DATELINE PANAMA:
Medical Missions expand to Mexico
Or
Are we ever going to get warm
I am sitting at George Bush International Airport en route to Panama after concluding our first evangelistic medical effort outside of Panama. I have just spent a week and a half in Monterrey, Mexico, assisting in our Panama team’s first international participation in medical missions. I sit here tired but upbeat at the same time. This has been a difficult nine days with some special challenges, some even before we started seeing patients. This medical clinic, now history, was in the development and planning stages for at least ten months before we saw our first of some 1200 patients.
The clinic required more than one major effort to see this particular medical clinic become operational (because there were several things complicating the process). Pastor Jan Milton of Cornerstone Baptist Church of Fayetteville, N.C. and some members of the Genesaret Baptist Church of Guadelupe (metro area of Monterrey), Mexico, labored in the efforts to resolve the most complicated hang-ups. Two men (bros. Krim and Omar), from the sponsoring church, became expert paper chasers and paper pushers as they labored to get in hand all required permits and pay all the required fees in order to get us up and running. It was a “down to the wire” event.
Our biggest complication was getting the Operation Renewed Hope medical trailer across the U.S./Mexican border with our supply of medicines. Just days before the clinic was to start the trailer was released in the country for a temporary period of one month. Pastor Milton led the effort to convert the 50 foot refrigeration trailer into a multifaceted medical facility.
The trailer facility had a dental section where Dr. Jack Mitchell provided a new service to our dental attention capacity (fillings and cleaning), had two general medicine consultation areas where doctors Suh (U.S. team) and Garza (Mexican team) as well as an Optometry section where Dr. Innis (U.S. team), examined eyes and fitted glasses for those who needed them. 1,400 pairs of glasses, provided by the Lions Club in the U.S., were forwarded to Mexico for free distribution during this effort.
The completion of strategy for the clinic was left to brothers Krim and Omar to develop, or at least structure, in a manner that the strategy could be put into effect in a successful manner. The strategy was designed to provide a boost in community relations to two new struggling ministries that I would classify in the baby church stage. We found this to be a very do-able effort in previous visits and planning meetings with church officials. The strategy shifted to include a third established church the fifth day. More will be reported on that later.
This clinic would turn out to be different than previous evangelistic medical efforts for a number of reasons:
1. This clinic ministry was designed to impact two different communities, but we ended up impacting three communities where churches, in different degrees of development exist.
2. The strategy started out being a bi-national (U.S. and Panama medical personnel) effort but ended up being tri-national with the addition of a Mexican element to our overall team.
3. This would be our first time to use the Mobil facility.
4. This would be our first clinic outside of a tropical setting. Man, somebody has to be crazy to have a medical clinic in Monterrey, Mexico, in November and December. Nilda, our cancer hospital OR nurse, said on Wednesday, "brother Childress, this is the coldest day of my life". The nights were colder. Two nights the Panama team, including me, slept very little because of the cold. It did not help that most of the Panama team had air mattresses on the floor. This was a definite culture shock experience for the Panama team.
5. The doubtfulness of the sponsoring church and the men doing all the leg work getting the paper chase finalized. They just couldn’t understand that so many people would in fact come if invited to do so. I found myself repeating the Field of Dreams theme … "Build it and they will come". Of course, I did have to change it somewhat.
I arrived on Thanksgiving evening. Brother Milton would arrive the next day. The medical teams arrived on Saturday evening with the exception of two Panama team members. One arrived Sunday am and the other Sunday afternoon.
Things were set up on Sunday afternoon with the teams going to the site and getting things set up in order to have immediate occupation of our positions on Monday morning, just like we found ourselves doing in previous clinics.
We learn from every clinic and we are always looking for ways to make our effort more successful and more impacting on the spiritual side of what we are doing. Evangelist Tom Farrell was with us for the week and he was able to give us some good direction. We will use his suggestions in Panama as well.
The first two days we were at Arboledas. We saw the Lord’s direction from the beginning but felt frustrated in that we were not maximizing our evangelistic opportunities. We finally established a process where we held newly registered people between the registration station and the triage station. This addition worked very comfortable for the medical attention as well as the spiritual impact effort and Tom enjoyed performing his calling, repeating the Gospel message several times early in the day. It is not hard to see that he enjoys what God has called him to do.
Once the people heard a Gospel presentation they were offered an invitation to receive Christ as Savior. Those who did so received a John and Romans and some other literature. This was as an identification process for personal workers to find and review the Gospel presentation previously presented and confirm any professions of faith. New professions of faith were also realized using this process.
The personal evangelism team came from the sponsoring church, Genesaret Baptist Church of Guadelupe, (part of greater Monterrey). The first day the evangelistic team was slow getting into action, but after a while we could see them developing confidence that would continue to build all week long. I believe the medical clinics served to bring revival to the sponsoring church as well as fulfill our original goals with the baby churches.
As we started the medical effort all noted the cloudy skies … menacing clouds that looked like storm clouds. The U.S. team was taking it all in stride, but the Panama team was already chilled to the bone, especially Nilda who was working in the triage area, which happened to be in an open air setting. Someone showed mercy to Nilda and she ended up with a parka type jacket equipped with a hood. She looked like a misplaced Eskimo. I knew it was getting real bad when I saw Nilda working with a pair of red wool gloves.
During the course of our coldest evening Steven would repent of all of his years of complaining about the heat of Panama. He seemed to think that the Lord sent him this cold spell as a measure of chastisement. I think he was joking, but I will remind him next year when we are in the jungles of Panama for our next clinic.
