11/02/12
Norma and I returned
Monday night from Managua after an impactful and productive series of medical
day clinics in Guadalupe and Pochocuape. Following are a few highlights that Norma
jotted down after our return.
PICI
usually has their annual October clinic in India, but earlier this year an
organization dispensed some experimental drugs in poverty-stricken areas
(without permission). Sadly, there were deaths and illnesses with the drugs. As
a result, the Indian government and police started cracking down on outside
groups. PICI director Nick Beezhold knew Ginger Creek has been partnering in
Nicaragua so he asked Dock and me if Maria and Jorge might be interested in
accepting the medical team and using these clinics as an outreach ministry to
be offered by their churches to their communities, along with the plan that
they follow-up with the patients to hopefully draw them into the church body.
Both pastors were excited to accept the offer and up for the challenge of working
their communities.
Dock
and I traveled ahead of the rest of the team to prep for the clinics, purchase
medications and meet with pastors in a planning session. Other than some
general guidelines that PICI has about their procedure for diagnosing and
dispensing meds, Maria's people and Jorge's people handled all of the local
prep, set-up, registration, paper-trail, lunches for the medical team and crowd
control, not to mention the initiative to bathe everything in prayer. Imagine
what a massive undertaking.. with a possible 2,000 people in Pochocuape and
14,000 in La Chureca, Guadalupe and neighboring barrios. They each canvassed
their neighborhoods ahead of time to invite the community. There was much
prayer before, during and now after the clinics. Pastor Maria now has names and
addresses of 400 patients that came to the the Nueva Jerusalen
church. Pastor Jorge has 200. Wednesday evening after 8 hours of clinic, 50+
pastors and church leaders stayed on to hear visiting Mexican PICI Director
Jorge Huacuz give a 2-hour workshop on biblical worldview and how to mobilize
the church to reach outside themselves and into their communities. The two
pastors have already begun follow-up work. Maria reported that the four New
Jerusalem churches chose to dismiss their Sunday services following the clinics
and workshop to go family-to-family in the community. One of the four pastors,
Pastor David, traveled 47 kilometers to help with the canvassing. As a result,
20 people came to faith Sunday morning, October 28. They did this on their own
initiative. We are blown away at what our Nica brothers and sisters can
accomplish when working together in community. Our director said it was one of
the best organized clinics they've done and that he "was
pleased to see how much time, effort, and work the local pastors and volunteers
from their churches put into these clinics, and that is a good sign of things
to come.." Just a quick Maria story...Dock and I had
searched all week for the best prices on medications. We even had three World
Relief guys helping search pharmacies and labs all over Managua. Who found us
the best prices? You guessed! Maria took us to a pharmacy close to her where
they gave the best prices of all. The name was Farmacia Espiritu Santo....The
Holy Spirit Pharmacy. :)
We
were blessed to see the interchange between the two churches too. On the days
the clinics operated in Nueva Jerusalen, three church leaders from Pochocuape
came to help. On the Pochocuape clinic days, three pastors from Nueva Jerusalen
came to pray all day over the clinic and to pray with patients who were waiting
their turn to be seen. Pastor Jorge thanked the Lord for bringing the team to
the community and possibly avoiding an epidemic of coughs, flu and virus
starting because of the change of weather..rainy to dry.
All
in all, it was an exciting privilege to be part of a God-event like this. He
brought it together at the last hour, as he also tossed this 8-person team
together and we just seemed to "click." We could not have done that
ourselves..God's hand was all over it. God's is good...all the time!
Norma and Dock Caton
Partners in Christ, International - PICI
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