We have spent the last week working along side a group of wonderful doctors, dentists, nurses, and volunteers in Corozal, Belize. We worked with Belize Medical Mission based out of Bryan Texas. It is comprised of people from 6 different states in the US who all have missional hearts. They have been traveling to Belize annually for the last 18 years and have established many relationships through out those years. This group of doctors are some of the only doctors these people in the villages have and they look forward to them coming back every year.
(The line waiting for us when we arrived at San Joaquin on Thursday.)
During our time in Northern Belize we where able to serve 5 small communities around Corozal Town with free medical care and show them the love of Christ. Each day was full of surprises, lots of heat and patients in need. Our group of 40 would leave the hotel every morning around 8am and travel to communities to provide free medical and dental care as well as eye exams, glasses, sun glasses, toothbrushes and prescription medication. While working in the 5 villages we were able to serve over 1,000 patients. Around 230 of those patients saw the dentist. We also gave out over 5,000 prescriptions and vitamins to help the patients stay heathy even after we left. Our days ended around 8:30pm after eating dinner together and having our evening meetings and devotional time. It was very tiring but worth every second.
(Getting all set up and ready to see patients on the first day.)
I spent my 5 days working in dental along side a dentist, his wife and his assistant from Missouri. Dr. Jon, Sheila, and Kim were great to work along side and we had lots of fun together joking, sweating, and most of all helping others. Dr. Jon was able to bring a transportable dental unit so we were able to save teeth by doing fillings instead of just extracting them. There was another dentist from Texas, Dr. Tom, who is an oral surgeon and he was able to take out a lot of teeth this week. We only had one 11 year old boy jump out of the dental chair and take off. (he ran out with the dental bib and everything….it was quite funny.) Everyone else was thankful that we were there, dispute the discomfort they where in.
(Repairing a boy’s front tooth, he had a beautiful smile! Repairing a lady’s tooth so it didn’t have to be extracted.)
Justin spent his time helping out in the pharmacy. (He likes to say he was the supervisor of the pharmacy.) He of course jumped right in and helped out where he could, keeping people entertained along the way. He was also in charge of setting up the break room/lunch room every morning which included mixing the Gatorade, which is obviously a very important job! We met lots of wonderful people this week and we are so grateful to have been a part of this ministry. It was hard to say good bye to all of our new friends but we are so happy to have served in Belize with so many selfless people.
(Justin doing some record keeping for the pharmacy.)
We are now on our way to meet up with our home congregation, Raintree, for a house build in San Raymundo, Guatemala. We appreciate all of your thoughts and prayers while we serve in Central America. To view more photos from the week click here.
