Notes from Juarez #1: 09-11-06

A Soggy Beginning.

My first week in Juarez has been an exciting albeit soggy one. About a month ago, I read in the news that the El Paso/Juarez area had received some heavy rainfall and was subjected to heavy flooding. What I didn’t quite realize is that it never really stopped raining down here since then. When I arrived with my father, the land was showing the effects of a year’s worth of rain in a month: roads had turned into rivers, cars were plowing through small lakes, and some routes were impassable. And all of this was on the US side, in El Paso.

My Jeep: formerly green, now brown

Juarez was considerably worse. The dirt roads had turned into boggy swamps or huge lakes of unknown depth. In Vermont, they would call this mud season – but it was everywhere, in all parts of Juarez. At one point in time, with eight people in my car, I plunged into what seemed like a shallow puddle. The car kept going down, and the water kept coming up – washing over the hood and then up over the windshield. Thankfully, everything kept running, and my car emerged muddy yet otherwise unscathed. I’m quickly learning to be grateful for my “cuatro por cuatro” (4x4).

Flooding in Anapra

A doll, found in the mud in Anapra

Not all of Juarez has been so lucky. Last week, some of the other LCI (Life Challenge International) staff and I helped out at a free medical clinic in Anapra, a community on the other side (western side) of Juarez. Doctor Méndez, the clinician who runs the free clinics, visits 20+ sites every month, treating patients and handing out basic medications. I was able to help with the pharmacy side of things, writing directions on bottles and counting pills. Like many houses in Anapra, the house in which we held the clinic had been flooded and filled with mud just days before. The water lines – about four feet up the side of the room – were still visible. Pastor Joel, one of the Mexican pastors with whom LCI has a close relationship, had taken a team out to Anapra before I reached Juarez, helping to dig out homes from the flooding and mudslides. Some of the houses still await excavation.

Chavira at sunset

Since then, things have dried out quite a bit. I’m currently living with David, a classmate from Middlebury and my soon-to-be next door neighbor, in Chavira, a small community on the southeast border of Juarez. In Mexican terms, Chavira is a little bit behind even the surrounding neighborhoods (some of which have paved roads and phone service). I’ve been spending my time meeting people, getting a computer ready to donate to the community’s school tomorrow, taking people to doctors’ appointments, and helping with the aforementioned free clinic. In these first few weeks, my real challenge is to get to know people. It’s like starting at a new school or a new job: a thousand names and faces to learn.

The community center in Chavira

A makeshift pharamacy

Despite these challenges and others (for example, living with the creepy-crawly fauna that inhabits David’s house), the first week in Juarez has been everything that I’ve expected and more. I look forward to sharing more with you as I grow in this place, get to know the people and the culture and the community.

Thank you also to those who have been supporting me already, in prayer and in financial contributions. For those who are praying, I thought that I’d end my letter with a few prayer requests:

• For my adjustment here, as I learn to live in a new culture and try to open myself up for friendships with all of my neighbors (who have been exceedingly hospitable).
• For the people of Anapra, Chavira, and all of Juarez, for many of whom the recent rounds of flooding have been yet another difficult trial to endure.
• For spiritual growth and direction for myself and for LCI’s ministry, as we continue to seek God’s guidance in the things that we learn and do each day.

Notes from Juarez #2: 09-25-06

Building a Home.

Soon, I might have a place to live. For the last couple of weeks, I've been without a home. Of course, I could always go back to Pennsylvania, or stay with any number of people around here - but homeless in the transient, no-place-to-call-my-own sense of the word. Sleeping on couches, relying on others… I can see how this would wear on a person, like it does on the millions upon millions of people in the world who do this year-round. I've been staying mostly with David in his house in Carlos Chavira, a colonia (neighborhood) on the southeastern outskirts of Juarez.

If you're viewing this on the website, you can see some pictures of the construction of the actual house that I will hopefully soon live in. We (the gringos) helped to pour a second layer on the roof, and the stucco on the inside of the house was done by David's next-door neighbor.

Pouring the roof on my future house.

Alan works the mixer.

The short-term missionary inside of me wants to build it all myself, or with a team of Americans. After all, that's what short-term teams do, right? We put up concrete blocks, we stucco and paint, we do whatever needs to be done, and we leave behind a tangible reminder of our presence. But, by contracting out the work, our neighbors get a job, while we get to work alongside them. (And the work is usually done better than we short-term folks can do it anyway).

This can make things difficult. What if the newly-Christian roofer doesn't do the job right the first time, requiring a second pour and extra expenses? What if the money that goes to a neighbor goes towards drinking instead of paying bills? These are questions that we're learning to deal with as they arise. And, if we're taken advantage of, maybe that's acceptable under these circumstances.

Stucco.

I try to remind myself when things like that happen that the goal here is not to build a palace of cedar and vermillion at the lowest possible cost. It's strange how being down here can change your perspective. The pictures of the inside of my future house (if you ignore the mess) show about as much floor space as a double-wide trailer; maybe a little bit less. Yet his house, when it's done, will be one of the biggest in the neighborhood. And I'm living alone, not with a wife and four or five kids.

Future main room.

Future front / storage room

My future bedroom.

My future bathroom

In the future, the house may be used as part of an exercise facility that LCI envisions in Chavira, or as a living space for our organization's missionaries-in-training program. For now, though, we're trying to build a home. In looking through medical school information, I've been trying to find a good definition for my legal residence - my home. One that I found says that a home is "the place to which, upon leaving, you intend to return."

Great definition, I know. But I still think about it, when I sit outside and the sun goes down and kids are playing in the street, or music's playing in the background when the tamale wagon goes by in the morning. When I drive or walk by, people wave and say hello to me now. Neighbors greet me by name. David talks about missing Chavira when he's gone for too long, and I can start to feel that too. When I drive back up the hill to Chavira after having been in El Paso overnight, I'm glad to be back. Chavira is where I intend to return whenever I leave.

Kids and a puppy.

They're my next-door neighbors.

Chavira is the place that I want to make my home. If that means being taken advantage of, or the job not being done well, then so be it. I'm learning that having a home in Chavira isn't going to be measured by the structural integrity of the walls and roof of my house (although those things will certainly be nice) but rather by the quality of my relationships with my neighbors. And I realize that if I look towards the first things first, my food and drink (and walls and roof) will be provided for me.

Thank you all again for your support, and please continue in prayer for us as a ministry. We're having an organizational banquet in a week or so in order to share our ministry and raise support; we could certainly use prayer for that. For me, personally, I've been a little under the weather recently (comes with the territory, I know); prayers for health would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you once again,

         Jon

How cute!

And one more for the road.

