Everyone arrived home safely from their mission to the Dominican Republic. The internet was down for a few days, so we didn't get updates the last several day. We've filled-in the gaps now, so go back and read them.
Continue praying: ...for the team's adjustment to life back in the US, ...that God will continue to use what He taught them through this experience to grow deeper in their walk with Him, ...for the workers in Juan Dolio who will be following through with the contacts the team made while there ...for faithful application in the mission field of Birmingham of what God has taught them in the DR. Thank you for your prayers for the team during the mission trip. Today we went to Dos Hermanas, a very rural village in the middle of a bunch of sugarcane fields. This was a very poor village, so poor that they did not even have running water. Only about 45 families lived in the village, so we were able to see all of the sick people, even though we were only there for half a day.
Since this was a village that CMMA and even SCORE had never been to before, we were anticipating a few hiccups. For instance, we weren’t sure whether or not we would have a building, so were even prepared to make house calls if necessary. Fortunately, they did have a very small, one-room schoolhouse that we were able to use for the clinic stations. Despite the small accommodations, today went just as smoothly as it has at the other villages. Another way that God showed His Power and grace on this trip was in breaking down the language barrier. Most of the villagers don’t actually speak Spanish, but Creole. God did a wonderful thing in providing us with translators that speak Creole as well as Spanish, so we were able to communicate with them about their health and about their faith just as well as at the other villages. This village had actually experienced a recent outbreak of the flu, so it was great to be able to help them recover from that. We were also able to give out some toys to the kids. One of the most impactful things we were able to give to this community was the gift of 20 water filters. In such a small community without running water, these filters will be invaluable in preserving their health during the times that medical missions aren’t able to reach them. Overall, today was an excellent end to a great two weeks. On this last trip, God really made His power known by taking what could have been a stressful trip and making it work incredibly smoothly. God has really been working through us to help this country. Please continue to pray that we will be able to carry what God has taught us in the Dominican Republic back to the U.S. and make the same kind of impact there. Today we went to Los Montanos, a rural village and the hometown of one of our translators, Felix. Sadly, Felix was not able to come with us today, but we did get to meet his family and visit his home, so it was neat to learn about where he grew up.
The village was beautiful and clean—probably the favorite village of many members of the team. Having such a remote atmosphere definitely made the day seem more relaxed, and the patients were good-natured and patient with us. The church has a strong presence in the village, so we talked with several believers who encouraged us even as we encouraged them. Medically, we saw much of the same stuff we have been seeing—gripe, muscle aches, tummy aches—but we also saw some interesting things,like an albino boy! It was a beautiful day overall, and we are sad to move to another village tomorrow but excited about what God has in store for us for our last day! Today we were at the church at Consuelo again. In addition to clinic today, we gave out 40 buckets for water filtration.
These filters can take any water (dirty contaminated water) and, used correctly, can provide up to 300 gallons of clear, purified water a day. If the filter is cleaned correctly it can provide water for a family for 10 years. After the demonstration of the use of the water buckets/filters, 40 of these were distributed to families in the community. We know that water-borne diseases are a large risk for the people in this area, particularly children. Having access to clean purified water is a public health issue for the community as well as a huge economic impact to the families; many of which have neither the access (no piped in water) nor the economic resources to buy potable water for drinking and cooking. But far beyond the health impact is the beautiful visual picture of the Gospel illustrated by the water filtration. It was fun to watch the faces of the people during the demonstration of the filtration buckets. Many were obviously skeptical. Most were entertained to see this group of strangers drinking from a bucket of dirty water. The buckets were filled with local water (collected in rain barrels mostly) and then mixed with dirt (ugh—no telling water organisms were hiding in that muddy water). After going through the filter, clear pure water emerges with the contaminants having been removed. The water going into the bucket was potentially deadly (think bacteria in the right circumstances) and the water emerging was clear, pure and necessary for good health. Our lives without Jesus are that dirty water filled with eternally deadly (even if invisible) disease—sin. Only the cleansing power of Jesus sacrificial death and His resurrection is powerful enough to remove the deadly contamination of sin from our lives. Once we trust in Him alone by faith to heal us from the deadly disease of sin, He is able to purify our lives so that we emerge cleansed from our sin and able to offer life. As Jesus told the woman at the well, “I will give you living water…you won’t thirst again.” Watching the faces grow in acceptance of the water filtration buckets (seeing and being willing to drink from the purified water) reminds me of the excitement of seeing the faces of those who have been drinking of Jesus’ living water. Their faces light up as the realization of the life-giving power of the Gospel flows through them. It is a privilege to watch God work in the people we got to meet and share with today. It is a joy to know that He is working in me, too. He is still pouring His life-giving water into the lives of our group. Cool, refreshing, life-giving water….hmmm. Today the team went back to the same church to host a second day of clinic. The cases of “la gripe” (the Spanish word for the common cold) are increasing among our group. Please pray for energy and healing for our group with “la gripe” and that the ones that are healthy stay healthy.
