What a day!!! We left the comfort of our "Casa Pastoral" this morning and took the long bus-ride to Batey #106. We had a small crew today, which included Andrew Woodard, Jeff Spencer, Jacob Colson, Jeremy Kenny and myself. Upon arrival at the batey we were immediately met by the children, none of them older than 7 or 8. They starting hugging us and wanting us to carry them around on our shoulders. That took me back 5 years to the last time I was here with the Trinity Mission team and my daughter Cassie. The same thing happened then, just different children. We saw some of them again; this time mostly grown up....teenagers! The #106 batey has changed quite a lot since 2014. Then, there were no concrete block houses (that I can remember). The only block buildings were the church, school and a few outhouses (that we helped to build in 2012). Now there are at least 12 new block homes, all occupied by deserving families. Most of the "stick" houses seemed to remain in place, but the population of the residents has increased quite a lot. I was the only one in our crew who didn't go to this batey in recent years, so I made new friends. It was good to see Jeff, Jeremy, Andrew and Daniel reconnecting with old friends, both young and new. We worked really hard mixing "mezcla" and sifting sand, and moving rocks, but the memories that we made with the kids and batey workers will last forever. I can't wait to go again tomorrow. Sore muscles and aching feet won't deter any one of us from returning tomorrow.
VBS - Daniel Phillips: Today I worked on VBS. We had over 100 kids (which is way more then we usually have). We learned that the teachers knew we were coming, so they canceled school for the day. It was a lot of fun but it was very crowded. We are used to the older kids being at school in the morning and the younger kids being at school in the afternoon, so they come at different times. We didn't have enough crafts for everyone to make a sheep in the morning or to make Joseph in the afternoon, so we gave the little kids a coloring sheet instead. All of the kids tried very hard on their crafts and they all wanted to follow the example by using the exact same colors. Which we kept trying to tell them that the color is not important, but our Spanish wasn't good enough for them to understand. Overall, it was a great experience for me and the kids and I'm very glad that we are able to teach these kids about the Bible.
Medical - Susan Spencer: We had a successful medical clinic in Batey San German today. We saw 98 patients of all ages. We partner with Good Samaritan Hospital to provide local doctors, a dentist and translators. Our team took blood pressures, assisted the dentist, helped select glasses and dispensed prescriptions from the pharmacy. Each patient left with between 2 and 5 prescriptions. Our team worked very hard today to help provide healthcare and show God's love for these precious people.
Pharmacy
Ashley Assisting Dentist
Sarah and Katie Taking Blood Pressure
Water Purification - Keith Woodard: The first day of installing water filtration systems started out a little slow as we had to wait for 5 gallon buckets to be delivered to the job site. While waiting on the buckets, we assisted with medical and I tried my hand at being an optometrist. Shortly before lunch, Fernando arrived with the buckets and we began the task of assembling the Sawyer filtration systems. This process involves drilling a hole near the bottom of the 5 gallon bucket, attaching the filter to the bucket, and labeling a second bucket for "clean water only". We assembled 20 filtration systems and distributed them to families in Batey German. After a lunch break, with the assistance of our translator, Junior, we visited the homes which had received the filters and provided instructions on using the filters and keeping them clean. Each house visit ended with a short prayer with the resident. Today was a good day .... 20 more families now have access to clean water.
No comments:
Post a Comment