P.S. - I know that the pictures of kids with a dog are completely unrelated to this letter. I thought that they were some pretty good shots, though. Plus - they're kids. With a puppy.

Notes from Juarez #3: 12-03-06

Cuerpo y Alma.

This update is the first of two parts, which reflect two of the biggest things that have happened here in my life in Juarez during the last few months. November saw the opening of the Gimnasio Cuerpo y Alma (Body and Soul Gym) here in Chavira, which David has been praying for and working towards for the past few years.

The happy couple and the ring of power

David, to refresh your memory, is a fellow Middlebury alumnus who's been working down here for the last few years. The last few months have also been filled with excitement for him and for Jen, a fellow LCI staff worker - they're now engaged to be married in February. For me, that means that I'll probably have to move out of his house by then.

Thankfully, the construction on my house (which I wrote about in the last update) is going extremely well. My moving in has been delayed for a month, as we've rented/loaned the house to a family from down the street while their roof is repaired.

The second exciting event was the first Life Challenge medical clinic that I've gotten to take part in. Thanks to a group from Longview, TX, we held clinic for three and a half days in Chavira. I'll write about that next week, and I then hope to start writing every two weeks.

I. Opening

One of the things that I've been learning down here is that mission work is an exercise in patience. When resources are short and construction goes slowly, projects lay unfinished in the community. The community, as a result, starts to wonder if anything will ever result from all of the work that's been done.

The November opening of the Gimnasio Cuerpo y Alma, or the Body and Soul Gym, in Carlos Chavira - just down the street from my house - was a huge encouragement to our ministry. A team from Longview, Texas put the finishing touches on the gym. We held the grand opening on the Wednesday of their trip: a party with carnival games, strength contests, music, and the first sign-up session for new members. The day represented the fulfillment of a vision that David has had for Chavira over the past few years. The months of a hollow building in the center of the colonia ended and a new ministry began.

One of the first members signs up on the gym's opening night

The gym, with one of the cholos waiting outside

More than 70 people have signed up so far, and about 20 have purchased their photo IDs (which cost 10 pesos, or about 90 cents). The gym costs 40 pesos/week, and the money goes towards the operating expenses. The costs will hopefully allow the gym to become financially independent, so that it can continue to function after we Americans leave. The vision is to have a constructive, athletic environment where we can build relationships with and between people in the community.

As the above verse from 1 Timothy explains, well-built bodies are only a side-effect in the vision for the gym. The gym's environment is conducive to ministry: understanding the source of spiritual strength, respecting the body as a possession of God's, and learning spiritual perseverance all connect naturally with working out.

II. Persevering

The first few weeks have been immensely blessed by God but have not been without their challenges. The membership has grown slowly but steadily, allowing for personal training of each of the new members.

Recently, though, there have been some disruptions. One of the major target groups of the ministry are the cholos, or gang members in the neighborhood. In the months that the gym lay vacant, the cholos claimed the area as their own. They still congregate there, huffing paint thinner at night, but now we're there too. We've gotten to spend more time and interact more with them because of the gym. Some of them have even paid for a membership and, as we've hoped, worked out with us for a while.

David and Toño, lifting weights

All kinds of donated machines in the gym

Some of the guys, though, are more disruptive. Nobody goes out at night, when we have the gym, so they have the run of the streets. They throw rocks at the doors, disconnect the electricity to the gym, throw fireworks into the gym, and run inside when the police come to take them downtown.

The police come pretty regularly to Chavira at night. Recently, the battles between the cholos and police have escalated, to the point of rocks being thrown by the cholos and shots fired by the police. We're praying for the safety of the guys that we're trying to minister to, the safety of the gym and its members, and the actions of the police. All of this disrupts the gym and its ministry.

But in all of this, God has been faithful. I understand more and more what the Psalmists mean when they write about God as a protector, a strong tower, a refuge, a fortress. The ministry is just beginning. When the police and gangs are fighting outside, when the cold or fear keeps people away, we take to heart the words of the author of Hebrews:

There are people watching us, and we continue in the faith that God will continue to bless the gym, the cholos, and our ministry. We'll be starting classes for women (in the mornings) and children (on Saturdays) with the New Year. Please keep us in prayer: for safety, for continued growth in the ministry, and more than anything for the seeds that we sow at the gym will bear fruit. We pray towards the day that we'll see a transformation of body and soul in Chavira. Thank you all also for the continued financial support, as all of this ministry depends on it, and stay tuned for another update in the next week.

Thanks,

         Jon

Notes from Juarez #4: 03-21-07

Life happens.

I should really start this all out with an apology. I hope that my negligence in updating all of you hasn't been interpreted as a lack of desire to communicate with you. In fact, I've gotten a chance to see some of you, talk to some of you, and share with some of you in person and via letters over the past few months. When I communicate with some of you, however, it means that I don't get a chance to share with the rest of you - and I honestly believe that one of my biggest responsibilities is to share what God's doing down here with all of you. I have been busy, though, and I'll try to pick up some of the slack right now.

Picking out Christmas gifts at the Chavira toy sale

Christmas in Juarez was great - David's parents were down, and the Kaufmanns were kind enough to invite me over on Christmas day. Before Christmas, we had the opportunity to do a gift distribution at the community center in Chavira. In the past, we and other organizations have gone around and given gifts to kids for Christmas, without realizing that we were cutting parents out of the picture entirely. Last year and this year, we organized a more community-based way to distribute donated gifts. The women' s group sold gifts to the fathers in the community, so that the parents could give their children gifts (instead of watching Americans fill that joyful position). As I woke up on Christmas day, I saw children in the street outside my house playing with those same toys.

In January, I took a few weeks off to interview at medical schools. The results so far have been promising, and I'm still waiting to hear for final decisions from a few schools.

Me and Frank Krall's team from Windsor, Ontario

I've also had the great opportunity to work with some different teams. It's been a lot of responsibility and a lot of work, but more than all of that it's been a great blessing. The annual Middlebury team came down from Vermont in early February. I had the privilege of working closely with them, and they were great. From the downtown scavenger hunt to the mountain climbing to the overnight home-stays with Chavira families, the week was packed. Just last week, I worked with a ten-person team from Canada. We worked at a nursing home and did construction, but the best part of the week was the constant fellowship and learning. We've got a few more teams coming in over the next couple weeks. I'll be pitching in whenever I can.

Graduates from last winter's Escuela Abierta ceremony

What else, what else… Jen and David got married. I've been visiting medical facilities and trying to make a plan of action. I might be going to Guatemala on a medical mission trip at the end of the summer. In the first week of January, I translated for a medical mission trip from the Baylor School of Nursing. I've rushed people to the doctor with feverish infant twins, lacerated fingers, intense stomach pain, and all manners of illnesses in children and adults. I moved into my new house and continue to try to do all kinds of construction things that I don't know how to do, in order to make the house more livable. We had a graduation for our Escuela Abierta graduates, who completed their middle-school or elementary-school equivalencies - or both - through an LCI-run program. I've been hanging out with kids and adults, helping with vacation bible school when possible, and tossing the idea around in my head of starting a youth group.

