Team Three

Hello all! Once again it has been quite a while since I have been able to update you all on the goings on in my life. It has been a little over two weeks and we have had another wonderful team come through here in Lima. But before I talk about them I want to tell you about the blessings I have had working with some of the members of the Church before they got here.

One of the members of our church is a very elderly man who I will name Fruvi. Fruvi is nearing tripple digits and is almost completely deaf. He lives in Salamanca with his wife right across the street from the church. When Fruvi wants to talk he screams and the majority of the time is is jumbled. His wife understands him perfectly and their love is so apparent. I had the opportunity to go sit with him and just talk for a few hours. He prayed to recieve Christ with Pastor Mark a few weeks ago and now loves to talk about Christ. This man has been set on fire and it is so blatently obvious. When he prays he sits looking up with his eyes open, just talking to God. His love for our Lord is so inspiring. I also got to work with a man I will name Diego. Diego is the last of his brother and sisters alive from their birth father. All of Diego´s brothers and sisters who were born from the same father have died from an un-named disease similar in every way to MD. Diego is now in a wheelchair and can hardly walk, I had the opportunity to push him around Salamanca in his Chair for an hour or so. We did not talk much but his joy at being outside and moving was tangible in his eyes. Never once did he complain about his life, his disease, nothing. I learned a lot from that short hour with Diego.

Moving on to Team Three:

This team was from non other than Sweet Home Alabama, bringing with the the joy of the South (Auburn family, sweet tea drinking, and even some Bammer fans, and other SEC loving brethren).

One of the things I have loved about this summer is also one of the things that has been the hardest. Every team that comes in comes with a different specific type of mission be it VBS, Scientific talks, or Medical Missions. This has been trying because it is exhausting to prepare yourself mentally over and over again for different week long focuses. But if you know me at all, you know I love to dabble in everything I can so the fact that I have been able to basically go on 3 mission trips with 3 different goals has been wonderful for me. I love being able to test the waters of different short term mission trip focuses to see where I can potentially be the most useful in the future.

Gettting back on track now. This third team from the glory land "up south" was geared towards medical missions. The team was composed of thee doctors and members of their church. It was incredible to see their heart to serve here, the first meeting we had with them they began by telling us even though they are here for medical missions their main purpose is to glorify God in any way they can be it babysitting for the missionaries, doing construction, anything. Their heart of service was beautiful and very apparent.

We spend the first day in Casa de Gloria with the girls and their babies getting medical check-ups and advice on how to better care for themselves and their children. It was great spending a full day in Casa and loving and laughin with the babies and the mothers whose ages range from 13-18. These girls are beautiful and the transformation they undergo in the house is incredible. Every girl that has come to the house has become a Christian, Praise be to God! I love these girls and am learning so much from them.

The next three days we spent up in Manchi doing a medical clinic from 9-3/4ish. We rented out a house where a bus is parked in the nighttime. In this alleyway where the bus is parked we set up our stations: Triage, three consulation areas with the three doctors, the pharmacy, and then the evangelism center. Over the term of the three days we got to see over 250 people. I worked in the Pharmacy as their translator. When the patients would get done with their docotor they would come to us and I would ask them to sit and waut for us to fill their prescriptions. I would help count pills and sort them into bags and write directions on the bags along with the other two Pharmacy Tecs who were both Auburn Family! Then I would be handed all the meds and would call out the name on their paper and explain the pills: what they were for, how many to take, how many times a day, amd to keep them out of reach of small children. It was wonderful for my spanish but very strenous for my brain, to say the least. I had to explain problems ranging from womenly issues to worms to constipation to calcium, iron, and vitamin pills. Needless to say, my vocab grew this past week. It astounded me that every single patient we say had either parasites, worms, or both. It was heart breaking. After I explained the medicine I said we also had medicine for the soul with our pastors in the evangelism center and incredible almost every patient wanted to talk to the pastors. It was beautiful to watch their gratitude for the medicine to turn prasies to God or even learn about him for the first time. It was a beautiful week.

In Manchi it is very needing. The houses are humble abodes composed of plywood, cardboard, tarps, and metal. The streets are pure mud and the air is a continual fog of rain and smog. It was hard to see people live this way, and even harder to see their joy. The children in the clinic and the parents all were smiling, they were so grateful and warm to us and it was so humbling.

The team left yesterday and it was hard to see them go, I consider myself blessed to have spent time with them this past week in Manchi.