Today Taylor, Cameron, Dr. Tom, and translator Felix encountered a very interesting case. A 15 year old girl came to their station today who was in a deep spiritual battle. At first, she was very closed off and didn’t want to open up. Finally, she admitted to being involved in a Satanic cult in which she had made a pact with the Devil. Every time our team would try to talk to her about Jesus, she would become stone-faced and said she was getting a headache. During lunch, Clara, one of our translators, continued to talk with Elizabeth about Christ. Eventually, she said she wanted to accept Jesus Christ as her Savior, and she prayed a prayer of acceptance with Clara. However, after lunch she came back to Cameron and began talking about the pain in her family. She lives with her grandmother, and she feels that her parents don’t love her. Cameron reiterated to her that she has a family in Christ and that church can be her safe place. She countered with the statement that she doesn’t believe in God and would never believe in Him. Please pray that God rescues her from this spiritual battle she is facing and shows her His love and grace that He offers. Through His almighty power, God laid a message on Dr. Bob’s heart to share with us tonight that deals specifically with this topic. It is always marvelous to see God work through His children to send a specific message to them. Tonight, Dr. Bob shared with us the power of spiritual warfare. He revealed to us through personal experiences and stories in the Bible that there is a constant battle within our minds and our hearts and that in reality there are demons fighting for our souls. The prince of this earth (Satan) and his demons are constantly invading our thoughts and deceiving us with lies in order to make us stumble in our walk with Christ and to hinder us from doing God’s work. When we stumble as Christians, we sometimes start to question the assurance of our salvation. However, Dr. Bob encouraged our group by reassuring us that we can lose spiritual battles but still win the war of gaining eternal salvation. Therefore, we must put on the armor of God daily. Just saying that we trust in Jesus is not enough; we must actively fight by speaking truth, sharing the gospel, and studying the Word of God. We continue to thank our Lord for the many blessings He has bestowed upon us throughout the trip. Also, we thank you for your continuous prayers and support. The team went back to work today after a relaxing weekend! We held clinic in a church in a rural area surrounded by sugar cane fields. The church building was very spacious and even had ceiling fans that were much appreciated! The day was full of many interesting moments. Josh, Alex, and Emily were seeing a patient for kidney stones when he casually mentioned that he thought there was a bug in his ear. They were not totally convinced until they pulled out the otoscope and discovered that there was a bug in his ear! Cheri successfully removed the winged insect that was impacted in his ear!
Dr. Mark, Keshia, Sarah, and Cesar were seeing a woman and her 3 month old baby who both complained of the infamous “gripe” also known as the “flu/cold/sinus infection/bronchitis.” The woman claimed that her “gripe” had been going on for 3 months, and that she was depressed and not breastfeeding. She also stated that she lost over 30 pounds after the baby was born. They diagnosed her with post-partum depression and determined that the baby was healthy. Half an hour later, a different woman with the same baby came back to their station complaining of “gripe” and anemia. They were very confused why the same baby was back with a different woman. She stated that the other woman was her sister-in-law who apparently “lies a lot!” They were finally convinced that she was the baby’s mother when she proceeded to breastfeed right in front of them! Five people committed their lives to Christ at the evangelism station with Elizabeth and Austin. Many of the medical stations also had great spiritual encounters with their patients today. The Holy Spirit has been at work in every person and situation that we have encountered on this trip! Please continue to pray for our team as several members have become sick. Pray that we will have another great day at the same clinic on Tuesday and that we will be able to serve the spiritual and medical needs of our patients! Today was our off day, and almost everyone on the team decided to spend the day on Catalina Island. It was nice to get to sleep in for a change! After an hour bus ride to La Romana followed by a 30-minute boat ride to Catalina Island, we were ready for some quality time on the beach. The weather was beautiful and the sun and water felt great. It was wonderful to be in the presence of God’s beautiful creation. We got some snorkeling in and saw some fish and even an eel! I (Jessi here) even got proposed to by a man I didn’t know! I told him I was flattered but I had left my heart in the United States, to which he responded, “I can teach you medicine, I can teach you languages, and I can teach you love”… but I digress.