There's more, and I'm forgetting it - but this should catch you up on some of what's been happening. Drop me an email - jmosser(at)gmail(dot)com - or find some other way to get in touch with me, so that we can talk more. As always, thanks for your support in prayer and encouragement.

God Bless,

Jon

Notes from Juarez #5: June 2007

Support Mailing #2.

I find it hard to believe that we've already reached June, and that I've been in Juarez for almost ten months. The last five months in particular have passed entirely too quickly. I feel like Christmas and New Year were just yesterday.

This feeling might be due to all of the things that have happened so far in 2007. In January, I spent two weeks interviewing at medical schools throughout the northeast. In February, I lost a housemate and gained a next-door neighbor as David (my close friend, who I lived with in the fall) married Jen (who also works for Life Challenge). I moved next door, which means that work on my house consumed (and is consuming) much of my time. In March, I returned to the PA area for an interview at Johns Hopkins; in April, I visited Vermont for Brittany's birthday; in May, I visited Johns Hopkins and Penn in order to decide between the two schools. And finally, I've just returned from Brittany's sister's wedding in Alabama.

So, in terms of my personal life, 2007 has been an exciting year of weddings and major decisions. I know where I'll be going to medical school: Johns Hopkins in the Fall of 2008 (the school gave me a deferment to work down here in Juarez for another year). All of this travel, however, disconnects me from Juarez and my neighbors in Chavira, and it's an unpleasant feeling. Now that these things are all taken care of, however, I'm here for the next couple of months without a break. And, as always, I extend an open invitation for anyone who wants to visit - I'd love to show any and all of you what we're doing down here.

My other regret from these months of managed chaos has been that I've failed to keep in touch with all of you. I've been reading through some of Paul's letters in the New Testament - he's always sharing what's going on in his life, what God's teaching him, and how people can help (like asking for prayer support in the verse above). I need to follow that example, even when this work seems all-consuming. Granted, Paul had some free time to write some of those letters - in prison. Thankfully, God hasn't yet used that strategy to get me to write to all of you.

With all of this, it sometimes feels like I haven't been in Juarez at all. When I look back on the year so far, however, God has done some great things down here. I've worked with a number of short-term teams, and helped to lead two week-long trips. I've continued some of my regular activities, like helping to teach an "escuelita" (kids' Bible club) with Jen on Tuesdays, and helping David with the gym in the evenings.

As I've gotten settled, I've also been able to work more in the area of health care, which has been a blessing. I've had the opportunity to translate for two visiting American medical teams. I spent a day in the Juarez jail, managing the pharmacy for a clinic held on Mother's Day. And I've been communicating with incoming medical teams to start planning their upcoming trips to Juarez.

Maybe the most exciting development has been the new "Club de Ancianos Abraham y Sara" (the Abraham and Sarah Club for the Elderly). Dr. Mendez - a physican from Juarez - and I started a regular clinic here in Chavira. Every two weeks, we see primarily geriatric patients along with some families and individuals. We're trying to help fill the gap for elderly patients who don't have insurance or don't use it because they can't travel to the health center in downtown Juarez. The clinic has been a great opportunity to try out some of the things that I've been learning over the last few months. We're keeping medical records, writing clear prescriptions, and learning about how to effectively integrate our care with the Mexican health care system.

I hope that all of you are well. I'd like to repeat my earlier invitation - come to Mexico and visit! I haven't had many visitors come down, but it's always great when people that I know get to see this place that I love. I have so much more that I'd like to write about. For now, though, this letter is long enough.

I hope to supplement this general overview with some specifics about the last few months, via email and the internet. If you're not on my email list and would like to be, please let me know (jmosser_at_gmail.com). You can also check my website (http://mexico.jonmosser.com) for updates and to see some photos. And, as always, thank you for your support.

"Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you."

(2 Thessalonians 3:16)

God Bless,

Jon

Notes from Juarez #6: 07-13-07

Health Care.

* * *

I can hear the air. I can hear the dogs in the street. I can hear your keys rattling.

Hanging in the shade of the LCI medical trailer, in Chavira

We spent three and a half days working in three different communities, partnering with local pastors and missionaries to care for the patients. The team listened to, diagnosed, prayed with, and gave prescriptions to around 350 patients over the course of the trip - all free of charge. In addition, part of the team performed hearing exams and fit patients with solar-powered hearing aids.

Sporting the new hearing aid

Before this week, I'd never had the opportunity to be present when somebody with hearing loss puts on a hearing aid for the first time. Now, I have a new understanding of what it must have been like for the deaf men that Jesus healed. These patients wept, and smiled, and thanked the doctors again and again.

Working the pharmacy

On Thursday, our last day of clinic, we fit two guards from the juvenile detention center in Chavira with hearing aids. One of the guards, a woman, had just became a Christian about a week before - at the same church at which we were working. With tears of joy, she ran back to her post, convinced that this device was really a gift from God. The second guard saw what she had received and came over to the church, to get a hearing exam. He also received a hearing aid. When the doctor pinned the solar-powered device to his uniform, the guard asked how much it would cost. He refused to believe that it was free.

Dr. Greinwald, fitting one of the guards with a hearing aid

I don't know exactly what was going through the guard's mind, but many of the other hearing aid recipients reacted in the same way. This is mine? This is free? The miracle of being able to hear was joined by another miracle - that someone would travel the whole way from Ohio to give them an expensive device, to bless them in this way. I talked with the male guard later, and he told me how amazing it was in the moment that he first used the hearing aid. I could hear even the dogs barking out in the street! And then he asked questions that, for me, summed up the reason why we do medical mission trips: What kind of church is this? Are you Christians? Why would you come the whole way down here just to give this hearing aid away?

Waiting for the day to start in Chavira

This is the second medical trip that I've coordinated from Mexico since I've been down. I spoke with the leaders of this last team, and we know that God has big plans for our health care program down here. Over the next couple of weeks, we'll be working on laying out the specifics of this vision, so that we can start to implement it over the fall. I'd greatly appreciate your support in prayer over this time. Also, I'll be heading to Guatemala on August 4-12 to help translate for a medical mission trip, so prayers for safe travel are greatly appreciated.

Thank you all again for your support. Every one of you helped to make this last trip possible by supporting me, and there are 350 patients in Juarez whose lives have been touched in the last week because of it.

God bless,

Jon Mosser

Notes from Juarez #7: 09-10-07

The Short-Term Trip.

