Birthdays, Fire fighting, and storms

So, Sunday was my 20th birthday, which was spent shopping for food for this campaign! It definitely was a different way to spend it, but that's ok, cause we all went to ice cream Saturday night and I totally ate too much ice cream!! It was amazing though!! Well, sunday was a really long day, but it definitely got exciting when we got home. Turns out, Manuel had started a fire on our property and it had gotten really close to our house. So to come home and see smoke and tree logs still smoldering about 20ft from the house was less than comforting. It also seemed like the whole community around Km 38 had wanted have fires as well, so there was quite a glow on the horizon as we drove home that night. Thankfully, God provided a tremedous downpour about 30 minutes after we got home to put out any possible fires, which I was very happy for!!

The storms down here are quite amazing. Sunday night's storm was soo incrediably loud that I couldn't even sleep. The rain was pounding on the tin roof so loud, I couldn't even hear myself talk! Yesterday, we had a crazy wind storm. We were eating lunch and suddenly the wind picked up and started blowing so incrediably hard. The tin was rattling really loud, so much so I was afraid it was going to rip off, which wouldn't have been too fun. Cheva, our beloved, but dumb rotweiler dog, was barking at the roof as it rattled and tried jumping up to it. It was soo funny! Cheva is afraid of thunder and now I guess tin roofs!

Iparia

Well, I'm sitting in a hostel using the free wireless internet that we found while staying here the last couple days. It's been pretty cool! I'm waiting to hear whether or not we are leaving for Iparia tonight for our next campaign or if we'll be leaving in the morning. Lack of communication with some important people has caused this delay and so, by the looks of it, we'll be leaving sometime tomorrow morning.

I'm actually really excited about this trip. We are leaving by boat for a 16hr. ride down the Ucayali River to Iparia where we will be holding clinic for 4 days. All of us SM's are quite excited about using our newly purchased hammocks on the boat! A medical team from Georgia is joining us for this trip, which will be awesome. We will be working among the Shipibo Indians, providing medical and dental care. The dentist who was with us for the last campaign is now gone and so Brent and I are basically on our own! Kinda scary! We have a Peruvian worker who is a crazy teeth-pulling machine, but the language barrier creates some problems in learning how to pull teeth!

1st Campaign

Woah! What a week! It's been such a crazy long, stressful, tiring week, but wow it's been really great at the same time!! Our first medical/dental campaign started on Sunday morning, around 9am. We left our house about 6:30am and drove to the site, which actually wasn't too far from our house. So we did 5 1/2 days of clinic, from about 8:30 to 5:30 or whenever all the patients were seen for the day.

Learning teeth extractions hands-on style is totally new thing for me! We saw around 50 patients each day. Extracting teeth takes lots of patience and time, though at times it's just easier and less painful to yank the tooth out and get it done and over with. Manuel, a Peruvian who is an expert tooth-yanker, helped out and showed Brent and me some techniques. He's a maniac!! crazy. I definitely wouldn't want to get my tooth pulled by him! :-)

Days were really busy and long. Nights were short and frequently interrupted by roosters crowing, dogs barking, and people talking. We slept in the house we were using as a clinic and so people would start lining up early in the morning (like 1am on Friday morning!!) in order to get a ticket, because only 70 were passed out in the morning and 70 more in the afternoon. Otherwise, we would be treating patients 24/7! By the second day though I was so tired, I pretty much slept though everything, so I got pretty good sleep.

The previous weekend right before the clinic started, some of us had traveled again to Masisea to visit the church members on Sabbath. So I had had no time to catch up on the sleep before leaving for the clinic. It was just one thing after another. But God is awesome and gave us all the strength and patience to deal with each situation and patient in a kind and Christ-like manner, despite the lack of sleep. God really blessed and we were able to help lots of people, though at the same time, there were still so many people that need help. At times, I feel we are only helping the current toothache or health problem, but not teaching a lifestyle change that could help to prevent further problems in the future. That's where Emily and Kristin come in. Starting today, they will be living in the community for about 6 weeks trying to help instruct and educate the locals about how live a healthier lifestyle, which I think is a great idea!! I'm really excited to see how this new concept will work out! Please keep this campaign in your prayers as Satan is really trying to discourage the Bible workers and the campaign!

Earthquake

Just a quick note to say that we are all safe from the earthquake. All of us had just sat down to eat dinner and were in the middle of prayer when a weird rolling sensation started. I thought I was just really ditzy and about to faint, but everyone felt it, so. Then we found out more about what had happened. We are all hoping to be able to go sometime and help with the relief effort but it´s hard to say when. God is good!!