Dia Cinco

Hola Missions Prayer Team!

Wow! What an amazing day! I am so exausted. My legs and feet are so tired. I'm so ready for it to be over, but I hate to leave.

I worked in the pharmacy again today. We filled prescriptions for 81 people this morning before 12:15. We got out a bit early and walked a few blocks to the local market to do some shopping. We had an amazing lunch then headed back to finish up.

The vision clinic saw 12 school children this morning and 14 after lunch. They were so cute dressed in their uniforms. We took pictures of them in their new glasses and printed them out for them. The eye guys saw 111 patients today!

We just got finished eating chicken tamalies. These were really good. We had a ceremony at the church and they presented us with gifts and thanked us for coming. Our time here has been so great. I needed a reminder of what life is all about. We get so caught up in "the daily grind" that we forget our fellow man. Our lives revolve around us and our problems.

We ended up seeing 168 medical patients today. Not too shabby for a short day. There were also 46 salvations.

Well, its 10:39 and all our meetings are done and the bags are packed. The bus leaves at 8 am in the morning. We will drive several hours to another town to have lunch and do some shopping on the way back to Guayaquil. We should arrive in Guayaquil around 7 pm tomorrow.

The totals for the week are: Medical 766, Vision 830 eyes 415 patients and most amazing and importantly 204 salvations. The really neat thing is that the OM team has been praying for 200 salvations. What a testimony to the power of prayer! God even threw in 4 extra! Its so great to have 204 new brothers and sisters in Christ. I am so blessed to have been a part of it!

Since it is late I will say goodnight. I hope all is well back home. I will see you all again soon.

Hasta Luego,
Heather
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Dia Cuatro

Its 3:00 and I am wore smooth out. We filled prescriptions for 104 people this morning! Crazy! Now I'm sitting in the vision clinic after lunch. I'm sure I will catch a second wind, but for now a nap would be great. They saw 61 patients in the vision clinic this morning.

We have run out of several medications, but luckily have been able to replace most of them at the local pharmacy. People have started stopping us in the street asking us about the clinic, trying to get tickets from us. Word has spread and we are very popular. I was told that a lady this morning cried when she found out her glasses were free.

Its now 6:35. I am at the place where we eat dinner waiting to be fed. We are out, or nearly out of several medications. Please pray that the medications that people need will hold up. We ended up seeing 204 medical patients today. And we are down three people!

The eye guys just got here and they saw 123 patients today! Way to go eye guys! I got to work in the vision clinic after lunch for about an hour then had to go back to the pharmacy because they were getting behind. Pharmacy wears me out but I love to do it because it is so fast paced.

There were 56 salvations today! Awesome! God is doing some really amazing stuff here. I can't wait for the stories to circulate around to me. I'm back in the pharmacy in the morning. Can't believe its the last day! The people keep begging us to stay longer. They have been really great to us.

It is so unbelievably beautiful here. The mountains shoot up around us and everything is lush and green. The temp has been perfect. Very little rain. It will be a shock when we get back to Guayaquil on Friday. It will be really hot and really humid.

By the way, Eddie is doing much better. Thanks again for all your support!

Hasta Manana,
Heather
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Dia Tres

Hola Missions Prayer Team!

I just had the most amazing lunch of guacamole, rice and soup! Wow I'm full! I'm in bad need of a nap! I have been working in the pharmacy this morning filling prescriptions. It is way more busy than in the vision clinic. We filled prescriptions for 84 people between 9:00am and 1:30pm. Each person has at least 3 prescriptions. The vision clinic did 47! Wow!

It's nearly 2 and I have to head back to work soon. I'm not sure if I will be in the pharmacy or the vision clinic this afternoon. The weather is beautiful again today!

It is now 7:07. We are waiting to be fed dinner. I ended up working the afternoon in the pharmacy as well. Here are the final numbers: 94 vision, 174 medical & 59 salvations! We truly do serve a God of multiplication!

Ok, so dinner was not great at all. It was like tamalies, but just corn and maybe onion and they were kind of sweet. Yuck. I managed to eat one, but I will be snacking at the hotel for sure. We headed back early, because Eddie is feeling bad. His head is all stopped up and his nose is running. I have been pumping him full of drugs, but its not helping much. Please continue to pray for him as this trip is really taking a toll on him. Satan is trying his best to stop what is going on here, but we won't let him win.

