COSTA RICA MISSION 2018 Newsletter MEDICAL MISSIONARIES OF DIVINE MERCY St. Laurence Parish Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston 3100 Sweetwater Blvd, Sugar Land, TX 77479 www.stlaurence.org/medical-missionaries Led by the calling of the Holy Spirit, 43 health professionals, spiritual leaders, and support team members served 878 patients amongst the poorest of the poor in Grano de Oro, Costa Rica, April 21st to 28 th, 2018. This was our 5th year at this location and there was a new level of trust, friendship, and bonding between the community and team stemming from the outpouring of genuine love and care provided. The Cabecar s are learning about our Lord and Savior through the genuine love and mercy shown by our missionaries and spiritual team. The mission provided first rate medical, pediatric, dental, vision, audiology, chiropractic and spiritual services to the Indigenous Cabecar Indians and the local Costa Rican community. Photo taken in the garden of Grano de Oro Retreat Center The mission received participation and ancillary dental, vaccination, and pharmaceutical services from the Costa Rica Health Ministry. We were also supported by local private dentists. We have been well received and our mission was facilitated by Club de Paz, provider of residential and food services, and our special friend Maria Elena Carvajal of the Wyndham San Jose Herradura Hotel. Medical and Spiritual service details: Medical patients including pediatrics: 571 Dental: Patients 183, Procedures 586 Vision: 473 Audiology: 5 Chiropractic: 192 Spiritual movie: Started with audience of about 15 on Monday and ended week with about 42 on just one night. Healing Service: 10/night The mission is made possible by the financial participation of the missionaries themselves and the generosity of the parishioners and friends of St Laurence Church and the Social Concerns Ministry. Sincerely, Herb Appel, Chairman of the Board Each day started with Rosary at 6:15 AM and Mass following breakfast. Registration and mission services began at 8 AM and continue until 5PM. An evening healing Mass was held several nights and culminated with an overflow crowd for our community Mass prior to our fiesta finale on Friday night. Monsignor Mario Enrique Quiros Quiros, Bishop of Cartago joined us on Friday and thanked and blessed the missionaries for their ministry to the poor.
Welcome First Time Missionaries in Costa Rica: Ana Maria Garza Barbara Bolling Barbara Garaygordobil Bella Gumbayan Bob Davis Callie Byrd Camejo Fernandez Julianna Jackie Martin Jesus Garza Mary Barrett Nimfa Marinas Patricia Pereira Nunez Scott Walker Sol Pangelinan Join us on our up-coming Mission in Laredo, Texas November 3-10, 2018 Contacts: Herb Appel 713-826-1017 Maria Jacobson 713-582-8424 Journal of Barbara Garaygordobil Grano de Oro, Cartago Province, Costa Rica: At 7:15 am each morning, I make the 5-minute walk to our makeshift clinic. Although we don t open until 8am, every morning, come rain or shine, there is a group of about 30+ people, mostly women and children, waiting under our tent outside our clinic. As I greet them, I start a competitive dialogue, asking who arrived first, who got up the earliest, who walked the furthest, who ate breakfast, who had only coffee, etc. Although my intent is to enliven them with the competitive dialogue, inside my heart is aching for their plight. While, on average, most of the Cabecar Indians get up at 4am to make a 3-hour journey on foo to our clinic, numerous travel as many as 5-hours. In contrast, we, in the USA, will jockey for a parking spot for our car in order to avoid an extra 10 paces. The Cabecar s journey is not over paved roads or landscaped walking paths. It is a dangerous and difficult journey, in inclement weather, along rocky and slippery pathways, through the mountains of the rainforest, negotiating long narrow passages and mudslides where one misstep can result in a precipitous fall down the cliff and into the valley below. They have no water bottles or fanny-packs or hiking boots, instead, the Cabecar women travel, frequently in tattered sandals, with one child wrapped around her chest, often breast-feeding as they walk, with as many as 4 children/toddlers in tow. Typically, at best, all, including the children, have merely had coffee with sugar to fortify them for the journey. It is no wonder that their necks, shoulders, backs, hips, knees and feet ache. The hours of daily walking are tortuous. That, combined with back aching domestic labor and/or the machete-slinging work of harvesting in the fields, leaves them desperate for some kind of relief from our doctors and chiropractors. I am in awe of their simplicity, humility and extraordinary strength and thank God for the opportunity to strengthen my faith through them as we reach out to lovingly serve them. MMDM missionaries not only bring aide for the bodies of those we serve, but also aid for their souls. We do this with daily evening mass, nightly healing service and spiritual counseling as well as our newly introduced movie time. At 6pm, our missionary priest celebrates mass in Spanish. He asks me to seek out readers for the mass. The local people shy in the back of church, heads down, but I recruit another missionary and we approach the back of the church, seeking two people to come forward as readers. With some coaxing and encouragement, we succeed in securing two readers. By the end of our week in Grano de Oro, we have developed two confident readers who have assured us that they will continue after we are gone. After mass, it s movie time. Available in Spanish and Cabecar, we show the 2-hour Jesus film (www.jesusfilm.org) in 30-minute segments over 4 consecutive nights. It s an engaging film, from creation through the resurrection. As I hit the pause button each night, at the end of each 30-minute segment, the groans of disappointment assure me they will be back for the continuation bringing more family/friends as the week progresses. With hearts and minds open to the suffering Christ in the movie, we offer the healing service to healing some of their suffering. Again, the local people move to the back of the church, but they have stayed, indicating that they want to participate but are reticent to step forward. When I approach, they say they are afraid, embarrassed or too broken but agree to step forward if I will walk them to the missionary deacon. As we approach, the presence of the Holy Spirit is palpable and the transformation from a face strained with anxiety to one radiating peace is almost instantaneous as the deacon lays hands upon each one, encouraging them to rest in the Spirit. Tired, but engulfed in peace, I head for bed. Nourished by the Holy Spirit, I look forward to my next day of service in Grano de Oro. And their challenges are not purely skeletal. With open fires in their homes for cooking, respiratory problems and burning/itching eyes from smoke inhalation add to the difficulty of their daily treks.
