Desperate Times

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Medical Clinic

So many great things happened today at Christ the King, and yet there is a bit of a cloud as well. We were able to see 170 people in the Medical Clinic today. That’s a lot of people in 1 day! It was so awesome, and the ministry that happens is incredible. Christ the King is a church known in the community of Merotte for the way they reach out to the people to care for them and their children. The cloud in all of that is that we can’t reach them all. There are so many people absolutely desperate for a doctor to see them or their children or their aging parent. We had one lady bring her mother in the backseat of a truck. Her mother was unable to walk, but needed to see a Doctor. What a blessing to be able to prescribe some medicines and care for her needs.

One of the blessings for our medical clinic is that one of our Doctors is also a Dentist. He spent most of his day caring for the dental needs that came to us. One man even got one of his wisdom teeth pulled. It proved rather challenging for Dr. KyungHoon Chung and his assistant, Bre Engler but they were able to get all of the tooth as well as the roots out.

Eyeglass Clinic

We figured out a new system for intake today and were able to see many more clients than yesterday. Praise God! It was so neat to see the eyes of people light up when they could see well for the first time in a long time. This is especially heartening when we see it in older men and women. They have lived for such a long time without eye correction that they are surprised by what they can see.

Madame Nomil continued to meet with each patient today. Today she wore sunglasses that we had given her as she told each patient of Jesus’ love for them, gave them a Bible in Haitian Creole, and gave them a health kit.

Many members of our team got to hold babies today as their parents went through the clinic. Those are special moments for us as we multitask with testing, pointing, distributing, and fitting with babies in our arms.

For tomorrow, our prayer is that the clinics are covered in peace. There was quite a bit of agitation today, because people are so anxious to see a doctor or get glasses. We ask God to give us a more peaceful atmosphere and also for us and the clients to experience moments of joy as we smile and laugh and see together!

Construction Team

The progress on the perimeter wall is amazing to watch! I’m not sure how many feet were added to the wall, but it is a lot. It’s looking great. One of the things that was fun to watch was moving about 400 cement blocks from one end of the wall to where they were needed. It was quite a distance and took many men in a long line to get them moved. They were working very hard.

At lunch time our construction crew of 5 men sat down with a translator and several of the workers. Mike Thomas asked the men if they knew why we came every year to work alongside them. He explained that we come so that Christ the King will realize the vision they have of being a place where people will come and get to know Jesus as their Savior. One of the men said that the work days were great, but that the most important day of our visit is Sunday – the day we come together to worship. One of the men said that he would definitely be there to worship with us.

The team continues to pray for those on the construction team who might not now Jesus would be impacted by our witness.

VBS Team

The VBS team just continues to knock the ball out of the park! The lesson they did today for Team Jesus was of the servant girl who worked for Namaan. She took a big risk when she spoke to him about going to see Elijah the prophet instead of his own healer. Her boldness lead to her master being healed. The VBS team told the children how important it is to speak their faith with confidence knowing that they are serving the Lord.

One of the things the team is excited about is their translator. He is so very gifted in working with thechildren. He makes sure they are paying attention and really understanding what is being taught. He made up a Team Jesus cheer and gets the kids ready and excited to dig into the Word of God. He is a huge blessing to our efforts.

Since school is not in session, we have fewer students in VBS, but even with that we have been able to reach about 100 children each day.  They are praying to be able to reach as many children as possible in the next couple of days. 

More tomorrow!