Medical Mission in Iquitos

We have had an amazing week here in Iquitos. This past week we had 20 doctors, nurses and translators come down to Iquitos to help with a week long medical mission. The 40/40's had the chance to take a week off of school and help out with the mission. We helped everywhere from keeping the kids constantly entertained with games and puppet shows, to line control, translating, evangelism, and wherever else we could fit in and help. We went to 7 different locations in 7 days. We had 2 doctors, a pharmacist, and a number of nurses and helped about 150-200 people each day. It was amazing and incredibly exhausting at the same time! We had some serious cases of Chicken Pox, high blood pressure (high enough to be hospitalized), diabetes, anemia, hernias, and other things. It was awesome to get to share God's love to these people just by helping them with free medicine.
I helped with translating for the nurses at different times and went out and ran games for the kids in other times. One day we had a lot of crying babies and I spent almost the whole day inside the clinic with a puppet getting most of them to stop crying. That was pretty fun. My most exhausting day was when I spent the entire day in the clinic translating for the nurses. My Spanish was by no means perfect, but I could (most of the time) understand what the patients were saying and they could usually understand what the nurses asked me to tell them. The funny part was I kept having people show ME the problems they or their kids had. Needless to say I'm pretty sure after seeing some of that my calling is NOT to be a nurse! By the time I was done my brain was incredibly worn out! But it was pretty cool to see that my Spanish really is progressing.
After the clinics were done in the day we had 4 different nights of showing the Jesus film to the community we had just helped. We don't have the exact number yet... but at least 250 men, women, and kids came to Christ this week. Wow!! How amazing of a God we have!! One of the nights I got to share my testimony (yes in Spanish). It was scary but I could just feel God's presence with me. Again... I don't really have the words to describe it... it was just amazing.
It was an incredible week. THIS is part of what I feel so called to do. To help people. And I feel so incredibly blessed that God let me be a part of this past week.

Psalm 103:1-6 "Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits- who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed."

p.s. pictures to come later. http://www.extremenazarene.org/ShortTermDetail.aspx?ID=5

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