After two days at Arboledas, we were scheduled to relocate to Naranjos for the next three days. The new site offered limited space outside and the winds were quite a challenge in the early mornings. The site was surveyed before moving there … while everything was moving along at a regular pace with regards to the medical clinic in Arboledas.
During the night the trailer was moved to the new site. All medicines were packed so the new pharmacy could be set up without delay. We added a tactical change and converted our bus into the triage station. There were wide aisles making moving about a limited challenge. All we had to do is add steps to the back door. Someone found about 70 four inch cinder blocks, so we constructed a portable stairway - one block at a time. It was a rustic setting but it was warmer than being outside with no protection from the elements of nature like the two days before.
The expectations for the response in Naranjos faded with less people demonstrating interest. By Thursday afternoon it looked like we would have very few people attend on Friday. Even though we were not over run with numbers of patients, the evangelistic team had grown in confidence and was doing more successful one on one evangelism during the day. Our last evening in Naranjos, most of the Panama team made a house call on a bed ridden lady (Since general medicine finishes first with regard to treating patients, the team jumped at the chance to do something more). Before the visit was over, our doctors and nurses had led three people to the Lord inside the patient's home. It was getting colder outside, but our team returned to the bus with one of those "warm fuzzy" feelings. Almida made the comment later, "I knew when that lady (daughter of the sick woman) came all stressed out and frustrated, that this house call had salvation written all over it". Almida, our child specialist nurse, is a pastor's wife.
Someone presented a different opportunity for Friday so Thursday afternoon we went on a scouting trip. We checked out the site and found it very feasible for a one day clinic. Someone made a command decision to relocate to this third site, not considered before. We would later learn that this church, although rejoicing with good facilities, had been having struggles with the community.
It was evident that God was in the spur of the moment change. The guys put some loud speakers on a pick up truck and advertised the clinic and the need to come to the church in the evening in order to get their tickets as we would be limiting our number of patients once again. This also was a style developed during the week that we will continue to use in future meetings. It turns out that a multitude of people responded as we gave out 230 tickets to come for medical attention. Almost everyone stayed for the evening service and 56 made professions of faith.
The last day started off rather regular except for the cold drizzle … but we probably had more professions of faith though out the day than we had at the evening service the night before. The clouds we did see were less threatening and the temperature actually warmed up during the day despite the rain. The team processed the patients rather quickly although we had others showing up without tickets and some showed up with tickets after we were closing down.
As we were closing someone brought us a patient that could not walk … they were still in the car and needed a tooth pulled. The Panama team had a first … We call it "auto rápido", you would call it drive through service, like at Mc Donald's. Our dentist and her assistant went to the car and took care of the patient. Does your doctor offer curb side service?
Every time we moved the trailer we had to tie everything down as everything had its place upon setup. At the close of today we had to put everything in a certain order so that customs could inventory everything going out of the country. Brother Milton had to pay about $4,000 on a customs deposit and we did not want anything messed up, giving the customs officials any reason to even consider keeping the deposit money.
Friday night my Panama team packed up and moved to a hotel close to the airport. We left later than expected because somebody told them about Wal Mart! I had planned on this move since the beginning of the week. We would be leaving on four different schedules during the day Saturday and I wanted them to be at a hotel where shuttle service was provided. I would be the first to leave and did not want to see things messed up. I also saw the need for a comfortable night with adequate surroundings. My team was deceived by the thermostats in the rooms. Even set on 80 degrees the machine blew out cold air. The rooms were not equipped with heaters, just air conditioners. Friday night was their warmest night of the week and that wasn't anything to brag on. Sufficient covers were available at a minimum.
The church did a last minute schedule of a celebration dinner which we could not attend because of our plans. My team was tired and in need of a good night rest …. something we have not had all week due to the cold. I checked us into the hotel and had everyone return for supper at the hotel before unpacking. The prices were a little pricey, but it was the best option for our team at this time.
We ate and had good fellowship. Nobody wanted regular Mexican food. The fellowship afterwards was better than desert. We took time to share about our personal experience and our realization of our God being in the midst of the activity we had just concluded. I had tears in my eyes as I realized that the Panama team, as they relayed their comments, was experiencing revival as well. Seeing what God had done in these past five days made enduring the cold a worthy challenge.
Everyone was glad they came on the trip. Almida was away from her husband for three months taking a children's cancer course in El Salvador. She was only home for about 15 hours before leaving for Mexico. Viky had to close her medical clinic for the week. Kenia had been unemployed most of this year and had just been placed in a permanent job some weeks before the clinic. She worked it out for others to cover for her and she will be working double shifts for awhile in order to pay back those who covered for her shifts. Everyone was glad they did not make an excuse to stay home, especially after hearing that there were over 450 professions of faith.
I could see that my team has transformed itself and its image by getting involved in this medical missions effort. They no longer think of themselves as a group of tag along helpers, but see themselves as a team of co laborers. There is an evident touch of added confidence to the mix. I am now convinced that this team would follow me anywhere.
By Saturday night, just as the clock strikes 12, all of us are back in Panama and thankful for the tropical breezes and heat. Praise the Lord there will be no more cold. We have returned to the land of tropical natures: Hot and dry, hot and wet, and hot and humid. The key word is hot, which is the temperature we have been looking for several days.
Exiting Tocumen International Airport in Panama we are faced with the reality of our tropical heritage. Our thoughts at this point are simply these: WARM AT LAST, WARM AT LAST. Now we all get a chance for a good night of sleep for sure!