De la Montaña al Mar

De la Montaña al Mar: June 2012  - Medical Aspects

On a recent mission to Honduras, I was struck by the difference in each team that goes out of AHMEN.  We have feeding kitchens, construction, evangelism, medical clinics, Bible Study, seminars, eye clinics - the list seems to go on and on.

Our medical team consist of:

Dr. Delmer Montanya - a seasoned Honduran doctor who goes with any lucky AHMEN team that can “recruit” him.

Two RN’s from Alabama - one ER and one Pediatric cardiology

One navy corpsman

One premed student

One American Doc

good interpreters

A clown for the kids

Photographer

Our esteemed team leader

An unbelievable support team from our private, for profit, partner - more about this later.

We set up a very efficient pharmacy system with Doris Brady talking to each and every patient family group giving detailed instructions re. the medication, safety, etc.

The uniqueness of this particular team is, once again, unique.

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Some 5 years ago a father, son, daughter, grandfather team moved from Canada to the mountains of Honduras to set up an electricity generating plant.  During the initial construction phase, the family noticed the men they hired from local villages could only work about 3 or 4 hours before they simply gave out of energy.  Were the people simply lazy, or was their another explanation?  What they discovered was they were hungry and didn’t have enough protein in their diet.  By simply feeding the workers a wholesome, Honduran diet the workers began to perform much better.

So, what does that have to do with our medical mission?  The entrepreneurs from Canada became intimately associate with the village most of their workers come from, and notice lots of medical problems with little assess to health care.  While La Esperanza is a good size town and has significant medical delivery system, go 30 minutes up any dirt road to surrounding villages and you find poverty, poor water systems, and poor access to health care.

Ron and Ernesto, the father/son Canadian team, became friends with Brent and Doris Brady and knew they participate in AHMEN and medical mission teams.  You can see where this is going.  Once De la Montaña al Mar went to La Espernaza one time, we were “hooked”.   The people are “Indios”, nice, welcoming, and in need of medical help.

What is unique about this particular mission is the amalgamation of an AHMEN Medical team with a  private, for profit business and the Honduran people that were a tremendous support and Dr. Delmer Montanya.

The medical part of the mission is pretty much like other missions I have been on - lots of kids, dirty drinking water leading to need for parasite medication, education, and development of clean water systems, men with machete injuries, women with arthritis, need for vitamins, etc.

Next year we have plans to expand the medical mission to other villages further “out from the main town” and expect the medical needs to increase.  

I look forward to seeing the change in the long term health of these villages as this relationship between our AHMEN mission team and this private, for profit business continues to grow.

If this is something you might like to participate in, contact:

Michael Franklin: frank42@gmail.com

Kyle Grooms: kyle.grooms@yahoo.com

Magan Hamrick:  magan.hamrick@yahoo.com

Limon Nurture Center: Feb. 2012: Fund Raising

An act of Compassion

An act of Trust

And act of Faith

February 24, 2012

An Act of Compassion

The Limon Feeding Kitchen was started about 10 years afoe after a visit to Limon, Honduras by Danny and Brenda Arnold of AHMEN and Christ UMC of Jasper, Al., and a conversation with the citizens of the rural Grifina village of Limon.  Cruzadas del Evangelico, a evangelical protestant church with a church in Limon had a bunch of hungry orphans. Then Danny and Brenda met with Cristina and Pastor David Ventura and began feeding 50 to 60 orphans and widows five days a week.

An Act of Trust:  

Anna Capron, wife of the pastor of Christ UMC of Jasper, Al. visited the feeding kitchen 5 years ago and wanted to turn it into a nurture center.  She works in the area of  child development and nutrition.   She and husband Rev. Dale began the financing of the expanded Nurture Center.  They held a” fund raising”
i n 2011 to expand the finances to cove the extra money.  The next year Dale met with Pastor Ventura and they committed  to expand, with the help of the local church of Limon, to nurture, mentor, “father”, “mother”, tudor, and much more.

Dale came home and raised the necessary money thru an interesting system.  He had the food either donated or purchases himself.  Officered the food for free if a person would come to the meeting to hear what he had to say about the kids.

And by Jeminy he did it.

An Act of FAITH:  

When I am in charge of anything, I tend to micromanager every detail.  I hustle, call, worry, work, re check, stay up, etc, etc., and then, oh yeh, I say a little prayer.

I think tonight I saw a little different priority.  This is not to say Rev. Dale didn’t work - he did.  But I think he spent a lot more time in prayer than I usually do.

