Today we headed back to the second church and arrived to
find thousands waiting for the medical outreach and a mosquito net. Being a “flat land” church it seems it is
easier for people to get to this church.
We had a very diverse cross section of attendees; Christians, Muslims,
witchcraft etc. This made a great
opportunity for us to share God’s love through our actions and God’s word.
The day also had it challenges. We arrived at the church site and unloaded
all our boxes of medicine only to find the box with the pain relievers was
missing. A search of all the boxes
didn’t turn up the medicine. We made a
quick call back to town to have someone search the hotel storage and the
pharmacy to find the runaway medicine.
We did find the medicine in an adjacent closet at the hotel but it took
a couple of hours for it to make its way to the church site. This caused a bit of delay.
When you have many thousands of people milling around a
couple of acres and things are going slow and the sun is rising towards mid-day,
the heat in the sky and the heat in the crowd began to increase as you would expect. For most of the people this is their one
chance to get some treatment for their family’s malaria or other ailments. One can see why they get desperate to get into
the clinic. The police came to help us
with crowd control which helped space out the crowd and bring more order. With things back to normal, we got after
dispensing medicine and mosquito nets.
We are spending about $2000 a day on medicine which treats a couple
thousand people. We have become experts
at counting and packaging pills for the doctors and nurses to distribute. We handed out over 1800 nets today, by far
our busiest day this year. We can’t
thank you enough for your support; your generosity makes this possible.
Some of us were able to get out amongst the crowd to pray
with them and to visit. John and Michael
shared the Gospel and taught the crowd about how to properly use mosquito
nets. John, our friend from Bellville,
was dubbed John the Baptist by Pastor Samuel.
We expect to see John in a hair robe soon.
On a personal note, the team is so blessed to have John,
Rick and Trey on this mission team. It
is clear God called these three to be with us and make this a very special
trip. Trey has sang and played his
guitar each day for the crowd, Rick has been out praying up a storm and leading
the kids in pick up soccer practices.
John has shared his testimony, preached and probably most important inject
humor into the team just when we need it.
These guys are great.
I had the chance, as did others, to get to know Patrick
Paul, one of our translators. Patrick
Paul is a Covenant Bible College student studying to be a pastor. He is single father of five children whose
wife deserted the family. His oldest
daughter was stolen and her whereabouts are uncertain. He has asked for our prayers. His situation just breaks my heart. What really stands out is his faith in Christ
is so strong. He is generous beyond
means. As an example, an orphan comes up
for prayer and clearly has needs; Patrick Paul reaches in his pocket and pulls
out the equivalent of 50 cents and gives it to him. Patrick Paul might have $2 in his pocket and
to his name. I felt pretty sheepish when
I struggle to put an extra dollar in the offering plate. Please hold Patrick Paul up in your prayers
and as an example of how we should live.
God Bless
Doug Eisele
find thousands waiting for the medical outreach and a mosquito net. Being a “flat land” church it seems it is
easier for people to get to this church.
We had a very diverse cross section of attendees; Christians, Muslims,
witchcraft etc. This made a great
opportunity for us to share God’s love through our actions and God’s word.
The day also had it challenges. We arrived at the church site and unloaded
all our boxes of medicine only to find the box with the pain relievers was
missing. A search of all the boxes
didn’t turn up the medicine. We made a
quick call back to town to have someone search the hotel storage and the
pharmacy to find the runaway medicine.
We did find the medicine in an adjacent closet at the hotel but it took
a couple of hours for it to make its way to the church site. This caused a bit of delay.
When you have many thousands of people milling around a
couple of acres and things are going slow and the sun is rising towards mid-day,
the heat in the sky and the heat in the crowd began to increase as you would expect. For most of the people this is their one
chance to get some treatment for their family’s malaria or other ailments. One can see why they get desperate to get into
the clinic. The police came to help us
with crowd control which helped space out the crowd and bring more order. With things back to normal, we got after
dispensing medicine and mosquito nets.
We are spending about $2000 a day on medicine which treats a couple
thousand people. We have become experts
at counting and packaging pills for the doctors and nurses to distribute. We handed out over 1800 nets today, by far
our busiest day this year. We can’t
thank you enough for your support; your generosity makes this possible.
Some of us were able to get out amongst the crowd to pray
with them and to visit. John and Michael
shared the Gospel and taught the crowd about how to properly use mosquito
nets. John, our friend from Bellville,
was dubbed John the Baptist by Pastor Samuel.
We expect to see John in a hair robe soon.
On a personal note, the team is so blessed to have John,
Rick and Trey on this mission team. It
is clear God called these three to be with us and make this a very special
trip. Trey has sang and played his
guitar each day for the crowd, Rick has been out praying up a storm and leading
the kids in pick up soccer practices.
John has shared his testimony, preached and probably most important inject
humor into the team just when we need it.
These guys are great.
I had the chance, as did others, to get to know Patrick
Paul, one of our translators. Patrick
Paul is a Covenant Bible College student studying to be a pastor. He is single father of five children whose
wife deserted the family. His oldest
daughter was stolen and her whereabouts are uncertain. He has asked for our prayers. His situation just breaks my heart. What really stands out is his faith in Christ
is so strong. He is generous beyond
means. As an example, an orphan comes up
for prayer and clearly has needs; Patrick Paul reaches in his pocket and pulls
out the equivalent of 50 cents and gives it to him. Patrick Paul might have $2 in his pocket and
to his name. I felt pretty sheepish when
I struggle to put an extra dollar in the offering plate. Please hold Patrick Paul up in your prayers
and as an example of how we should live.
God Bless
Doug Eisele
RSS Feed