After a day of volleyball, swimming, reading, cliff-jumping, and “parrot-fighting” (a rather peculiar sport invented by Cameron Preston), we hopped back on the boat to head home. The day was relaxing and a time of bonding for all of us, but don’t fret, we will all sleep well tonight. Please be praying for our team, as we have had a couple of people get sick the last couple of days. Don’t worry, they are on the upswing—probably just some stuff we picked up from patients and kids, but if there is one thing we have learned this past week it is that prayer is extremely powerful! Sunday was a day of worship and rest. New team members arrived over the weekend, so we are excited to get to know the knew guys. Please pray that in everything we say and do, we would exude with the Lord of Christ! Today we again set up clinic in the church of a small neighborhood in San Pedro. This was the last day for some of our doctors, so we certainly cherished our last clinical experiences with them. Nick McQueen and Alex McFarland had the privilege of working with Miguel Diaz this morning, and it’s safe to say that they especially cherished the lessons they learned from him today. Two of their patients were older males presenting with urinary symptoms. Therefore, they were given the opportunity to perform their first prostate exams and learned how to diagnose Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) with the help of a physical exam. Needless to say, Nick and Alex were the “butt” of all jokes made today. Along with growing in their medical knowledge, Nick and Alex also grew spiritually as they observed Miguel share the Gospel with one of these men. Some may say this man was feeling more vulnerable after the physical exam, but all joking aside, he was listening intently to what Miguel had to say. It was beautiful to hear Miguel sharing with this 84-year-old man in Spanish and to hear the passion with which he did so. This man decided that he wanted to accept Christ as the Savior of his life, so we prayed with him, and he did so! We were all reminded of how God can work in all ways in all people, no matter what age. This man’s life had been lived apart from Christ for 84 years, but God still had a plan of redeeming him to Himself. The church members in the clinic celebrated with this man and took pictures with him, and he left the clinic a born-again Christian! We thoroughly enjoyed our time with the doctors this week and are sad to see them leave, but we are also excited to meet the new doctors that will join us this weekend for next week’s clinics. We also had the opportunity to give out water filter buckets to a small community about a mile from our clinic. The water here is not clean to drink so locals must buy drinking water. The problem occurs when they wash their dishes with dirty water, which inevitably contaminates their clean water. These buckets use a dialysis filter that is capable of filtering water from the dirtiest of sources. The amazing thing is that these filters can provide up to 300 gallons of clean water a day for 10 years!
A small crowd gathered next to a pink wooden house with a rusted roof and listened as Bobby Parks described how to use the filters (and even demonstrated by drinking filtered muddy water—quite the salesman) and shared the Gospel with them. Just as the filter purifies the water of silt, so does Christ purify our lives of sin. It was a great experience to witness the crowd’s expressions as they realized the effectiveness of these filters. Our prayer is that these filters will provide them with water, health, and relief. We can’t help but be reminded of the words of Jesus: Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:13). May these people also drink of the fountain of Christ. We took the afternoon off to tour Santo Domingo by visiting the market and a few other sight-seeing spots. We are excited about our day off tomorrow and are praying for a beautiful day to rest and relax. Please continue praying for our team as we prepare for week two and welcome a few new members for the week! Today we were back in the city of San Pedro, and once again we were greeted with a sold out crowd on hand. You never know what conditions you will be working under, but we have all learned to make it work. We worked in a small church in a crowded area. What made this church special was that some members of the church were there with us all day to help us out. They even took a moment to sing to us, and we got an impromptu concert from some of the members.
For many of the younger students, there are many “firsts” that have occurred during the trip, and there were even “firsts” for some of the doctors. For some, it was the exhilarating feeling of sticking a patient with a needle for the first time. First year student Stephen Stuart has now found himself qualified to give shots in the rear-end (giving shots there is great because the patient isn’t able to see the quivering hand of a first year med student coming at them with a needle by the way). Dr. George Walker and his team of students performed a lower eyelid skin excision to correct a condition called entroprion in a patient. One of the more special stories of this trip thus far has been that of a young girl who we met two days ago in San Pedro. When we finished our day of clinic on Wednesday many of us were not sure if we would be able to see her again. However, when we arrived this morning, she was there waiting for us ready to begin the day. It has been such a blessing to see how much she enjoyed being apart of the group. Throughout the day several students continued to speak with her about Christ. After speaking with the students for several days, she is finally seeing that the Good News of Christ is available to all and that perfection was never a requirement for salvation. Each day brings more and more experiences that change your mindset on how to serve. Being down here, the physical needs are obvious, but the spiritual ones are often hidden within churches that are packed every Sunday. The ability to find the spiritual needs of those around us is important not only here, but also in the United States. Please continue to pray that we will be able to identify these needs and speak the words that need to be spoken. Mission trips are beautiful in that we focus on becoming more aware of God’s presence. Prayers of the team and supporters are definitely seen and appreciated. Many divine appointments happened yesterday and today. These appointments were both spiritual and medical. Today we were blessed with the opportunity to return to the same village in San Pedro and see about 160 patients.
