Wednesday 20 January 2016

Rocky Mountain Ministries 2016 Part 1

We are home.  Our whirlwind trip to Mexico for 2016 is over :( We are both happy and sad about that at the same time.

We were honoured to serve with amazing people and reconnect so many friends from past trips and to meet new friends! What a wonderful time we had.  We are so happy about the amount of people that got help and were able to have Christ shared with them over the past 3 weeks. BUT we are sad it went so fast.

We are sorry that we were unable to connect and share with you what was happening day by day, but we were "running" quite a bit of our time there, and the internet was quite slow, which made for difficulties in communicating.  But we would like to share a little of what happened now that we are back home.

Our time with the Rocky Mountain Ministries team was once again a blessing.  They brought along a larger team this year, which gave them a little more freedom to move people around, and some were able to bring their spouses, and or families along with them, it was a joy to be able to meet them!

They arrived on Thursday, the 7th of January and the medical team was off to the races! We had the morning of the Friday to get last minute preparations done and meet with the volunteers and then it was time for the first of our 8 clinics.  

A clinic consists of many different stations for the people to pass through in order to be helped... they are as follows:


1. Sign In (Decision time - Doctor/glasses? or Glasses only?)

2. Vitals

3. Nurses
4. Doctors
(this one has all four of them plus one of the nurses but not their tents)

5. Pharmacy Tent - but not all of our Pharmacists.

6. Oral Hygiene

7. Glasses

8. Prayer and Bibles

If you decided at the beginning you only wanted glasses (which include sunglasses and reading glasses and a simple reading test) you would go from 1. to 6. and 7.  Some did not want glasses, so would go directly from pharmacy to prayer and Bible.  This was the first year we have had any oral hygiene along with the team, and she had her station open until the toothbrushes and paste ran out...

We held 8 clinics, over 1694 people went through; there were 36 on the team from Montana, and 45 volunteers from San Carlos (on different days) as well as staff from La Casa de Esperanza.




Thursday 7 January 2016

Eye Team....

We have been here for 12 days now.  I can't believe all that has happened since we have arrived!

The "Eye Team" was here for 10 days, and left this morning, (at least most of them made it on the plane), and was amazing!  The team was larger this year, as they also brought some people to work with a children's ministry.  It was wonderful to work with the team again.  Some returned, wonderful to see them and we also got to meet many new people from Village Church.  What a blessing they have been to us and the people here in Mexico.  

We are so grateful for all the people that were seen at the eye clinic and the amazing program that the children's team put on.  We can honestly say, thousands were touched by this team.

The place where this clinic is held, is one of the churches that the Centre works closely with.  The building is older, we had a few patients talk about how amazing it was 50 years ago when they used the building as a banquet hall. The upkeep has not been perfect, and there are many holes in the roof and broken windows and bathrooms.  But it was transformed into an eye clinic, this year with 9 stations.  Here are a few photos :)


Setting up

Dr. Dave working with a young lady finding her prescription.
Waiting for glasses and after receiving them talking and praying for them.
There were amazing stories from each and every day the team was here.  

Here is one that was very touching:

On Saturday a taxi driver arrived at the clinic.  He was having issues with his vision in the last little bit and he and his wife decided that he should come and have his eyes checked.  The doctors found that his retina was detached in one of his eyes.  This is a problem that has to be dealt with quickly.  The gentleman was seen by the doctor here in Guaymas (who has more technology to see exactly what was happening) on Monday.  He agreed with the prognosis, and told him the cost of the surgery.  The cost was way more than this couple could afford, so the doctor said he wasn't sure but to check back with the team and see if they could help at all.  The couple came back to the church, spoke with the team leader and one of the Pastors who was a team member this year.  Juan Carlos (one of the staff from Koenes Ministries) was able to contact a surgeon in Nogales. The couple was given the funds and sent to get the surgery this week.  The couple was overwhelmed with this expression of love from this church and wanted to hear of God's love for them! What a huge blessing for them and us to see God bringing everything together.  

The couple, Cindy and Pastor Steve, Juan Carlos and Pastor Alfredo
Our days were long, but OH SO GOOD!!

Well although there are many, many more things we can tell you, we have to get on with our next team prep.... Hope you are all well!