The Corner of Love missionaries returned from Nicaragua March 5 after serving more than 10,000 people in and around the village of San Ramon.

Maple Valley resident Tanya Amador, executive director of the mission with her husband Nelson, has been building the Christian organization for nine years. She began the mission through the Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church in Maple Valley.

Amador, with many helping hands, organized a group of 78 medical workers and volunteers for this mission. The group was divided into seven teams, which included doctors, nurses, optometrists, dentists and people who wanted to serve.

“There is work for everyone,” Amador said. “If they have love to give, they are equipped to come.”

This group of missionaries was the largest she has ever assembled.

“Logistically it is was quite a job,” Amador said. “But it went very well.”

Elisa Lewis went with a team that included Dr. Luther Frerichs from Enumclaw Medical Center. This is the sixth trip Lewis has made.

She said the medical teams treated parasites, fungal infections, upper respiratory infections, conjunctivitis, gastroenteritis among other health issues.

Lewis said many of the medical problems came from not drinking enough water, poor access to clean water and basic nutrition.

“Drinking dirty water causes people to contract parasites and the parasites eat the good food,” Lewis said.

According to Lewis, during one day, Frerichs treated 120 people.

“The patient chair never cooled off,” Lewis said.

Amador said after nearly a decade of building the ministry, she sees the task as working a little bit at a time.

“Nine years ago we wanted to get kids in school,” Amador said. “Six years ago we started medical treatments with no doctors. Three years ago we had charts and a couple of teams.”

Lewis said, “We go to one corner of the world where a bunch of us have a passion to serve and we’ve made that corner of the world a special place.”

Along with serving the people, Amador and her group christened an 18,000 square foot dormitory. Amador said there is more work to be done on the building, but at some point in the future she plans to invite other groups with a similar vision to use the dormitory.

Amador has expanded the mission to three trips a year with the second scheduled in June and third in October. This will be the first fall trip for the mission.