The other prayer requests I have:
Tabitha Moore our team leader. She is doing such an awesome job leading us on her first mission trip as a leader. She is patient and loving, but she is really being tried. Some team members are not listening well even after being repeatedly told. And being in charge means she hears her name every 2 minutes.
Seth, an Ecuador team member, is also having a hard time. He is in charge of handing out tickets for people to see the doctor. This makes him either the good guy, or the bad guy if you don't get a ticket. There are also issues of people not coming in the morning when there ticket is for and wanting to get in in the afternoon. Its hard to turn people away, but you have to if you want to keep your sanity. We can't work round the clock.

Since I missed the nightly meeting I'm not sure if there is anything else that needs special prayer. I also don't have any special stories to tell you. Not too many special things go on in the pharmacy. The one really neat thing we have is a photo printer. It is great to see the parents and children light up when you hand them a photo of themselves or their children.

Its hard to believe there are only 2 days of clinic left. We will spend Friday driving back, then some more work and a little sight seeing on Saturday before we fly back Saturday night. I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful team backing me up. I love to share my experiences with you! May God bless you all richly for your support!

Hasta Manana,
Heather
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Dia Tres

Hola Missions Prayer Team!

Its 10:00am, we have been working since around 8:15. We have seen around 12 people so far in the vision clinic. It is cooler today because it is cloudy and raining. There was a line of around 50 people waiting on us when we arrived at the church this morning. We have had one profession of faith this morning and prayed with many. I will update you later on how things are going throughout the rest of the clinic.
12:15 pm. The morning is wrapping up. Lunch is at 1. Yay! I'm so hungry! We have seen around 25 patients now. There are about 5 women waiting to see the doctors that are spinning yarn and string from wool by hand! It is so amazing! So many of the women are dressed in the traditional clothing. They look so beautiful.
Its now 8:30. We just finished with dinner. Its shower time then bed time! Woohoo! My tired legs like bed time. The totals for today are 66 vision, 155 medical, and most importantly, 40 salvations! Wow our God is awesome!

For dinner we had rice, creamed greens, chicken, and our drink was made out of fruit and oats and served warm. The food here has been really good. With the exception of white rice with every meal, excluding breakfast, the menu has been fairly diverse. Chicken is the meat of most meals, but it is always fixed slightly differently.
After dinner we had our nightly meeting. The ecuadorian obgyn shared a story about a woman she saw today. She was in her 60's and had had a hystarectamy (pardon the spelling) about ten years ago. She had a bump on her head and some other injuries from her husband beating her. He wanted to have intercourse, but due to her surgery it was painful. When she turned down his advances he beat her. This of course was not the first time and she was also very beaten down in spirit. She said she was catholic, but the doctor asked her about her relationship with Jesus. After some time and prayer she accepted Jesus in her heart! After this she said she felt much better. She felt loved. How terrible it must be to live your life without the love of Jesus.

Another story was of a woman who had come through the clinic yesterday. She was very depressed. She came back today and said that the doctor had asked her to come back today. The nurses could not figure out what the doctor wanted her to come back for. Finally she explained to them that yesterday she was depressed and in pain, but the doctor had prayed for her and today she was feeling great! She just came back to report how well she was doing, and to see if she could help out. All the medicine in the world fails in comparison to a loving Father!

Dr. Moore from Abilene, TX told us something he had learned from a recent trip to Honduras. He said that when we die and stand before God it won't be the bad things we did that we will regret, but the opportunities we missed. That is so painfully true. How many times have you missed an opportunity and knew it was from God? I know I miss a bunch. Sometimes I realize it while it is happening and sometimes it hits me after it is too late. Either way you wish you had seized the moment. Most of the time that opportunity is long gone and can never be replaced. Don't find yourself regretting missed opportunities. Seize what God gives you.

I have a small confession to make. This is the first trip Eddie has been able to go on. I always have stories of how tiny the church is, how bad the food is, and just generally how poor the conditions are. Well, the church is huge. The sanctuary itself is as large as most of the churches I have worked in. This church has multiple rooms. Real rooms with doors and electricity. The church also owns another building nearby that they use as a missionary house/fellowship hall. I have found myself at times thinking about how Eddie was not experiencing how mission trips should be. Uncomfortable, crowded, hot, and things like that. I completely missed how amazing it was that God had blessed this church with so much room to grow and so many sources to minister. It's crazy how badly you can miss the point sometimes.

Eddie and I are getting better at assembling the glasses. Today Randy Moore screened all the patients and treated the ones who needed reading glasses. This sped up the process some, but also gave more opportunity to talk to people about their faith. Its so easy to look at numbers to evaluate how well you are doing, but its important to remember the real reason we came. Everyone that comes through the clinic is there for a reason. It may be for their benefit, our it may be for ours, but either way God has his hand in it and we should look for the reason. This often means spending more time with them which means lower numbers, but its not about numbers, its about people.

