Hands and Feet Medical Missions

It is sad that it took me so long to post about a recent international trip John and I took. Better late than never I suppose. Recently, we had the opportunity to be involved with a medical mission project at UTMB called Hands and Feet Medical Missions. The trip was sponsored by Christian Medical Association and Baptist Student Ministry. We had 23 health care providers and student who saw about 170 patients over a weekend. We were fortunate to have partnered with a local Mexican church the First Baptist Church of Piedras Negras. Here are some of the pictures.

On the way to Mexico...


The whole group at the site of the first clinic...


Going door to door trying to recruit patients for the clinic. We were in a rough part of Piedras Negras called Buenos Aires. It was interesting to see our patient's living conditions, and it was really important for us clinically to know what kind of resources they had at home.


This is the outside of the first clinic. It was in the lawn of a gym, which was really more of a cinder block 15 x 15 feet room with a couple weight sets.


John and I before we start the first clinic. We were on a team together and saw almost all of our patients together. John was great at his Spanish. And I thought he was joking about learning Spanish on the trip to Mexico!


One special blessing was to have our entire church small group with us on the trip. These are the groupies we have left post-Ike.


Another special blessing was to staying with families from our church. Here is a picture of the house we stayed at and our Mexican parents, Carlos y Elida Perez. They were so grateful to have us there that they went far out of their way to make us comfortable and treated us like royalty.



Medical care pictures.
Here are James and Garrett suturing.


Meghan doing an eye assessment.


John explaining a medication to a patient.


Sadly there were alot of health concerns we could not address. Most of the patients were sent away with Tylenol and a prayer.


Last but definitely not least was the authentic Mexican. Here you see a Mexican potluck that the families from the church made. Talk about an authentic Mexican meal. It was AMAZING! We also had several meals in the homes of the families that we stayed with which was also great.


This post is only the tip of the iceberg. The trip had many more layer to it than can be explained in such a short post. However looking to the future, I am really excited about where these trips might take us. It has been a blessing to work with people who have the same heart and mind for people. We have future plans for monthly or bimonthly trips to the border and hopes to expand to other areas locally and internationally as well as longer term trips. Still, we have a lot of details to work out like fundraising, housing, organizing all of the various schools schedules, safety in the midst of drug wars, and just working together well as a team.

I will leave you with our mission's verse and statement.

1 Peter 4:10-11
"As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies-in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."

Mission Statement:
To join God’s work in physically and spiritually healing by sharing Christ’s unconditional Love and taking His name to the nations.