One of the biggest blessings of the trip happened today when a teenage girl and her mom came to the clinic. The young girl had come in because she had an infection, but Naomi, Jessi, Estenia, and Alex realized that she was pregnant. This was not expected or welcomed news and the girl expressed her desire for an abortion. The ladies working with her gave her antibiotics to treat the infection, but, in addition to medication, they were able to spend much time counseling this young mother. They used Doppler to try to find her baby’s heartbeat. At first, the heartbeat could not be found. Then Cheri went around to all of us asking for prayer regarding this situation, and shortly afterwards, the baby’s healthy heartbeat was heard. This was extremely touching to the girl as well as everyone else. Please pray that this girl comes to realize how precious the life within her is to the Lord. NOTE: You can read more about this story on Jessi’s blog (www.onmedicineandothermatters.blogspot.com). Another big blessing to our team happened via a 15 year old girl that we found in the village yesterday. She is not a Christian, but came to our clinic yesterday and volunteered to help translate since she speaks English. She returned to clinic again today and helped with translations. At one point, she was helping to translate in the evangelism station while her cousin’s friend (13 yo girl) was at the station. While David, Russ, and Bobby were sharing the gospel via the 15 yo translator, she started to explain the gospel to her friend. Though the translator was not yet ready to give her life to the Lord, she was able to accurately explain the gospel to her friend, who then accepted the grace of God for her own life. Please pray for the translator’s readiness to accept the grace that God offers. Other highlights of the day include Dr. Walker, Johnny, and Sarah making house calls and sharing the gospel. Many people received reading glasses (thanks to Marianne and Nick) and expressed joy that they would be able to read their Bibles again. After a long day of speaking Spanish, Daniel, Kara, and Dr. Salser were encouraged by a patient that shared Bible verses and prayed with them, and for them. Elizabeth, Jessi, and Josh continue to lead us in singing praises every morning and evening. What a blessing it is to be able to fellowship and praise God together! Please pray for our continued work with the Dominican people. Pray that our hearts be humbled and our ears be opened to the Holy Spirit. Pray that we continue to grow together as a group and seek to glorify God above all with our words and actions as we seek to serve. We appreciate your prayers and support! Today, we saw over 140 patients in a small church in San Pedro de Macrois, a more rural area of the Domincan Republic.
Compared to clinic yesterday, the church could not have been more spacious. Yesterday, pharmacy struggled with being cramped and not having enough room to organize the medications. Today, Dr. Marsha and team were blessed with ample space to quickly and efficiently fill prescriptions. As a whole, the team of 1st year students improved tremendously after being thrown in the fire on day 1. It was wonderful to see everyone working together and feeling more comfortable with their assigned job for the day.
After only 2 days we have seen a lot of improvement and we know that itcomes only from the love and mercy of our Lord. Today, the team set up clinic in a schoolroom outside of Santo Domingo. Amidst the occasional torrential downpour and the crowded hallways and waiting areas, we saw a total of 137 patients over a span of 6 hours! With the largest missions team yet in the smallest room, patient flow and remaining calm in the midst of chaos was the largest challenge—especially for a group of medical, type-A personalities. Thankfully, the Lord is most glorified in our weaknesses, and He definitely blessed the patients and ministered to us as well. While the day was extremely challenging, God allowed moments of spiritual encouragement to take place. Miguel had an opportunity to pray with a patient in Spanish, and Estenia was able to lead several children and people to sing praises to God outside one of the stations. It was uplifting to hear the worship of Christ in a different language in the background as we moved patients through the clinic. Several other doctors were able to pray for and encourage people and, even over the language barrier, it was sweet to see the Holy Spirit minister to their hearts. We had some translators who ministered with us on previous trips along with several new ones, so it was great getting to know our new team. We saw everything from worms and parasites to fungal infections to “gripe”—a name given to flu-like symptoms that nearly everyone here falls victim to in the spring and summer months. We also saw a few pregnant women, along with one who got to hear her baby’s heart beat for the first time—what a blessing it was to share in this joy with her! Please keep us in your prayers as we embark on this journey to share in the healing powers of Jesus Christ. May His will in heaven be done through us, His ambassadors, on earth. While the State-side Medical mission team is making final preparations to travel to the Domincan Republic for their mission June 9-22, the Dominican Republic team is making final preparations for the State-side team to arrive.Please join us in praying for this mission. The Prayer Calendar (click link below) gives ways you can pray for the team Prior To, During, and After the trip (see bottom of Calendar) and for each day during their mission.
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