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Missionary Updates
It started with a sick sheep
Good News for the Gumuz
How do you serve people who don’t trust you? For Medsend grant recipient Barry Schwenk, DVM, the answer came in the form of an “old woman” and a little girl.
Almost four years ago, the Schwenks went to Northwest Ethiopia to serve the Gumuz, former slaves who live in clans and eke out a living by hunting and farming. But the Gumuz are deeply suspicious of outsiders and initially resisted the Schwenks’ ministry, which includes land and livestock management, literacy, health education, leadership training and evangelism. MORE.
See Dr. Schwenk discuss ministry to the Gumuz HERE.
$602K fundraising challenge
Board approves 14 grants and renewals
Dr. Barry Schwenk’s MedSend grant is among the nine grants and five renewal grants recently approved by MedSend’s Board of Directors. MedSend is now raising money to fund the grants, which total $602,000. You can meet the Class of March 2010 by clicking HERE.
Aissa Update
MedSend grant recipient Sarah Root, RN, has been chronicling the saga of Aissa’s face restoration surgery. To read excerpts, click HERE. To read Sarah’s continuing blog, click HERE. To read the original story about Aissa, click HERE.
Focus on Honduras
Beyond the Headlines
Recent political turmoil has thrust Honduras into the international limelight, but MedSend grant recipients serving there report amazing evidence of God at work in that nation. We focus on a few of their stories below.
Hope in Honduras
It was dark at 3 a.m. when Marlon’s parents would leave their mud brick home, carrying their sick son on the two-hour walk to the bus. After an eight-hour ride, they would arrive at the hospital for Marlon’s scheduled surgery only to be told, “The doctor is out of town” or “There is no anesthesia.” Yet the desperate parents would repeat their vain pilgrimage again and again, clinging to the hope that they would find help for their child who was born with severe heart and intestinal deformities.
After six years of serving in Honduras, MedSend grant recipient and nurse practitioner Allison Brown has come to admire the amazing tenacity of Marlon’s parents and many others like them.
“There’s always hope,” Allison said. "Not that there is hope in the world, but there is hope through God because He does things that we could consider nearly impossible.” Allison is Director of Social Services at Mission Lazarus, a wide-ranging ministry she and her husband Jarrod founded, which encompasses educational, agricultural, medical and evangelical programs, as well as a refuge for orphaned and abandoned children.
Mission Lazarus’ medical ministry began with a rural clinic in 2003. “We now have over 2400 families on file,” Allison said. “Many patients travel hours or even days by foot, donkey, mule or horse to get medical treatment.” The medical ministry soon expanded to include a nutrition program that provides children with vaccinations, monthly medical checkups, vitamins, fresh fruit, vegetables, milk and meat, as well as eggs through a yearly “chicken handout.” A family program has also been started that assesses the health needs of participating rural families and then provides intensive health education in the areas of hygiene, hydration, nutrition, and overall lifestyle.
In 2007, Mission Lazarus welcomed another MedSend grant recipient, Meredith Jones, RN, who took over administration of the clinic, freeing Allison to provide psychiatric counseling and healthcare for residents of Mission Lazarus’ new children’s home.
“Meredith threw herself into the work from day one,” Allison said. “If she had not come on board, we wouldn’t have been able to open our children’s home.”
Both women are grateful for the part MedSend plays in their ministries by making their monthly educational loan payments while they serve.
“Unfortunately, your financial situation does impact your thought processes and having the grant takes a lot of financial stress off us,” Allison said. “The MedSend grant has allowed us to stay on the field more permanently.” Meredith agreed that MedSend grants can be vital to ministry.
“The MedSend grant has been a huge blessing to my life,” she said. “It has allowed me to live out the desires that God has placed on my heart, desires to serve the people of Honduras and show them His love.”
Among those who have received that love are Marlon and his parents. Marlon became one of the clinic's "special cases" - chronically ill children who can't afford or gain access to the medical treatment they need. Meredith and her staff worked tirelessly to get him the gastrointestinal surgery he needed in Honduras so that he could then travel to the U.S. for heart surgery. After the second surgery proved successful, Meredith was so overjoyed she shouted "Whoopee" and danced in celebration.
“With two surgeries down and only one to go, we are working diligently to get Marlon ready for travel to the U.S,” she said. Marlon has received the “all clear” from his GI surgeon and we are waiting for a U.S. surgeon and hospital to accept his case.
For Marlon’s family, the good news is not just medical.
“Throughout the entire time I have been working with Marlon and his family, his parents have always been quick to place the credit with God,” Meredith said. “They have seen His love, and Marlon’s mother became a Christian last year because of it. As a result, Marlon’s father now attends church and is beginning to ask lots of questions.”
"I remain in awe of God's faithfulness," Meredith said. "The progress that Marlon has made seems surreal. It seems impossible that we could have attained such an outcome for him, and yet I always knew that we would, because I knew that God could!"
As Allison and Meredith have come to know, with God, there is always hope.
Giving New Meaning to "special"
At the Honduran ministry where MedSend grant recipients Allison Brown, FNP, and Meredith Jones, RN, serve, "special cases" are what they call chronically ill children who need medical or surgical treatment they can't afford or get access to. It didn't take Allison and Meredith long to realize that these children and their families are special for many other reasons.
 Take Nancy and her mother Lilian. At 26 pounds and 2 feet, 10 inches, Nancy wore 24-month size clothes and was as cute as any two-year-old. Problem was, she was already age four. Nancy's mother Lilian knew something was wrong. But as a single parent raising two children on just $25 per month in Honduras, her options were few. Through Lilian's persistence, Nancy was eventually diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency.
Lilian was relieved when the physician assured her that the government would provide the hormone for daily injections. As it turned out, the doctor was right, the government does provide the hormone – but only to five patients. Over one hundred children were already on the waiting list for a treatment that costs $1,000 per month. Still undeterred, Lilian came to MedSend grant recipient Allison Brown at the Mission Lazarus medical clinic for help. Allison tried for several years to get funding for Nancy's medicine - without success. Yet Lilian's faith never wavered.
"I thank God for you, because God has put you in my path," she would tell Allison.
Finally, enough funds were raised through a U.S. church to pay for several years of treatment. Two years later, Nancy has grown eight inches and gained 13 pounds. She is seen here seated between her beaming mom and older sister, proudly wearing her size eight clothing. Meredith, who now directs the clinic, noted, "Seeing Lilian's faith throughout the past two years has really served as a great testament to God's love and a huge encouragement to me in my Christian walk."
Play the following video to learn more about how Nancy and her family have been blessed.
Dear MedSend...
 "I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your faithful support of our ministry. Had I not received the grant, our missionary budget would have been tremendously overburdened by my student loan debt. Over the past 2-1/2 years we've been in Honduras, I've been working to develop The Hope of Jesus Children's Home, which will assist the lives and ease the suffering of children with mild to moderate disabilities." CLICK HERE to read the entire letter from Kimberly Miller, PT, a MedSend grant recipient who serves in Honduras.
Right: The Millers on farm that will
support the children's home.
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