I am so blessed to be a part of this trip and this team. It is very easy to get complacent at home. To forget the great commission and just focus on everyday life. I challenge you to get out of your box. Foreign missions is not ever ones calling, though I highly recommend it, but missions can be going across the street. Get out and experience other peoples lives. Think back, or look through the bible for all the people Jesus associated with. He rarely ministered to those like him. He got so "out of his box" that his own people killed him. Just remember, we are all his children, and he died for us all equally.

Hasta Manana,
Heather
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Dia Dos

Hola Missions Prayer Team!

We got to sleep in this morning! WAHOO! Well, of corse I was awake at 7, but I didn't have to get up and rush around. Before breakfast Eddie and I walked down to the local market and bought some grapes and apples. We had breakfast at 9: rolls, jelly and hot tea. Then we came back to the hotel until time for church at 11.

After church we had lunch: veggie soup, steamed veggies with chicken and rice. Then we went to another market they have only on Sunday.

At 3:30 we began the medical/vision clinic. It started off slow, as usual. Most of the people we saw today were church members. Things did begin to pick up after a while and we ended up seeing 21 vision patients by 7:00.

I was not testing eyes today as I had originally thought I would do. We have an actual eye doctor with us and he is doing all the testing. That is one reason why things are going so slow. In the past we have had three of us testing eyes at once. Eddie and I worked together putting the eye glasses together. Randy Moore dispensed and adjusted the glasses.

I think tomorrow will be a little different. Eddie and I will still be assembling glasses, but Randy will also be examining eyes to speed up the process a bit. One of the OM Ecuador team members will be dispensing.

We have two general medicine doctors and an obgyn. All together they saw 63 patients. We expect for tomorrow to go much faster as everyone has had time to get used to their jobs and most of the bugs have been worked out.

They did not do evangelism today since the patients were mostly church members. There were some salvations though in the doctors rooms! There were also 4 healings!

I know that God has amazing plans for this week! Please pray for health, as we have already had a few issues. Please pray for Eddie as his back is hurting from bending over for several hours today. Pray for the lost that they will be saved. This of corse is the real reason we come.

Well, its 9:12 and Eddie is already snoring beside me. Breakfast is at 7:30 so I will soon be joining him! I hope everyone is doing well! Thanks again for all the love and support!

Hasta Manana,
Heather
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Dia uno

Hola Missions Prayer Team!

We are on about an 8 hour bus ride to Saraguro. It is very wet and very beautiful. It looks a lot like Peru here, but much more lush.

We made it through DFW and Atlanta with no problems. Customs in Ecuador was a slightly different story. There are 7 Americans in the group. A couple of us had made it through already when the problems started. Brian the optometrist was ahead of Eddie and I. He had 3 bags of glasses and equiptment and this raised a big flag. Then Eddie sent our bags through the x-ray. They wanted to know what was in the bags and who they belonged to. Eddie gave them his name so he got in line for a search. Well, they didn't spacifically ask to see my luggage so I grabbed mine and left. After about an hour of negotiating they were finally allowed through.

We got to our hotel around 12:30 and went straight to bed. Then we met at 7:00 for breakfast. We loaded onto our bus around 8 and the journey began. The country side was so beautiful! The journey was slow. There are lots of rockslides and road construction. Not to mention the steep, windy inclines and decents. But without any real issues we arrived here safe and sound around 4:00.

We rested until 5 then walked to the church and set up the clinic. After rearranging almost everything they had set up for us and decided who would be working were, we walked to dinner. The people of the church will be cooking for us all week. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Tonight we had a traditional Ecuadorian meal of roast chicken, rice and fried plantains.

After dinner we had a meeting to discuss the next days plans. We are now back at the hotel. It is very noisy in our room. We are right by the street and the windows let a lot of sound in. Its 9:30 and I am exausted. My ankles, legs and feet are so swollen it's almost hard to believe. Eddies are swollen too. I hope to have more exciting news for you tomorrow.

Hasta Manana,
Heather
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Airport

Hey missions team!

We have made it to DFW and passed through security! The trip has officially started. Feel free to reply to emails, but please delete the original message first. I get charged by the kb so no pics please. It costs me 25 cents to receive text messages. I'm so glad to have everyone on my team! Thanks for all your support!

Hasta Luego,
Heather
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