November 2007: Hope and Healing
Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you… cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The reign of God has come near to you.”* –Luke 10:8-9
Noviembre 2007 en español November 2007 Bulletin Insert Format
Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you… cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The reign of God has come near to you.”* –Luke 10:8-9
Winter is upon us in Paraguay. The Lapacho trees spread their violet flowers throughout the city streets, and the cool nights are a blessing. These past weeks have seen new life for the Mision de Amistad’s health clinics.
It started when we received a large stockpile of expensive medications, with the possibility of receiving more from an organization in the United States. If this becomes a reality it will have a huge impact for Mision de Amistad. In my short time here as a Global Ministries volunteer working with patients, I have seen so many who come to get treatment for hypertension. They are good at coming to get their blood pressure checked and medications adjusted for a couple of months, but then they stop. They need to take this medicine for the rest of their lives and they just cannot afford it. For many of them the cost of the medicine is the same as the cost of food for their entire family each month. I have seen a disproportionate number of people in their 40’s and 50’s suffering from the effects of a stroke that they experienced due to high blood pressure that was not controlled because they were not taking medication. But God provides for us to be connected to one another for healing and wholeness. Together, those of us at Mision de Amistad, you our Global Ministries friends in the U.S., those who have donated medicine, and the people who come to the clinics are all connected in a web that is truly life-giving.
Paul Jacquay serves as a long term volunteer at Mision de Amistad (Friendship Mission) in Paraguay as health consultant for the medical department and as a nurse trainer.