MIRACLE GIRL The Costa Rican vision clinic had the pleasure of serving 473 patients this year. One patient in particular touched our hearts, a 12-year-old girl born with hydrocephalus, which left her with mental and visual impairment. After we determined her eyeglass prescription using our auto refractor, one of our missionaries, Ann Le, filled her prescription order, which is a tedious job and she did it skillfully. Once the young girl put on her eyeglasses and read the eye chart, she had the best testimony ever: Milagro!, she said, which means miracle. To her amazement and pleasure, she could finally see clearly. We immediately jumped up and took a picture of her and her loving father. After my participation in 15 missions so far, I must admit that all our medical missions are miracles when you consider the enormous talent, energy, and organization which are provided by our mission members. With God s help, we are helping heal the sick, helping the blind or nearly blind to see, helping physically impaired to walk and work, and bringing spiritual healing to the poor in spirit. I would like to thank our faithful prayer warriors and financial donors. May God bless you and yours. He has already blessed us and our numerous patients abundantly through our many missions. Janice Holley, Vision Clinic Mgr. We are many parts, we are all one body, and the gifts we have we are given to share. May the Spirit of love make us one indeed; one, the love that we share, one, our hope in despair, one, the cross that we bear. God of all, we look to you, we would be your servants true, let us be your love to all the world. So my pain is pain for you, in your joy is my joy, too; all is brought together in the Lord. We Are Many Parts by Marty Haugen Many thanks to all the donors and prayers for its success. Your donation to the Medical Mission of Devine Mercy will continue touching the lives of those in need. Ann Le (MMDM Vision Clinic Team member)
LOVE TALK. LOVE TALK. LOVE TALK. My name is Solherny Pangelinan and I had the privilege to be part of the Medical Mission of Divine Mercy in Laredo 2017 and Costa Rica 2018. I first heard about the Missionaries 8 years ago, I was curious and interested, but hesitant to go away for a long period of time with people I didn t know. My husband was always encouraging me and finally this year I decided to go. I couldn t have chosen a better time! To be amongst people with this level of dedication and service to others was an enlightening and motivating experience. It allowed me to see beyond what I thought I knew about medicine and overall enhanced the medical experience by enabling me to give freely and unconditional attention not only to the body, but to the mind and the soul. The fact that we can see the Holy Spirit in action through the work of all the volunteers, their patients and their relationship is inspiring and an invitation to a more profound meditation about how to serve others and share with others the gifts our God bestowed upon us. It takes us deeper into knowing that our role as apostles also include the spreading of the word of God and It reminds us that God is the main source of healing. By Solherny Pangelinan Volunteering with the Medical Missionaries of Divine Mercy was not something I had given serious consideration to until 2012. I had donated money in the past but then God nudged me to inquire about volunteering. I approached the information table ready to be turned away. I said hello to Cordell, MMDM s founder, and told him I was interested in going to Laredo as a missionary but that I did not speak Spanish and I was not a doctor. He replied, Neither am I. Welcome aboard. Several weeks after this year s mission, I was speaking to one of this year s first-time missionaries about the experience. We agreed that the best way to describe mission work is that mission work sticks with you. After doing God s work, you don t stop thinking about the patients, the fellow missionaries, the services, and the divine love that has flowed through you. Mission work sticks with you. Through my mission work with MMDM, I have found that trusting God is key. Get out of the way and let God work through you. God helped me to find how I could help in my mission work and it was not what I thought it would be. I have watched this happen repeatedly with different missionaries. God puts us in the role he wants us in so that we can do the work he wants us to do. That is where the love flows and the miracles happen. By Bob Davis Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go Lord, if You Lead me. I will hold Your people in my heart. Here I am Lord by James Kilbane Will you come and follow me if I but call your name? Will you go where you don t know and never be the same? Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my name be known? Will you let my life be grown in you and you in me? The Summons by John L. Bell & Graham Maule Be not afraid I go before you always. Come follow me, and I will give you rest. Be Not Afraid by John Michael
For information about the mission, please go to our website at https://www.stlaurence.org/medical-missionaries
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