Pucallpa Project

The Pucallpa Project has come to an end.  It was a complete success.  We are always surprised at how well the projects end up going, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by how much prep work the whole team does for each one.  We work with some great people!

The whole group.

We are bad at taking pictures now, because we have a new system in place – Jared, our co-worker, is our Communications guy and he collects all volunteers’ pictures and videos over the 2 weeks and accumulates them onto a disc.  We tend to now just wait for that disc at each project, so we don’t have many shots of the clinics, but let me just tell you – they went so well!  We treated about 900 patients over the 8 days. Many different ailments and problems came through the doors, but God was looking out for those people.  While patients had to wait in many lines to finally see one of our doctors, we had people talking and praying with them and sharing Christ with them!

Doctor Mark, Interpreter Ray, and Patient

Alongside the clinics each day were many other activities – puppet shows, soccer, parachutes, face painting, Jesus Films, and much more.  Through the outreach events and the evangelizing in the clinics, a few hundred people made decisions for Christ.  Praise the Lord!  Even if just one soul was reached, this project would have been worth it.  I love my job!

Us on Valentine's Day.  Look closely and you'll see my favorite food in my hand. :)

The short-term volunteers singing a worship special for Church.

Me and some of the kids at the church.

Quick Update From Pucallpa

We are here in Pucallpa with the second of our medical teams.  Things are going well overall.  We are halfway through our clinic schedule with 4 days in the books and 4 more days to come.  We have seen approximately 400 patients over the past 4 days.  Additionally we have done the Jesus film 2 nights and had a construction team working at the district office.

We ask that you would pray for safety and health and we continue to work under difficult conditions.  We also ask that you pray that we would effectively be able to connect new believers to the existing church structure.

Cohort 3 is Here!

Praise the Lord!  All of Cohort 3 (12 new 40/40s, 2 Cluster Support couples, and 2 little girls) and ALL of their luggage arrived safely.

They are very sleepy in this picture as we are taking them from the airport to the school, where they were all safely delivered to their specific host families.  But they still had good energy after such long flights and seem like a fantastic group!  Please remember them in your prayers as they begin language training on Monday and begin adapting to this new culture.
Yea for new volunteers!

Iquitos - It's a Wrap!

We are sitting here in “La Pascana”, our hotel for the project team in Iquitos.  Everybody is packing up preparing for our departure for the airports in a few minutes.

Despite the intense heat and humidity, when it was not pouring down rain, we had a fantastic project.  This was a medical clinic-based project where worked in seven different communities on seven different days.  Our doctors saw 1283 patients over the seven days.  These clinics are helping to grow the existing church in places and prepare the way for the 40/40’s in others.

Along with the clinics our impact team prayed with over 400 people that became new believers.  All these new contacts, along with the nearly 1300 patients, will be handed off to the local church and/or the 40/40’s for follow up.

Sydney served as a translator between nurses and the patients most of the time.  I (Mike) tried to work as a translator as well but unable.  As approximately 90% of the patients are women and a male nurse is not really accepted in this culture, most of the patients would not talk to me.  However, Sydney and I both had plenty of other responsibilities tending to the day to day needs of the project team.

Now we are off to the airport and eventually Arequipa this evening.  There we will continue preparations for our next project in Pucallpa - also in the jungle and also a medical clinic.  We fly out Tuesday (Feb 9) for that!  We will keep you posted!

P.S. Sorry there are no photos - our camera has officially died.  We'll get some photos from others so we can share them!