Kids have the same expressions, no matter where you go.

In recent months, the above verses have been at the center of my thoughts about my time down here. Like anybody who's worked with short-term medical missions, I sometimes wonder about the effectiveness of week-long trips. Can a team really impact a community's health care in a week? Are short-term teams an effective ministry? After all, the team serves for a few days and then leaves. What remains?

Working the pharmacy.

But in these verses, Jesus sends out seventy-two disciples for what is essentially short-term mission (with a medical component, even). There are three things that really encourage me about this passage:

1. With God's help, short-term care can be effective. Jesus instructs his disciples to heal the sick, not just to make them feel better for a short while. Obviously, short-term mission has limits (medically speaking), but God is perfectly capable of filling in the gaps in what we can do.
2. After caring for physical illness, the disciples are instructed just to tell the people that "the kingdom of God is near you." They're responsible for planting the seed, not for staying around for years to watch it grow and harvest it. Jesus said, "the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true." (John 4:37). Short term missionaries can sow pretty easily; tending the crops and harvesting takes more than a week.
3. The seventy-two only have to plant the seed because Jesus is about to go to all of those towns and places. If short-term missions can plant the seed, God will take care of it. Like Paul said, "neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow" (1 Corinthians 3:7).

Kids doing crafts at VBS.

So in that spirit, Dr. Mendez, Margarita (one of the girls that we work with from the Felipe Angeles side of town), and I headed down to Guatemala in the first week of August for a short-term medical trip. People Building People, the ministry that had the July clinic here in Juarez, has recently started to host trips to Guatemala as well. They asked us to go along to serve alongside them.

In the course of that week in Ciudad Vieja (which is a town on the outskirts of Antigua, composed of steep hills, beautiful and lush and green, and small bamboo huts intermingling with concrete block stores and houses, all ringed by towering volcanoes), we saw more than 300 patients. The team also built a house for a widow and had a children's ministry, with balloons and crafts and handbells. We worked with two missionaries who had been in Guatemala planting churches for seventeen years. We worked in the second church that they had planted - now run by a group of Guatemalans, with a gifted, charismatic Guatemalan pastor. In the basement of the church, in the Sunday school rooms, we made our registration desk and our physician's office and our pharmacy.

Another kid, taking a break from helping to build a house.

Giving statistics always fails to explain the humanity of health care ministry. Consider these six patients that we saw during the week:

1. A widow of one year, whose husband had died of diabetes because he believed (according to the local, traditional "witch-doctor"-type tribal figure) that insulin makes you go blind.
2. A mother, overwhelmed with her children, distressed by past abuse by her father, shaken by ongoing strife with her husband, who came in, sat down with the doctor, and confessed that she had been feeling suicidal.
3. A grandfather, stooped with Parkinson's, who left at six o'clock in the morning and hobbled along steep, cobblestone streets to traverse the three blocks between his house and our clinic. It took him more than three hours. (We found him a ride back to his house).
4. An elementary-school-aged boy, born with an abscess at the base of his brain, which caused one of his brain's hemispheres not to develop, with behavioral problems and developmental delays as a result. There were no special schools for him to go to, no way to afford therapy, no way to afford surgery when it would have helped.

The Juarez / Life Challenge contingent, on a hill overlooking Antigua.
5. A father, burned awfully on the inner thighs and crotch by would-be robbers, who were so frustrated by the lack of things to steal in his house that they poured boiling water onto him as he slept. It was the first time in his fifty-plus years of life that he had seen a doctor.
6. A woman, separated from her husband and pregnant with another man's child, who wanted to hide the pregnancy from her mother but was bleeding and only in her second trimester. The doctor feared a placental abruption but she refused to go to the hospital, begging for medication, and in the end, with a heavy heart, he had to send her away.

I am in awe of the tremendous range of the health care providers with whom I worked during the week in Guatemala. From the list above, you can see that they served as counselors, as educators, as developmental therapists, as wound-care providers, as doctors and nurses and pharmacists and translators. It was a privilege to work with them, as it always is when I work with the exceptional Christian men and women who dedicate their time to God's work in the mission field. I can only believe that Jesus was as happy after they returned home as when he welcomed the seventy-two back (Luke 10:17-24).

The house is done!

And I am in awe of God, who put us there in that place at just the right time for many of those patients. I have confidence that, although our capability to treat many patients was limited, He can use the work that we were able to do to further His kingdom. And, he can fill in the gaps in the care that we gave. One sows and another reaps - but God makes the seed grow.

As I start my second (and final) year in Juarez, our ministry is in the process of defining our vision and goals for the health care program. I expect the fall to be full of meetings, conference calls, and hopefully discernment as we develop a strategic plan for LCI's health care program. In this process, I'd greatly appreciate your prayers.

I just returned from three weeks at home, in PA and VT, and I was so glad to see many of you. I hope to be home again, briefly, over Christmas, and I'd love to see anyone that I missed. As I enter my second year, I want to thank you all again for your support in prayer, in encouragement, and in finance. You have been abundantly generous in all three, and it sustains me in ways that I can't begin to explain.

To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

Jon

Notes from Juarez #8: 10-10-07

September.

This month, it's a little more difficult for me to write an update. There hasn't been any major event that defined September, 2007, aside from the one-year anniversary of my arrival in Juarez (first week of September, 2006). I can still remember the long, somewhat anxious drive from York through West Virginia, Tennessee, through Little Rock, Dallas, the flats of Texas, and finally seeing the Franklin mountains rise up over the horizon as we drove down I-10, marking the arrival in El Paso.

But this month has been full of "different kinds of working." Life Challenge has just begun a process of organizational definition and development, and that's taking up a good bit of my time this fall: working on policies and procedures, developing a new web page, and designing forms.

Blindfolded LCI staff members trying to find the right voice to follow.

As part of this process, we took a weekend staff retreat to Aspendale Retreat Center in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, where we worked through mission statements and vision statements and other such exercises, all required so that the organization can grow and stand on a solid foundation for years to come. Cloudcroft is only a few hours from Juarez, but it's an entirely different world: mountains and pine trees and clear air. It's like a little chunk of Vermont, right at the edge of a desert.

The cabin where we stayed at Aspendale.

Life in Chavira keeps going. David and Jen got a new dog, Daisy, who is quite entertaining. My house is in great shape, thanks to so many of you and our support. The roof still leaks a little bit, but other than that I feel tremendously comfortable inside. (It doesn't rain so much here, so I've been procrastinating on fixing the roof). It's definitely turned into more of a home than a project, which has been much appreciated. I spend a lot of time at home these days, just working on different things for Life Challenge and doing the needed planning for the health care program.

Daisy.

