Saturday, June 13, 2009

Ministry on Chira Island-Team PBA

Here is "most" of the team from Palm Beach Atlantic University sitting down for a meal at the camp, though there are a couple of empty spots on the benches. The team consisted of 30 pharmacy school students, two pharmacists and Dean Mary Ferrill, one of their teachers.
To get to Chira Island we got up and departed from the camp at 2:30 a.m. last Saturday morning, traveled four hours by bus to the port where we loaded down one boat with the mobile pharmacy, tents and children's ministry supplies. The other boat carried all of the team and their personal belongings. The boat ride was 45 minutes long to get to the port on the island.

Once there, we quickly loaded our belongings on to a truck off of the boats and then we loaded a school bus (the public transportation system for the island) to get to this church where we quickly got settled in and set up. This is the patient waiting area.
Here are some of the pharmacy students, Elizabeth on the left, Alba on the right standing in the tan shirt, Jason in the back checking patients in to the Triage area where they have their vital signs taken and wait to see a physician.
Here we have set up physician examining rooms, not quite like the States. Elizabeth is escorting the patient into a "consult room" to see the doctor on the patient's right, Dr. Manuel.


While the doctor's see patient's, outside more are lining up in the patient waiting area. To calm fears and to begin to prepare hearts, Laurence, Heather and Elizabeth are singing worship songs in Spanish.

While all of the above is going on, underneath a tree, the Gospel has been shared by Amir, second to the left in the red shirt to a couple of patients in the circle. Kyle (you can just see his blonde hair in the background) has interpreted Amir's message into Spanish. Some of the other students who are on the evangelistic team have joined in praying for these who are accepting the Lord.
We spent our nights on the island inside the church buildings in tents. Initially, our family wanted to sleep outside in the church yard. We got the tent all set up in the yard, sleeping bags inside, suitcases, pillows and went in the church's fellowship building to have dinner. However, during dinner, it began to pour outside. Ken jumped up to check on our tent and not only was there standing water inside, but it looked like a mud slide went through our tent. This is the next morning, our clothes hanging out to dry on the fence.


Children's ministry is always a challenge with mobile set ups. This is the next day after it rained and a group of the "guys" decided to play some soccer with the kids, puddles and all.

In this picture, the team brought down lots of hygiene items that had been donated to them; new toothbrushes, shampoo and perfume samples, trial-sized toothpaste, lotions and conditioners, Q-tips and just a slew of things. Here, we are filling lunch bags with some of these items for all the cooks and volunteers from the church who fed us our meals and helped us with support staff. Katie and I are giggling because the camera was not working properly when someone was trying to take this picture and this was the third attempt.

No comments: