In and out of the mountains

About an hour before we left for El Mosco with the Lima Christina School group, as I was sending my last blog to you, I asked Angie, “when does the next group come?” And she said, “Saturday, you get back from the mountains on Friday, and leave again on Sunday.”

So it is Saturday morning, I get up early to watch the sunrise, read Oswald Chambers, then I make coffee. The med shopping is already done for the next trip and I am doing the laundry so we can pack. We left most of the mobile clinic, plus our tents locked up in the El Mosco clinic. We pick up the new group around 3:30 this afternoon.

This morning we plan to go and rest by a nice pool, as soon as we get off our computers.



Car troubles
We took 5 vehicles loaded with people, gear and supplies. Halfway up the mountains we had car trouble and had to load the kids into the back of an open truck and Eddie and I accompanied the crippled truck down the mountain. Halfway back the driveshaft broke in half, here is Isidro and Eddie removing it. Isidro drove to a safe place to store it without difficulty in 4-wheel drive, only using the front two wheels.

Llano Verde

We saw nearly 80 patients in Llano Verde while the students helped distribute food and toys and played with the children.

You might be familiar with these boxes of high protein meals by now, which are loaded here on the burro. Again we were told by the doctors, the greatest problem here is malnutrition. We left what we had left of the "dispensa" with the president of the town to distribute to the most needy.

Jeff and Maureen Leathersich, a Physician’s Assistant and nurse who spent 2 years working on a medical boat on the Amazon joined our medical team. They were great. Maureen was the most experienced help I have ever had and she made everything go so smoothly. They can come back any day!

We got back late and, as always, had patients waiting for us in El Mosco. God gave us a special blessing with a total lunar eclipse! In the dark of the moon, the stars shined brighter than usual, it was amazing. Sorry, no picture.

Pueblo Viejo and El Mosco
The next day we arrived late to Pueblo Viejo due to more patients, and one very sick pneumonia patient in El Mosco. In Pueblo Viejo the students did a program for the children, made balloon animals and played with the kids as before.

Dr. Dave examining a young patient, who was unusually cooperative!

When we arrived back to El Mosco, we found a man who had been carried in a hammock lying on the ground on a blanket waiting for us. We ran over two liters of I.V. fluids and gave antibiotics for pneumonia, probable sepsis and likely liver disease. He and his family spent the night.

In order get out of El Mosco we awoke very early, packed and left before sunrise. The doctors and Laura carried the patient and his family in the back of their truck and he was received at the hospital in Jamiltepec.

As we drove out of El Mosco we encountered a couple walking up the drive way, at 6:45 in the morning. I opened the window and said, "regresamos el domingo en la tarde!" (We are coming back Sunday afternoon) The needs are so great!




We arrived at Roca Blanca just after noon and we saw the team to the bus terminal that evening. It was a great time. We really enjoyed getting know Dave Nelson. We really didn’t want him to leave. But he will be back soon….in time for his wedding April 12th!

Afterwards, Drs. Dave and Mary Kay, Laura, Eddie and I talked over a light meal and some yummy frozen mochas. We love the little family God has given us here.

Please keep praying

So, tomorrow we leave for El Mosco again. We will be with a medical, construction and children’s ministry team. Please pray for us.

We get back on Thursday and on Saturday and Sunday we will be holding cleft lip surgeries…phew!

Thank you for your continued prayers!

El Mosco, Here where God dwells

Love blooming at Roca Blanca!

Valentine's Day was celebrated in a big way here. Eventually we all became privy to the secret that Jonathan, who has spent much time here at Roca Blanca as a nursing student, was flying down here from Tulsa to surprise the lovely nursing student Cara, and pop the big question. God gavethem a long and beautiful sunset for the most romantic of settings.

Laura and Dave picking out their wedding rings!

A little later, on February 16th, Laura’s fiancé arrived with a group of students from Lima Christian school where he teaches. The plan is for them to work on a project to get Internet into the clinic, and then do four days of outreach with us around El Mosco. They plan to do programs for the children while we also put on clinics in Llano Verde and Pueblo Viejo.

Community Health Teaching
We just put away our laundry from our last trip to El Mosco and as I did, I packed for the next trip! This last week was a wonderful time with the ORU nursing students doing their implementation phase of their community health study.

