April 22nd: Lima Clinic Day

Clinic day in Lima! We were met at the airport, late the night previous, by Alex, pictured to the left here with his wife Juanita. Such a beautiful couple, filled with affection, generosity and deeply committed to the work they do amongst the people of Lima. Alex is a pastor who was raised in the squatter's district of Lima and continues to live and work amongst these people who have such great, great needs. He does so much work in so many parts of the city, it is truly remarkable.

This was a super clinic day as Alex had many volunteers from his church to help guide people and direct them through the clinic process. He even had three young lads to register people on the computer - we were high tech today! What a great groups of kids: Aldair, Josep, and Kevin. We worked as a great little team together and Kevin kept an eye on my spanish as I continued with the parasite campaign. I had no translator with me in Lima and so I relied a lot on the spanish I have learned and on yelling for "help!" when I needed a translator to come to my rescue.

This was the only day I was so tired I just wanted to cry. We had about 1 1/2 hours left of clinic and while I have thoroughly enjoyed learning the spanish language, working without a translator left me feeling mentally drained. At one point I excused myself to the washroom and almost lost it, then quickly prayed for strength to persist and pulled myself together and headed back out with a smile! These are such grateful and patient people, it is hard not to feel like a whiner in light of what their lives are like. They were just so, so thankful for us being there. A significant part of of this day was that there were people from Alex's church that could pray with people. Some people really want to be prayed for and so it was a distinguishing feature that there was not only physical counsel provided but also spiritual, if people wished that...and many did!

Below are some shots from the day, starting with images from near Alex and Juanita's home...

A window in the home next door to Alex and Juanita.

Alex and the boys! from left to right: Aldair, Josep, and Kevin. Kevin's glasses were so dirty. He often didn't wear them and at one point, I broke out my special glasses cloth (to clean them) and cleaned his and said, "try them now!" Kevin's father drove us back and forth in his cab while in Lima...wonderful man.

The parasite campaign continues!

People lined up, waiting.

This was truly great! Remember Levi?..our translator while in the jungle? Well, this is Levi's brother, Edin! He was one of our translators in Lima. Steve and Levi grew a special friendship during our trip in Yuri and so it was particularly special for him to meet Edin. We were able to fill Edin in on some information about the strike and Levi's attempt to get out of Yuri as well, since he had been unable to reach Levi for a number of days. Thankfully, we heard that Levi and Laura got out of Yuri a couple of days after we did when the strike lifted briefly.