Tonight was our annual fund raiser for the Limon Nurture Center.  Even before we started, he had raised more than 1/2 of the money.  Then at the meeting, he gave away the food we had to purchase with the money raised last year, and only 33 people showed up.  During his presentation, you could see his Compassion, his Trust, and most of all his Faith in God that His will would be done.

I guess you know what happened.  by the time the night was over we had lots of folks interested in the program, in addition to other programs orchestrated by AHMEN (and GOD).

Thanks Dale for showing us the power of Faith and prayer  and, once again, demonstrating for us the potential power of trust and compassion.

If you would like to know more about the Limon Nurture Center contact:

Rev. Dale Capron

Christ UMC

Jasper, Al.

dale.capron@yahoo.com

AHMEN ANNUAL MEETING: SEPT 30 - OCT 1 , 2011

O.K. FOLKS, 





IT'S TIME FOR OUR ANNUAL AHMEN MEETING:


EACH YEAR WE INVITE ANY AND ALL WHO ARE INTERESTED IN HONDURAS TO COME AND SHARE AND LEARN.  WE WILL BE MEETING AT THE SIFAT CAMPUS IN LINEVILLE, AL. 

WHY COME?


1  SHARE YOUR SUCCESS AND FAILURES

2. LEARN WHAT OTHERS ARE DOING

3. DID YOU KNOW, THE NUMBER ONE KILLER OF KIDS WORLDWIDE IS DIARRHEA FROM CONTAMINATED WATER?  DID YOU ALSO KNOW YOU CAN LEARN, ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON/EVENING, HOW TO PUT IN A CLEAN WATER SYSTEM IN EACH OF THE VILLAGES YOU VISIT?

4. WHEN ALL THE AMERICAN MISSION TEAMS LEAVE HONDURAS EACH YEAR, WE LEAVE 3 DEAD KIDS!  YEP, THAT IS THE STATISTICS.  WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT?  COME FRIDAY EVENING AND FIND OUT WHAT ONE TEAM IS DOING. 

5.  PICK YOUR DATE TO HAVE THE LEAST IMPACT ON OTHER TEAMS.

6.  LEARN HOW TO SPLIT A TEAM.

7. LEARN HOW TO GROW A TEAM.

8. PICK UP NEW MEMBERS.

9. MUCH MUCH MORE

FOR RESERVATIONS CONTACT LOU ALTMAN:  laaltman@netscape.net

La Mosquitia Team to Honduras, April 2011

My name is Pat Farley, age 70, a recently retired nurse from NC. My adventurous experience as a nurse on the Honduras AHMEM Medical Team ,was truly amazing .I have been very  fortunate to be chosen to serve on a lot of International Mission Teams, to list a few that were rewarding and adventurous- Russia, India, Cuba ,Mexico, Brazil, Jamaica, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Costa Rico ,a lot of Caribbean  area country’s and even Africa/Kenya but I will have to admit  my  AHMEN (Honduras) was the best feeling of” true serving the need of the needy”, the adventurous travel from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba and  then continue traveling, to reach our destination  village of Las Marias, located in the heart of the magnificent biosphere reserve ,on the river ,was reached after long days of eventful  travels by driving the sandy coastline of the ocean in 4x4 trucks, as there are no roads. Then up the Rio Platano, traveling by canoe in shallow water, due to the dry season, even walking the canoe up the river against the current was a true feeling of participating in a special way.  The piece of mind knowing we could serve the people who maybe have never had the privilege of FREE MEDICAL CARE FROM AN AMERICAN DOCTOR and receiving FREE MEDICATIONS. Even with our very primitive style quarters on the river in the village of Las Marias which consisted of no electricity, no indoor toilets, and bathing in a bucket or in the river made me feel just how fortunate I was just to be able to serve such needy people.

  As an American in the medical profession for over fifty years as well as serving on dozens of MISSION TEAMS, it is easy for people close to me to observe my passion and gratitude I have for the opportunities to make a difference. I desire to help those who cannot help themselves in such a way that I relish every opportunity I have.

AHMEN SIFAT INitiative: training in Ciriboy, Honduras

Byron Moralis, facilitator of AHMEN SIFAT Initiative, and the Community Agents train at the First Garifina Hospital in Honduras. 