I'm excited about the health care program. Going along with the development theme for the fall, I've been focusing on defining the health care program, our goals and visions, and the projects that we'll be working on in the near future. I'll be going to a medical missions conference in Louisville in November, where I hope to get even more ideas about what we can do. We've gotten some more leads on health care groups who might be coming down with us, which is encouraging as well. More than anything, I'm hoping that we can get to such a place that the health care program continues - and strongly - after I leave next summer.

Speaking of which, if anybody out there wants to serve God as Life Challenge's health program coordinator next year, please let me know. We need somebody to pick up where I leave off, and we're starting the search process this fall.

Daisy again.

And one last thing: I spent last Saturday in the Mexican jail (Centro de Readaptación Social, or CeReSo) running the pharmacy for a team of Mexican doctors. It was a great experience, the second time that I've been there but the first time without Dr. Mendez.

Being in the CeReSo on my own made me reflect on a lot of the things that have happened in the last year: I never would have had the connections, the opportunity, or the skills to do something like that in September 2006. For all the things that I've had the chance to do, I'm extremely grateful for all of your support. Thanks!

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

Jon

Notes from Juarez #9: 11-14-07

Four days in Chavira.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

Thursday:

Victor is sick, and I pull up to his house with my Jeep. His dad is an alcoholic, who speaks some English, so when he's stumbling around the streets after drinking rubbing alcohol (or beer, if he's got some money that day), he shouts out to us, "You know me? You know me?"

Victor's mom is a quiet lady, a Christian, who still lives with the father even after all of these years. They have no income, and they live out on the edge of Chavira that hasn't yet benefited from the development that the rest of the colonia enjoys. The one-room house is surrounded by pallet fences. I park on the side by the outhouse. Victor and his father and his sister (who I've never met before) come out of the house.

Victor is skin and bones, forty or fifty pounds lighter than when I met him a year ago. He's like a skeleton. He has biggish ears, and the other kids in the gang call him "Smurf." His face is riddled with acne now. Victor is 16.

About a month ago, he was shot in both thighs during a fight on a Friday night. He's recovered from that, they tell me, but he's had abdominal pain for months now.

We've gone for blood tests, for other tests, to hospitals and clinics, and Dr. Mendez and I have made repeated house calls. Now he's wasting away. He has cancer, as it turned out, and there's nothing that can be done now. He's been throwing up, dark black, all day.

The three get to my car, and Victor throws up, everywhere. His mother goes for a bucket. Victor's sister climbs into the front seat, and Victor lays in the back of my Jeep, with his head in his father's lap.

We are at the hospital. Victor's dad and I spend an hour, an hour and a half, waiting for an empty bed and a wheelchair. Victor's dad is sober and gentle today. We talk about his family, his life, his children. The dad stays at the hospital, although he can only visit his son during two one-hour visiting times. He can't stay at his son's side overnight.

I take Victor's sister (her name is Maria) back to Chavira. We ride in silence and she tries not to cry. I find out later that she's my age - 23 - with four children. She ran away from home at 12, was pregnant by 14. Her husband drank, beat her, burned down their house in a rage while she was inside with her kids. They all got out in time, but the husband was burned badly. I find all of this out later, from a lady in New Mexico who helped get her out of the relationship. The husband still tries to track her down, is still abusive. Maria just left the women's shelter that she was staying in, to be with the family while Victor is sick.

Friday:

Jen brings Victor back from the hospital. The hospital doesn't have an oncologist, so the doctors offer to refer him to a specialist. They say it probably wouldn't do much good, and the family can't afford it, anyway.

Victor isn't much better. They just gave him some IV fluids. He goes back to laying in the bed where he's been. He's still skin and bones. His eyes have a hollow look.

Friday night:

Jen tells me that a woman is sick, a few houses down. I go over to her house. Some of the neighbors are gathered around her bed. She's in pain. They tell me that they found farewell letters written to her family, on a table nearby.

We ask her what happened. She just says she wants to die. I find out from the neighbors that she has a liver disease, and that her husband left her for another woman. We want to take her to a doctor, but she says that we need to wait - to wait until her husband comes to see her. Jen and some of the ladies go to try to find the husband.

We suspect that she might have taken too much medicine, or might be attempting suicide. Then, she says that she took some rat poison - that she swallowed it. We load her into my Jeep. She's slumped over.

I drive, fast, to the Red Cross. She's not responding when we arrive. We rush her inside. The doctors look her over, and they say that it's just a cry for help - real victims of rat poisoning would be foaming at the mouth, and dead within fifteen minutes. (I find out later that this isn't true, that warfarin is slow-acting and easily reversed by administration of vitamin K. I consider mailing the doctors a poison control brochure).

Once inside, the woman denies her earlier statement. We take her back to Chavira. The neighbor women take shifts, staying with her all night, and into the next day, making sure she's not alone.

Saturday:

Nothing eventful happens. I work on my house, catch up on some work from the past week, and watch some football with some neighbor kids.

Sunday:

I go to church at Pastor Joel's, on the other side of town. A team from Canada is visiting. We make arrangements to tour Chavira after the service. They follow me home, and I take them around the neighborhood.

Halfway through the tour, Alma stops me and tells me that Victor is really sick again. I wrap the tour up, and head for Victor's house. Alma stops me again.

Victor died. He was sixteen.

I call Jen, who is in El Paso. I go over to the family's house. I give people rides to pick up Victor's friends, Victor's family. We pray with the family. Victor's mom hugs me when I arrive, and cry. His dad sits by the bed, right by his son, with his hand on his son's, not moving, not leaving.

Jen comes back, bringing coffee for the vigil, which is held at the church across from the community center. The ladies of the community go house-to-house, eventually collecting enough money to cover the funeral cost.

I give Maria and some of the ladies a ride to the funeral home. They take care of all of the arrangements. The funeral people come, take Victor to the funeral home, and return in a few hours with the casket.

The vigil starts. Neighbors bring food, make coffee, talk. Victor's friends - gang kids - make a bonfire outside. When the casket arrives, they take turns standing by it.

Maria cries and cries in the church over her brother's casket. Victor's dad gets drunk. He comes to the vigil and sobs; huge, deep, sorrowful noises.

Later that week:

The vigil continues until the funeral is held a few days later, out in the desert, in the least expensive cemetery available. The whole community shows up. A few days later, things return to (more or less) normal.

Epilogue:

On the day after Halloween, I take Maria to the border crossing in New Mexico with her son, who has congenital glaucoma and had to have his eye replaced with a prosthetic a few months ago. They have a permit to cross for doctor's visits for his eye. We talk in the car, about life, about her time in the shelter, about her hopes for the future. She plays with her son at the border station: counting games, color games.