Woman in Macahuite demonstrating purifcation of water by adding a few drops of bleach

They taught nutrition and sanitation in the village of Macahuite and at the primary school in El Mosco. I was very impressed. I wish we could take their posters to all of our clinics and do the same teaching. I remember noticing a boy playing in the dirt and then eating with his filthy hands and thinking, “it is going to take a lot of repetition of this teaching to make a difference.” Old ways die hard.

High protein meals distributed to the families that came to hear the teaching

Teaching Macahuite woman how to use high protein meals that we distributed

Student nurse June and my good friend Bertha in Macahuite, note, the outhouses suggest how short Mixtecos are!

After the last patient was seen at El Mosco on Tuesday night we were invited to a service and meal at Pablo and Rufina’s home. We sang worship songs for well over an hour, and then several shared testimonies and encouragement from God's word.

Eddie sharing Laura translating to Spanish, Miguel translating to Mixteco

Here where God dwells
As we stood in that little wooden room, packed wall to wall with Mixtecos and Gringos, men, women and children, all singing in Mixteco, Spanish and a little English, I remembered a poem I had written and determined that I would share it with you.

Here where God dwells
2 A.M. El Mosco
February 12, 2005

A wide jealous wind
Batters my dwelling
I awake alert
Lying still very still
As if listening
for a deeper Voice

I step out into blackness.
on this hillside,
deep in these brown mountains
among these brown people of lifeless eyes
in this dry, stripped bare
Land of promise
I am embraced by His Power
His Power

There is no moon
only a sea of stars.
One falls and compels my gaze to follow
toward the west.

I hear no voice.
I feel no stirring of spirit.
Yet I know His heart
He has placed His affection on this Place
this People.

And though I see no angels
only stars and blackness
like Jacob
I could build an altar here

here in this place
where God dwells.
Leeann Andrade Kelley

The Darkness still trembles
Since that night we have spent so much time in the Ixtayutla region; El Mosco, Pueblo Viejo, Yucuya’a and the other small villages. We have seen much change, and also recognized great resistance as the Darkness trembles and fights to prevail. Political factions, violence, domestic abuse, drunkenness, immorality, witchcraft, poverty, illiteracy, even greed and envy, are the face of the Darkness here.

As we consider what our impact should be on this land, this people, the thing that comes to mind is not to change the culture, but to bring the Light of God’s love, and the power of Christ’s sacrifice to redeem the culture. The Darkness degrades and destroys a society; the Light of God brings new vision and hope.

Here is a picture of Inez and Pastor Miguel; Inez serves as one of the “health workers” in his area.

In El Mosco, I gave the instructions for giving the medications to Inez in Spanish, and he translated to Mixteco to this mother


Here's a better picture of the family, this is a rare picture of a Mixteco woman smiling, usually they cover their mouths

Our tent is the one on the left, the dog in the front is Lobo, the most personable mountain mutt you could hope to meet.

I smelled flowers!
This last week as I was in my tent at the El Mosco clinic I thought I smelled flowers, unbelievable, as it seemed. Of course since I wrote the above poem, Inez, Miguel and Primo have planted sugar cane, gardens and even grafted a sweet, juicy orange variety on to a hardy “pig” orange tree. I walked up the hill to find orange blossoms blooming around the fishpond.

Inez told Eddie last week that it is his desire to bless his community with the oranges he is growing. His family is an example of how “new vision” and hope can give life to the region.

Please pray for Erik, Aiden and Lucas!

As I write this I am revising my mobile formulary and preparing the mobile clinic for tomorrow. Yesterday Eddie and I drove to Huatulco to pick Dave and Mary Kay Ness from the airport. They were with their son Erik and his family. Erik’s wife Cindy succumbed to breast cancer two weeks ago after a nearly three years of courageous living. Cindy left Aiden 9 years and Lucas 7 years. Please pray for all of them as they learn to live in a world without wife and mother.

ORU students leave for Tulsa

Eddie is delivering the ORU nursing students to the airport as I write. They were one of the most amazing groups of young people, so unified, so filled with the love of Jesus. I will miss them. Here they are with us in El Mosco!

Psalm 139

Please pray for me. I have been experiencing extended bouts of chronic muscle and joint pain. God has been so faithful to carry me through the work I have been doing up in the mountains. We recognize that such times are not discouraging, but truly a blessing. It is a marvelous thing to realize you are being carried over pain and circumstance by God. It also reminds us that we are dependent on God for everything, even our strength to serve.

God bless you
Under His Mercy

P.S. Thank you Lola for some of the pictures!