AHMEN and SIFAT have joined in a project in Honduras that we call the AHMEN SIFAT Initiative.  This month will mark the end of the first year and result in graduation of 55 Community Agents in Cosuna, Honduras.  Byron Morales has met with these men and women of Honduras quarterly for 3 - 4 day workshops covering a variety of learning subjects that were picked jointly by Byron and the participants of the workshop.   The last workshop was conducted at the First Garifina Hospital in Ciriboya, Honduras - a village 10 miles from Cosuna.  Here the participants were instructed in various aspects of health by Cuban and Honduran medical personnel. 

The next step in the training process is GRADUATION which will take place in Cosuna on August 9, 2011.  

One of the AHMEN team will be joining the participants for a joint learning experience during the last of their workshops.  Subjects to be covered are:

1. Blood pressure: how to take it and why is it important.  
2. Overdose prevention:  It has been reported that often young people from remote villages will take the medicine left by medical missionaries inappropriately.  
3. Eye evaluation:
4. Parasites: where do they come from and how and why to keep them out of the water source.
5. Communication:  The values and various techniques for communicating with fellow agents and with the AHMEN SIFAT Initiative.

After graduations, the community agents are expected to return to their communities and practice what they have learned.  They will be offered an opportunity to go into a second and third year of learning.

To learn more about this, click on www.honduranmissions.com..

Stop Hunger Now

As many of you know, we have used Stop Hunger Now to supply food for our feeding kitchens in Honduras.  This  just came in from the home office of Stop Hunger Now.  I thought I should pass this on.

Wednesday, July 20, the UN officially declared famine in parts of southern Somalia. It is predicted that the entire South of Somalia will face famine within the next two months. Other countries in the Horn of Africa are being severely affected by drought. The UN estimates that there are at least 1.5 million displaced people, including a quarter of the Somali population now displaced, and 10 million people in need of immediate food assistance as a result of this crisis.  According to a CNN report, aid workers are calling it the worst food cris  On  is since the famine in Ethiopia in the mid-1980s that killed about 1 million people.   Photo by Filipe Moreira   Stop Hunger Now has identified a long-term, trusted partner to distribute our meals in Somalia.  We have set the goal to ship two 40 foot containers, a total of 570,240 Stop Hunger Now meals to the region.  Stop Hunger Now is raising $150,000 to support these efforts. This region of the world is in a position to suffer from a major humanitarian catastrophe.  Stop Hunger Now urges you to join us in responding to this crisis.  Please donate today and become a part of the movement to end hunger in our lifetime.  Thank you for our support, we are honored to work on your behalf. Yours in service, Ray Buchanan Founder and International President Rod Brooks President & CEO Update email preferences | Unsubscribe | Forward to a friend | Visit our web site Stop Hunger Now: 2501 Clark Avenue, Suite 301 - Raleigh, NC - 27607-7213 888.501.8440 919.839.0689 - www.stophungernow.org - Email Main Office

Annual AHMEN Meeting: Sept 30 - OCt 1 at SIFAT

ANNUAL AHMEN MEETING: next step

It’s time to begin to think about our Annual AHMEN  meeting for this year.

For the last 6 years AHMEN has held a meeting annually for the teams to compare their successes and failures.  We think our continued growth and effectiveness has been, at least in part, to this sharing.  Team leaders, please invite all of your team mates from any year to attend.

For those who have come regularly, you know what it is like.  For those who have not come, you are missing a golden opportunity to realize we a part of something bigger than just “my team”.

AHMEN Annual Meeting: 2011

Here is what we have so far:

 We will again be at SIFAT with their wonderful and convenient facility.

Dates: Sept 30 - Oct. 1

Sleeping and food arrangements available

Friday nite:

Vespers service

Food and fellowship

Roundtable discussions on:

1. Best Pharmacy practice; i.e., how to help folks without killing their kids.
2. Keep God on your mission: Why and How
3. Is it time to enter the 21st century with our bookkeeping?
4. Why should your team participate with the AHMEN SIFAT Initiative and how to do it?
5. I can’t find a  doctor/dentist/pharmacist to go with me!  What can I do?
6. Time to split my team? How and why?
7. Bio-sand filters: How to build them.

Saturday:

Devotional

Food and Fellowship

Team/Projects Reports:

We would like for you to share both your  successes and your failures and your plans/goals for future projects/missions.

Let’s learn from each other.

Let’s Get Better and more Effective

Please send your ideas, comments, willingness to work, etc to:

Mary and Guf Guffey:hjguffey@earthlink.net

Michael Franklin:frankmj42@gmail.com

Tom Camp: llamcamp@gmail.com

C U Sept 30/Oct 1

Vaya con Dios,

Tom Camp