This week there is a team of roughly forty missionaries – mostly from a church in Maryland, USA, with some of their friends joining them from Honduras (where they also do missions regularly) – visiting and supporting the ministries here across their work.
They led the service on Sunday, with worship this time being a mix of both Spanish and English and one of their group was the preacher for the morning.
I know that during their time here they are helping with some construction work elsewhere, and running kids clubs and the like, but yesterday a portion of them spent time here at Nueva Vida running a medical clinic.
Having already been making announcements about it coming up in church, we went out into the barrios on Monday morning and gave out fliers and stuck up some posters informing people about the clinic.
Having already been making announcements about it coming up in church, we went out into the barrios on Monday morning and gave out fliers and stuck up some posters informing people about the clinic.
Then yesterday we had dozens of families turning up from early in the morning, hoping to be first seen, with a fairly steady stream of people into the afternoon. We gave a gospel message at the beginning, reminding those who are not necessarily a part of the church here that we put on the medical clinic not only because we are concerned with people being physically healthy, but also because we want to see people’s spiritual needs met.
After waiting their turn people would see one of the doctors for a consultation, being proscribed anything they might need, with the option of trying out some reading glasses if their vision needed it (unfortunately not an extensive range of glasses, since they all come from glasses people donate in the states, or the UK, but enough to be able to help a few). After that the team had also been able to bring some clothes, school supplies, dental products, and shoes that people were able to grab one or two things from.
Many of the houses in the barrios are only a couple of rooms of about 3x4m with whole families living there, and some of the ‘houses’ are ones that people have boarded together rather than concrete walls. It was great to see a way in which people’s practical donations from back home were meeting practical needs of those in an impoverished community all around us.
