Upon returning home from her first mission trip to Nicaragua, Barbara McCoy’s memories were filled with images of children. Living in shanties, these children clasp their hands around her cookies as though they were gold.

“You’d think you were giving them a million dollars,” McCoy says.

It was McCoy’s husband Don who first suggested that they go on the mission trip to Nicaragua, sponsored by their church, the Epworth United Methodist. McCoy, who lives in Westerville and works at Otterbein University, was initially fearful about traveling overseas, but eventually she knew she had to go.

It would cost $1,100 for each of them to stay a week. McCoy says that though she could’ve just written a check, she wanted the ownership that could be gained by raising the money herself. A baker since childhood, McCoy decided to try and sell her own cookies — ultimately, she raised $2,000 for the trip.

Money from McCoy’s bake sales went toward travel fees.Each of the 26 volunteers was required to take ten layettes, care packages that contained donated maternity items including diapers and baby clothing.

McCoy and her husband stored whatever personal items they had in carry-on bags, filling their 50-pound luggage with the layettes and gifts for the children – bracelets, hair barrettes and tiny toy cars. They arrived in Managua, Nicaragua late on a Saturday night and attended church that Sunday at a compound with a school their church had built on the outskirts of town.

Rain was falling on the church’s tin roof, and worshippers sat in chairs brought from the school’s classrooms.McCoy realized that big churches and stained glass windows weren’t necessary for a fulfilling worship experience.

“It will stay with me the rest of my life,” she says of the memory.

McCoy had only ever traveled for pleasure, and so she tried to prepare herself for the conditions that awaited her. “They lived in sheer poverty,” she explains.

Roads were pockmarked with large gullies, and residents lived in shanties. Friendly and eager, they would surround McCoy and the others as soon as they came near.

Though McCoy didn’t speak Spanish, she soon found that non-verbal communication would suffice. “You just hug them back,” she says.

McCoy and her husband participated in mission work in the compound in the mornings, painting and landscaping to prepare for a new pharmacy and cleaning up the school. In the 90-degree afternoons they would act as an ersatz stage crew for a puppet show, traveling by school bus around to different parks around Managua with others who performed in Spanish for the children doing one to two shows each afternoon. Nighttime was for fellowship and the sharing of experiences once they returned to the compound.

Part of their trip included a visit to a local maternity hospital which was an eye-opening experience for McCoy. She describes that some women could not pay for sheets on their bed and in one room, two mothers shared a bed. One mother had her baby wrapped in the corner of her bed sheets because she had nothing else to wrap it in.

Though she thought it was minimal, McCoy was glad to offer the women the items in the layettes. “At least you know they have something to go home in,” she says of the babies. Also, they took Polaroid pictures of each family to take home as a keepsake since a camera is considered a luxury.

After returning to Westerville, she knew she wanted to go back.

In preparing for her second mission trip with her husband, McCoy has stuck with the same fundraising method that proved fruitful the first time around. She’s been selling cookies since January of this year, and Halloween marked her fourth and final sale of the year. 

Her favorites are sugar cookies, because she can remember icing and decorating them as a child. McCoy, who still uses her family recipe, was taught to bake by her mother. She now continues the tradition with her daughter, granddaughter and grandson.

Though McCoy ended up making more than $500 at her very first bake sale this year, she was initially nervous about what to do if her Valentine’s Day cookies, chocolate hearts and suckers didn’t sell. They were busy working every night as a team – she would bake and Don would ice the cookies.

As it turned out, she had no reason to worry. “There wasn’t a morsel left,” she says.

When McCoy and her husband return to Nicaragua this November, they will meet their sponsor child Freddy for the first time. They have been paying for his schooling and uniforms at Santa Rosa School; a school they visited last year. It is something that McCoy looks forward to. She was sad to leave the children on her first trip. They are the reason she is returning.

“I’ve gotten so much more than I’ve given,” she says.

Sarah Sole is a contributing writer for Westerville Magazine.