where her husband Marc is a pilot in the Air Force.

Amanda Van Deman of Christ For The City International served as our primary interpreter and our primary liaison with Pastor Gutierrez and the church. Amanda is a full-time missionary with CFCI, based in Managua. Gail Drake said twice during the trip that she'd follow Amanda anywhere in the world. Amanda is knowledgeable, compassionate, available and has a real heart for ministry. She eventually wants to be more heavily involved with development programs, and I know she'll have a real impact. Like Michelle, Amanda met most of us for the first time during the trip but seemed to fit in right away.

The Rev. Debra Snellen and Gail Drake, who live in Marion County, are the founders of LEAMIS. I don't want to get into a theological argument here, because I know some of you reading this will have different beliefs about women in the clergy. But I've known several women pastors who seemed, to me anyway, to have a strong call from God, and Debra is certainly in that number, combining a gentle spirit with an undeniable authority. Like Peter and the sheet filled with unclean animals, I wouldn't want to be in the position of denying what God has blessed.

Gail? Well, I was first introduced to Gail Drake in 1993, when I heard her speak about Mountain T.O.P.'s Adults In Ministry program. Gail is one of those special personalities that everyone immediately falls in love with. I've seen her lead Mountain T.O.P. camps and be able by the second day of the camp to identify 100 different campers by their first names, from memory. And I've seen her guide those 100 people through the ups and downs of a short-term mission week with a deep faith and a heart for ministry. If you've ever been on a mission trip with Gail, domestically or internationally, you'll never forget her. Gail grew up in the Mountain T.O.P. ministry, which was founded by her father. But her compassion and her spiritual quest led her to find a way to reach out to people in desperate poverty -- economic or spiritual -- around the world. She divides her time between LEAMIS and Mountain T.O.P., and both are infinitely richer for her presence.

Frank

That brings me to Frank Schroer. Like Gail and Sonja, I'd known Frank for several years through Mountain T.O.P. But since Frank works with the home repair ministry, and I'm not usually involved in home repair, I didn't really know him that well. I knew he was a man of few words but deep faith, and when he did speak it was always worth listening to. He's almost like a modern-day Gary Cooper, if you can imagine that.

Frank and I were assigned to be roommates during our time in El Triunfo. I've painted a pretty rosy picture of the trip so far this week, but the fact of the matter is that by Thursday morning I had hit a wall. I was frustrated with the visitation process, feeling awkward about being trotted out as an exhibit in situations where I couldn't understand what was being said around me.

I was also sick of the food. Teresa Sanches and her family worked very hard to make Frank and I feel at home, and their hospitality was often humbling. But there were certain Nicaraguan dishes, usually soups or ingredient-heavy main dishes, that I just had a gag reflex to. I can't really say why; in some cases, they didn't really taste all that bad. Maybe it was just the atmosphere, with the smoky kitchen next door, the chickens pooping at our feet, and what have you. I ate the fresh fruit, and I had no problem with rice or with pinto gallo, the Nicaraguan rice-and-bean dish that turns up at a vast majority of meals. I even drank the granadita juice, which came complete with a disgusting inch-thick head of pulp and edible seeds. But many of the other dishes I would leave unfinished, and in a few cases untouched. Frank, a veteran of other Central America trips who had already been in Costa Rica in the days before our Nicaragua trip started, cleaned his plate every time.

Then, there were the chiggers. I had brought bug repellent to keep away the mosquitoes, out of fear of malaria. But I mostly sprayed it on my exposed arms, head and sometimes ankles. Somehow, somewhere, I ran into a boatload of chiggers, and by Thursday my legs and torso were covered with literally dozens of bites.

Short-term mission trips are an overwhelmingly positive experience, and that's why I keep going on them year after year. But I don't think it's uncommon to hit some sort of low point during the week, when little frustrations and challenges seem to pile up. The relative emotional safety of a close-knit Christian community may even allow frustrations and challenges from outside the week to bubble up unannounced.

My frustration expressed itself in a regrettable form of self-pity. Why was I on this trip? I couldn't make balloon animals as well as Bob Willems, I was in lousy shape and tired quickly of some of our home repair tasks, and I didn't have the leadership presence of, say, James and Laurie Schroder.

Pastor Gutierrez, for all his good qualities, had an annoying habit during the week of announcing new additions to our schedule during church services, putting us on the spot to accept them. He seemed to be doing this during the service on Thursday night, judging from Amanda's reaction, but Amanda, Gail and Debra wouldn't tell us exactly what had been said, saying they needed to compare notes and bring us up to speed at the next morning's team meeting.

Somehow, the weight of what was going on just caught up to me. I rode our rented bus home to the Sanches household, and then once Frank and I were alone in our room I just fell apart. I wanted to go home, to check my e-mail, to eat a Sonic cheeseburger, to soak in a hot bath.

Frank reassured me, not with smothering attention but with a few quiet words, that everything was going to be OK. And, to tell you the truth, I already knew that I was just in a bad mood. I told Frank I'd feel better in the morning.

And I did -- for a while. That was the morning of our field trip to Nueva Guinea, and I that distracted me for a while. But the visit to the hospital depressed me and, quite frankly, made me feel a little inadequate. I looked around at others who had a better grasp of Spanish than I or who were better at entertaining the patients, and my bad mood returned instantly.

Giddyap

When we returned from the field trip, we had a team meeting, and I hinted at the fact that I was feeling frustrated. Debra tried to deal with me after the meeting, but in a sense I didn't really want the attention. I just had to get over this on my own.

That afternoon, we had our biggest block of free time while in El Triunfo. The family that Sonja and Michelle were staying with, just over the hill from Frank and me, wanted to show the four of us their bean and corn fields. Frank and Michelle saddled up and began riding two of the family's horses out towards the fields, which were three quarters of a mile or so down the road. Sonja and I hung around at the house for a while and then followed on foot. After looking at the bean fields, and trying a little bit of raw yucca root fresh from the ground, it came time to head back.

"John, do you want to ride?"

I know what you're thinking: "Poor horse!"

It wasn't that big of a horse, frankly. Some people who've seen the photo say it looks more like a mule than a horse. Anyway, the local equines were used to heavy loads, hauling (for example) heavy milk cans back and forth to the collection station just outside El Triunfo. The Nicas certainly had no objection, and so Frank helped boost me into the saddle and -- for the first time in my life, at age 40 -- I went riding. The sure-footed beast knew the way back home, and got out in front of the rest of the party. I relaxed and began to enjoy myself.

Maybe I'd make it through the week after all.

TOMORROW: Uno, Jenga and pepper jelly