Maria tells me about these dreams she has, over and over again, the same dream. She's young, and she's running away from something. She's on the rooftops of a neighborhood, and she leaps from roof to roof, always running, always running away. She leaps from roof to roof, jumping farther each time. And then she jumps and she doesn't come down. Gravity loses its hold on her, and she flies, soars.

She tells me that she's never been on a plane, but someday she wants to see if flying is like that dream. I tell her she'll probably be disappointed. She laughs, and she says that others have told her the same, but she wants to see for herself.

Maria took a writing class while she was at the shelter. Once, the teacher typed up something that she wrote, and gave her a printed copy, with her name on it. Wouldn't it be wonderful, she says, to have a book, with her own name on it, of things that she has written.

C.S. Lewis writes in the Screwtape Letters (and I paraphrase loosely) that comfortableness is one of the great obstacles that stands between humanity and God. God, Lewis explains, is a God of real and pure experience: real joy, real love, and real suffering. This experience is manifest in the incarnation, made complete in the cross.

So, until that day when Maria writes her novel, here are four days in Chavira. They reminded me of the experiences that people live through every day in this world, more poignant than any novel, more real than any play.

Notes from Juarez #10: 12-10-07

Feliz Navidad

Do you not know?
   Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God.
   The creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
   and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
   and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
   and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
   will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
   they will run and not grow weary,
   they will walk and not be faint.

This update will be a little more scattered than some of the other ones have been, mainly because I'm hoping to send out a Christmas update via postal mail before I leave El Paso for York on December 19. I thought I'd do it in a news-blurb kind of format, just to be able to squeeze everything that's been going on into one update.

Part of our joint LCI-PBP display at GHMC 2007

In November, I had the great opportunity of attending the Global Health Missions Conference at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY. There were thousands of people there, from career missionaries to doctors to students. People Building People and Life Challenge collaborated to host a booth, where we were able to share our combined ministry in Juarez with hundreds of attendees. Through the plenary sessions and small group talks, I was able to gather some amazing resources that will really be a blessing to Life Challenge for the next few months that I'm here and for the medical program after I leave. It was also a great encouragement and inspiration to be around so many amazing men and women for those few days. Thanks to my Aunt Paige and Uncle Johnnie for making the trip possible!

Dr. Mendez and I have been working on developing the "Club de Ancianos" idea. In the last few weeks, a few great things have been coming together, and I'm excited for what the new year might hold. We've got our first community volunteer, an excited but shy eighteen-year-old girl who's interested in nursing, and I've just recently found out about a Mexican governmental program to provide free training for would-be nurse assistants. Combining those types of training into the Club de Ancianos would be huge, not just for my sanity (as we need more help) but also to have a lasting impact in the community. All told, we've provided 300 patient consults since the Club started in March -- and that's not even counting when American teams have been in town. All with medical records & growing relationships, too!

A little girl gives it her all at LCI's 2007 Tapias Christmas Party

The last few months have been busy for me as the health programs coordinator, as I've been trying to work on a number of projects in LCI's health care program. We might have somewhere around 5 medical teams next year (for comparison, we've had two teams come down through LCI in the first 15 months that I've been down here) and we're working on recruiting more. If you know any opthamologists or optometrists, we're looking for eye care teams!

To better serve these teams, I'm working with Elizabeth (our short-term teams coordinator) to put together a handbook for incoming health care teams. I've also been working on getting our staff first-aid trained, researching health insurance options for staff, and trying to figure out how to fundraise for this whole program.

Chavira's community center, backlit in twilight

Chavira is still Chavira. One thing that I'm really excited about is the nascent Escuela Abierta for 10-14 year olds who dropped out of elementary school. We're going to be having study times in our houses (David, Jen, and I) for the kids, to help encourage them to get back on track academically -- or at least be able to read and write.

Also, I'll soon be starting to teach guitar at Pastor Fernando's church on Mondays. I'm excited to get back to playing a bit more and to be more involved in that church (I usually go to Pastor Joel's, on the other side of town).

Mom & Priscilla

My brother and my parents both visited this fall, which was great. I really enjoyed having them see my newly remodeled house (now with a hot water heater and a fridge that doesn't let my food spoil weekly)! It was great to get to share what's going on here. And the invitation is open to everybody! I know that there's some interest in a group from FPC York coming down, and that would be amazing.

I'll be home for Christmas from Dec 19-Jan 9, but the last week or so of that will probably be spent in Middlebury. Please give me a call or drop me an email if you want to catch up while I'm in York or Middlebury.

I'm entering the home stretch, and I really appreciate everybody's support. I hope to finish strong in my last 6 months or so in Juarez. Thanks again!

Notes from Juarez #11: 02-13-08

Learning.

Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?

Greetings once again from Juarez. I was doing pretty well there for a while, and then I missed January's update. In my own defense, I was in York and Middlebury for part of December and January, which was a welcome time at home with family and friends.

I had only been back in Juarez for a few days when the Amigo Relief dental team arrived to work in Chavira's community center for a week. The team was split between Mexican and Canadian health care providers. LCI filled the "community host" role, doing advertisements and bringing in patients from different communities for the week. I worked at the front desk for most of the time, and we attended to about 230 patients during the week.

Rellenos (not chile relleno, but the other kind)

My time at the front desk was enlightening - I now have even more respect for anybody who works as a receptionist. I couldn't seem to please anybody; everybody was pushing and shoving and wanting to get special treatment to skip the line. I found myself getting short with people, losing my patience, complaining. During that week and in the time since, I've been trying to really focus on treating people with respect, even when I might feel like they don't deserve it.

For somebody like me who always scores as a "high introvert" on Myers-Briggs personality tests, working with hundreds of people every day is a real struggle. I keep trying to remember, though, how Jesus treated one particular patient who pushed through a teeming mob and grabbed his robe (Mark 5:24-34). This compassion is something that I too often fall far short of.

Any cavities?

Over the last few weeks, I've been learning that this is really one of my weaknesses - it shows up every time I grumble if a kid knocks on my door wanting to wash my car or borrow my bike pump; it comes through when I don't want to give somebody a ride somewhere because I'm tired, or when I don't want to talk to a neighbor because I know that they'll just ask me for money. But Jesus said to Paul "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9). I'm trying to really take that one to heart, when I get discouraged about my own failings.

As for Chavira - well, it's still Chavira. I did take last Saturday off and go to see Chavira's youth soccer team. It was a really good experience, as I know about two-thirds of the team from my time down here. It was really a lot like youth soccer in the states - but without the parents, for the most part. They play for an empty stadium. I know that it's not even close to a replacement, but I was glad to be able to be there, to cheer during the game and afterwards congratulate them on a 1-1 tie.

