"Alpacha Company"

I am so excited about this company that I am priveliged to be leading on the Peru trip!!! In honor of the incredible elusive Peruvian Alpacha (a specific type of Llama), comes our team name. The team includes myself and Alison, Aimee, and Matt, who are all 1st year medical students. Todd is Allison's husband and a pastor at a church in Roanoke. Of course, Jon is on the team as well and will be leading, too. Jon and I hosted a short little cookout this evening to just get to know everyone a bit better. The team building was great and I'm really impressed with everyone and their motivation. Matt has actually never even been on a mission trip before. I told him I was esspecially excited for him becuase it was going to truly change his entire life.

The purpose of team building is to really begin relationships with team members before the actual trip, which will make us more effective as a group in the long run. By learning each others personalities, strengths, and weaknesses, we can be more effective when the crunch of a busy clinic is upon us. Opening up the lines of communication on a team beforehand is also critical. Be praying for the Alpacha Company and the entire Peru team!

Doctors don't save lives.....

I studied all day yesterday at the VCOM building, and left at about 7:30 to eat dinner. Yeah, got locked out of the building when i tried to come back! My card would not work to let us in and all the lights were off. Needless to say, I was upset, because my laptop and all my books were just sitting in one of the study rooms. Well, this morning i tried to find a Building Hours schedule from VCOM in my email account....i have all my emails pop forwarded to my gmail account, and i did a search and came up on this email I sent last year from Honduras.....my first medical missions trip back in Febuary '07. It had 4 or 5 replies to it that I had never read. One from summer, one from Eric, Mom, and Botchy. All telling me how excited they were, and laughing at my stethescope mishap, of course! It was such an encouragement. Here is the email, to just remind us all of how important it is to be in steady prayer, because this can be such a powerful ministry!

Febuary, 2007:
Hello all friends and family!! Just wanted to give you an update and ask for continued prayer support from here on the mission field in Honduras, Central America. We just arrived here in Tacucagalpa, Honduras yesterday afternoon, and after hours of sorting pills and medicines, we woke up at 5 this morning to be in a village for a clinic. The clinic is an all day event....the ENTIRE town showed up. I was blown away at the amount of people winding around the courtyard of the shool building we turned into the clinic for the day. We all walked in and they were just standing there, staring and smiling. We saw 250 patients today....that is 250 patients 7 hours. Our company also worked in the evangelical station.....and miracles happened. A woman was completely healed of back pain she had had for 5 years. Freedom was the word translated for one woman who had just been prayed over. God is working through this ministry, and i am just going crazy over how cool it is. Granted, I went to check the lungs of my first patient today and had my stethescope on backwads....totally tried to play that one off but the attending was watching and laughed....so did i!! It is a great learning environment and pretty much what I was made to do.

I just keep telling myself..."Doctors don't save lives, they only prolong it. Only Jesus can save a life."

Thanks to all of you....i wouldn't be here without you. Please be in prayer for these people and that they will see Jesus in us, even if it is just a smile or touch. I wish i had a way to let you be here to see what God is doing, it is incredible. Lots of Love and thoughts. I'll be home sunday.

As long as there is a sun in the sky the Proclaimer will play the Son’s Words

I HAVE INCREDIBLE NEWS!!!

Below is an email from Eric concerning a donation that was made to Spirit-Led Expeditions for the Quechua speaking people Pastor Willy is ministering to!!!

Email from Eric:

I just got off the phone with Faith Comes By Hearing ministry in New Mexico. With our Quechua Audio Bible Program we were hitting some road blocks, due to all the equipment, batteries needed, cost, etc. of the CDs.
Besides CDs they also have a new propitiatory product called the "Proclaimer." This is a device that is 9 inches long and 5 inches tall. It can be fully charged by batteries and also uses solar power, never needing electricity if need be. It has the entire New Testament and can be sorted by book and chapter. Up to 300!! people can listen at once. One of the reasons we were going to have to go with CDs is that the Proclaimer cost $100 each!
FCBH just told me that they were donating 8 free Proclaimers to us, and allowed me to purchase 3 additional ones at $85 each. They were getting ready to load them with the Quechua language, Cusco dialect as we spoke!
We thank God for providing this and can't wait to show them off Sunday night (29th) @ the Deep Creek Service (fully charged) for you to hear the Bible in the Quechua language and to pray over these before they go out!
To the adventure, Enrique Lovin
PS Continue to pray for our blanket project so that we can meet our goal of 500 blankets, we are off total budget at this time $3000. God will provide! :)

MORE INFO: http://www.the-ctc.org/proclaimer.htm

This is an amazing thing! The blankets have come along slowly but we are still trusting to have plenty to hand out at the clinics and in ministry at various sites with both teams. July is the coldest month in Peru!! Jon and I still have monetary and prayer needs as we prepare. Boards prep has been very taxing on me, and will be especially this coming week as I have 4 tests and 2 sets of practical examinations. I had an overwhelming sense of peace yesterday, however. I know that if God brought me this far, he is going to carry me all the way through.

Today I worked at the Free Clinic and tried my best to comfort so many of the patients having such a hard time just trying to survive. God loves each and every one of them, and it shocked me to see how much they are put down mentally by Satan and fall into a spiral of depression. So many people around us are hurting. Some were just bitter, and some came in with tears in their eyes. They desperately need the love of Jesus, and today showed me even more how medicine is a door to show that love. We must be willing to be sensitive to God in those situations and love on those who need it.

Pray for us as we prepare to love on the people of Peru.