Snapshots of God's Love: January 28, 2010

Our last day of clinic began with a devotional from Bret. He used his personal testimony and Scripture to demonstrate the impact one person can have in someone’s life. For Bret it was a college friend who’s life change forced him to consider the claims of Christ. He encouraged us to ponder the impact we would have on one, two, or hundreds of Peruvians, in addition to our teammates.

With that, we loaded the bus for our last trip to Condevilla. As we neared the clinic, the line extending from the entrance was massive and wrapped around the block. We set up and started seeing patients. Historically, God has a way of allowing us to see just as many patients on the last half day as we have on full days in the clinic. This year we saw about 300 in the last 4 hours. In total, we served 1,405 people.

After the clinic, we enjoyed another wonderful lunch made by the women of the church. The entire village was then invited to a reunion. The clinic was packed to the brim with Peruvians who wanted to worship God and those that were curious. A sweet time of worship was shared in both English and Spanish. People were amazed as Carrie painted a mural of Christ’s pierced hand during the music.

In full Peruvian style, we spent the next hour and a half hugging and kissing (not to worry, just kisses on the check) goodbye to our new friends. Many tears were shed as we loaded the bus to leave for the last time.

We dined together down by the ocean and then spent some time reminiscing about what God has been doing in our lives. Here are some snapshots:

Gerry- so thankful for team, especially his son. Alex worked extremely hard the entire week in dental and never complained about having to do the bad jobs. Poor equipment forced him to look at the people, not the services.

Dental Team: Bret, Aleah, Alex, Gerry, Bree

Angie K- was touched by a woman who was soon to go blind. As she prayed with this woman in optical, she knew there was nothing the team could do to help her physically. She hopes this moment will effect the translators who are going into the medical field to change the future of medicine in Peru.

Lori- was able to spend time with Yolanda, a Peruvian woman who lost husband this year. She was encouraged to spend time with women from the church and watch them mentor each other. She was reminded of the first chapter in James and how she’s seen growth out of perseverance in these women.

Lori with her Peruvian sisters

Anne S- amazed by how much the Peruvians held on…old ladies are strong! They see love and want to hang on to it.

Roy- enjoyed sharing laughs with the Peruvians. She met with a woman who looked like she had wet her pants. He thought triage sent her to the “Urologist” to take care of toileting issues (in reality, Terry had spilled water on this woman, accidentally, while making the water rounds). After diagnosis, Roy knew we didn’t have meds with us that she needed and apologized. The woman simply smiled and said, “At least I got a shower out of it!”

Pam- was affected by the numerous people who took photos and didn’t smile. She explained how it seemed they had no hope and no souls in their body.

Jaz- was deeply impacted by the love the kids she worked with had on her. She was in tears as she explained how they taught each other their languages and culture during the week. It culminated by singing a song in English together.

Scot- was greatly affected by a prayer walk on Tuesday. One of our translators, Christian shared words with Scot through a prayer that will affect him for life. “Lord thank you for the opportunity to live here.”

Emily- was excited to combine a passion for children and her new skill of sharing her faith in Spanish using the EvangeCube while sharing the Gospel with two little kids in the clinic.

We’ll share more of our God sightings in tomorrow’s update.

PRAYER REQUESTS:

*Pray for our last day with our Peruvian brothers and sisters on Friday. We will be having a baptismal service in the ocean, which should be a powerful time of worship.

*Pray for safety in our travels in the next few days. We’ll be taking buses to the baptism service and our culture day on Saturday- anyone who’s been in South American on a bus will know why we need prayer for this! ☺

*Pray for sustainability for the Condevillian church. We will be leaving shortly and want the church to be able to continue serving the needs in the community when we’re gone.