Brushing teeth

We had the annual Middlebury team down here, and they worked out at the MIT (Missionaries in Training) campus in Chavira, building the first few steps of the ropes course. After that Saturday game, David took the soccer team out to the ropes course to do some team-building activities. I picked up some hot dogs, and we cooked them up for the kids. It was a small thing, but it represents what many of us hope will be the eventual function of that MIT campus. The kids worked together, growing in their own identities and together as a unit. The campus has the potential to be a place where those kinds of relationships are built and that kind of discipleship takes place. And most importantly, the campus could serve not only American groups but also Mexican youth groups, churches, or other organizations.

Over the wall

These are the longer-view questions that have been in my mind as of late. I'm leaving in a few months, and suddenly so many of these projects will be out of my hands. I won't be able to pipe in during discussions about the MIT campus, and I won't be able to go over to Jen's house to help out with the 10-14 year-olds in the Escuela Abierta. And I won't be working with teams, struggling with the specifics of the health care ministry, trying to figure out the direction that we should take as a program. Some of these are questions about organizational transitions; others, I'm sure, are questions about my trust in God to work things out and my own need to be in control.

These are things that I'll be working through in my mind during the next few months. We have health care teams coming down and tons of projects to take care of in the meantime, so one of my big prayer requests is to be able to find time to reflect, to take care of the transitional details, to finish well. In all of these tough questions, I'm grateful to God and to all of you for the opportunity to be down here. I am learning so much - so much - from all of this.

So in closing, I'll leave you with the verse at the top from James. I read this the other day and it reminded me of words that I hear from so many short-term mission teams. "They're so poor, but they have so much!" "Their faith is so real, so alive!" "We came to give, but we received more than we gave!" It makes me think of pastors, Christians, others that I know down here, who all have such strong convictions, unwavering faith, and inexpressible joy in their lives. They continue to be a great inspiration to me, and a great reminder of what this life is really all about.

Notes from Juarez #12: March & April 2008

Spring.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.

Greetings again from Juarez! As I wrap up my last few months down here, I've been a little lax about getting updates out. The spring has been remarkably busy down here -- some of the busiest times that I've seen yet in Juarez.

Over a span of about two months, Life Challenge hosted thirteen short-term mission teams, ranging from four members to more than eighty. We played host to over three hundred short-term team participants of all ages and from all over the US and Canada. If you do the math, that means that we often had two, three, or even four teams at the same time -- and for an organization with only about half a dozen full time staff members, that keeps us pretty busy.

The KU team, at the top of the mountain

Two of those teams were health-care focused. The first, from the University of Kansas School of Medicine, was our smallest team of the spring. Four second-year medical students gave up their spring break in order to spend a week in Juarez. I can't speak for them, but I had a great time that week. If I had gone straight from college to medical school, I would be a second-year student right now. It was great to have a little window into what I'll be doing this fall.

With the KU team, we did some new and different activities. Before starting any clinical work, the team did a customized version of our exploration day. While walking around downtown Juarez in a sort-of scavenger hunt, the team read abstracts, statistics, and other information about the health care system in Juarez. The exploration served as an experiential introduction to the health care culture here in Juarez, and the team put that knowledge to use during two days of primary care clinical work (in partnership with Dr. Mendez and a team from UT/Southwestern).

On Thursday of that week, the KU team did a health care survey in Chavira -- we went door-to-door and sampled about 40 households in order to identify some of the biggest perceived needs and barriers to care that we face in the community. At the bottom of this page, you can see some of the data that we collected. The group wrapped things up with a hike up to a cross that overlooks downtown Juarez.

The Tufts team, at the Tapias

A few weeks later, we had a large group from the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine. The team of 18 dentists and dental students (and one nurse) provided over 450 dental procedures (155 extractions, 144 restorations, 153 scalings/cleanings, ) and 200 school-age checkups to more than 560 patients during four days of work. Statistics for that team are also available below. Even more importantly, the Tufts team showed great compassion and patience during the course of the week. Working in two locations, the team provided both dental services and an opportunity to distribute Bibles, New Testaments, and the Good News.

It really doesn't hurt. Honest.

We have two more health care teams scheduled for my time down here. Those teams, the transition out of Life Challenge, and some ongoing programs with Dr. Mendez are filling up the little time I have left.

Life in Chavira goes on, although I don't get to see as much of it when teams are down. Last Saturday, the MIT campus in Chavira was the site of five baptisms from Pastor Fernando's church (Los Pasos de Jesus). It was great to see the church turn out. The young women who were baptized (including Fernando's daughter) are really a remarkable group. It's great to see young Christians enjoying their faith here in the community.

Baptized

Another Chavira highlight from my spring came during the CONCAAF women's soccer Olympic qualifying round, which was held here in Juarez. The Mexican and Canadian women's soccer teams played each other in the stadium here on the border, and we happened to have a team from Canada staying at the Tapias. I rounded up a couple of kids from Chavira, and Elizabeth got the Canadian group -- and we headed off for the game.

Our Canadian group was as conspicuous as the Mexican fans were rowdy. The Mexican fans gave the group a memorable evening, with insults and food hurled at them for the entire night. The Canadian women prevailed (to the disappointment of Omar, Raul, Liz, Margarita, and myself), and all of the team members made it out of the stadium alive.

Not everything has been fun and games on this side of the border these days. If you follow the news, you might have heard about the wave of violence in Juarez. Warring drug cartels have sparked a sharp increase in homicides, and other crimes seem to be surging as well. As of this writing, there have already been 324 homicides in 2008 -- more than there were in Juarez in all of 2007. Most of the violence has been targeted to officials, police, and drug cartel members, but there have been innocent victims as well.

The Mexican army was called in and remains in the city, as do the Federales (the Mexican FBI). It is a sobering sight to see Humvees with roof-mounted machine guns going through the city, or men in SWAT-team-type gear riding in the back of trucks with automatic weapons. But the odds of any of us being hurt are incredibly low, and God has kept us safe so far. We trust that he'll continue to do so.

Thank you for your patience through such a long update. I continue to work towards wrapping things up here -- I spent a week back in the Northeast, at Hopkins for a revisit weekend and then visiting Brittany in Vermont. But I appreciate your continued prayers, as I try to finish strong.

Statistics: KU Survey in Chavira

We asked participants what they thought was the biggest health care need in our community. The ability to go to a nearby, affordable doctor on a more regular basis seemed to be the biggest desire.



In order to get an idea of where community members usually go for health care, we asked participants where they went for health care the last time someone in their family was sick or hurt.



We asked community members what they though was missing from their last health care experience. Cost was the biggest factor, although some quality-of-care issues were also listed.



Theoretically, Mexico has universal health care coverage - all citizens should be able to get some kind of insurance through various government programs. Yet we see low enrollment levels - so we tried to figure out why.



We took a look at different insurance programs, to see what insurance coverage looks like. By breaking down the different kinds of coverage by age range, we could see both where the biggest needs were and what programs were most effective at targeting different age groups.

Statistics: Tufts Dental Team

The Tufts team saw patients from all age ranges -
here, the procedures are broken down by age group.

Notes from Juarez #13: May & June 2008

Transition.

Greetings from... York, Pennsylvania. I left El Paso on July 8th and made the long drive back to York (via Mobile, AL, where I dropped my father off at the airport and picked up Brittany). I had hoped to get this update out before I left, but we had two medical teams during my last two weeks in Juarez and I just ran out of time. When I got back to York, I had just a few days before Brittany and I travelled to London, where we stayed with her grandmother and aunt for a few weeks. Now, back in York again, I have a few days before I start medical school (August 15), and I wanted to take the opportunity to send out one last update to all of you.

Dr. Mendez talks with patients during the first Campana de Salud.

After that big wave of short-term teams in the spring, things settled down for a little bit. I had a chance to spend a little more time at home in Chavira and working on LCI's longer-term health care projects. For instance, in May we held the first Campana de Salud ("health campaign") in Chavira. Envisioned months ago by Dr. Mendez, this program aims to provide focused health interventions targeting key issues in the community. We started with a one-day diabetes outreach, providing blood glucose tests, medicine for diabetes, and both video and one-on-one education for those patients with high blood sugar. Diabetes is the leading single cause of death in Juarez, and the campaign was a great opportunity to share with our patients about the need for physical and spiritual health.

In between these events, I worked on preparations for the upcoming transition period for LCI's health care program - writing things down, making lists of contacts, communicating with Sandy (the interim health care program coordinator) and generally trying to make sense of all of the work of the last two years. Then the end of May was marked by the wedding of two good friends - Allan and Leticia. Allan is from Canada and Leticia is from Juarez, and I'd known both of them since I arrived in 2006. Their wedding was a great chance for all of us to step back from work and celebrate their new life together.

Hiking along the Sea of Cortez.

During the first week in June, immediately after the wedding, a group of four of us packed our bags and headed south from Juarez into the mountains. David, Jen, Elizabeth, and I had been talking for a while about taking a trip together, to celebrate the last two years and to see a little more of Mexico from a tourist's perspective. So we took a bus to Chihuahua and hopped on the CHEPE, the train that runs from Chihuahua through the mountains to the Sea of Cortez. The CHEPE is one of the most scenic trains in the world, and our trip didn't disappoint: the week was full of beautiful vistas, from the Copper Canyon to the ocean. The long train rides afforded us plenty of time to spend together talking and hanging out, and the week was exactly what we were looking for as we wrapped up our time together.

Returning from the CHEPE trip, I had a couple of weeks before the last two medical teams arrived. I used those weeks to continue getting ready to transition out of Juarez. Then, on June 20, the first of two People Building People teams arrived. That team served a total of 262 patients over four days in Felipe Angeles and Chavira, including a day for our elderly club, the Club de Ancianos. That first group also participated in the second of our Campanas de Salud, this time focusing on prenatal care. The group performed pregnancy tests and distributed newborn kits, nutrition and child development information, prenatal vitamins, and other educational materials. We had the opportunity to be there when half a dozen women found out that they were pregnant and to minister to them in that exciting (and sometimes frightening) time.

Dr. Mendez and PBP team members discuss a treatment plan.

The second People Building People group arrived a week later. As a change of pace, we traveled with Dr. Mendez to several churches in the local Baptist convention. This second team included occupational therapists, who were able to work with several physically handicapped and rehabilitation patients. Through house calls and special visits, these patients were able to receive a level of specialized care that would have otherwise been unavailable. In all, the group served 228 primary care and occupational therapy patients. Both People Building People groups were a joy to work with and a great way to finish up my work in Juarez - working directly with patient care, my favorite type of work over the last two years.

Neighbors.

My last two weeks in Juarez and El Paso were full of goodbyes. First, the El-Paso-based anchor group / bible study that I'd been attending for the last two years threw a goodbye party for Elizabeth and I. That anchor group had been one of the strongest support systems that I had during my two years in Juarez, and it was hard to say goodbye. My last weekend in town was 4th of July weekend, and many of us gathered to barbecue and go see the fireworks in El Paso. On the 5th, David and Jen and I held a goodbye party for the neighborhood - cooking some hot dogs and saying our farewells to the people who had been our neighbors for the last couple of years. And, after packing up my car that Monday, I drove around and said goodbye to some of the people who were staying in Chavira to continue their ministries: Manuela, Fernando, Roger. Please keep praying for them, as well as for Tim and Mike and the rest of the LCI staff.

My hardest farewells were to the kids. I took groups of kids to church with me for my last three Sundays, and one of those days I took them hiking afterwards. We did the cross hike that LCI does with teams sometimes, up an imposing mountain in the center of town. As we rolled up to the start of the climb in my Jeep, they started to have second thoughts: "No way, man." "I'm getting dizzy right here!" "I'll just stay here in the car." But with some poking and prodding, I got them out of the car and we started on the hike. Forty-five minutes later, we were on the peak, looking out over all of El Paso and Juarez and the mountain that says "Juarez: The Bible is the truth - read it."

Chavira kids on the summit of the cross hike.

They were tired, and a little wet from the rain that had swept in during our ascent, but they were impressed with what they had done together and wouldn't stop talking about it once they got back in the car. I took pictures at the summit and handed them out later that week, with an encouraging note and Phillipians 4:13 in Spanish ("Todo lo puedo en Cristo que me fortalece", I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me).

When it came time to say goodbye - not just to the kids, but to all of the people who had been such an integral part of my life for two years - it was hard for me. They kept asking when I'd be back, and I had to say that I didn't know, but it wasn't going to be like before. For two years I'd been there, watching those kids get older. During those two years in Chavira, a lot had changed in their lives, and in the lives of many of the neighbors as well. The hardest part about being gone from Chavira is just that: being gone. I don't get to be there for the big things in their lives, the births or deaths or graduations or parties, like I was for two years.

I know that I'll never know what kind of an impact, if any, I had during those two years in Chavira, but I trust that God had me there for a reason. I plan to go back, maybe next summer, to see people and catch up. But despite all the unfinished business and things I wish I had done better, I've got a deep sense of peace, that this is the right time for me to move on.

I hope to send out one more postal mailing, a sort of retrospective, but I first want to thank all of you for your prayers and support over the last two years. As one final request, I just ask that you keep praying for all of the people that I've mentioned in these updates over the years. They have been and are my friends and neighbors, and they could use your prayer support.