Missions Blog @ Covenant UMC, Dothan

Sammy assisting at Mama Tina's

The goal of Covenant’s Mission Blitz is to connect as many of our members as possible to some mission project in our community this week.  We pray that God uses this week to bless others and shine the light of Jesus in the Wiregrass!  Click on this LINK to see photos from many of our projects!

We served in soup kitchens, homeless shelters, recovery programs, and nursing homes. We did construction, yardwork, prayer and encouragement for missionaries, and assembling shower kits for the homeless. We baked cookies for area mission agencies, tutored in area schools, and conducted food and hygiene drives for the needy. Many individuals invited neighbors into their homes, made commitments to personally share their faith, and perform random acts of kindness to strangers…and many more!  

43  The number of projects in which our members could choose to participate!

147 The number of local and int’l missionaries to whom we wrote letters and prayed for this week!

356 The number of members who participated in an event!

990 The number of meals that Covenant members served in our community!

1650 The estimate of people directly impacted by our Mission Blitz!

UMW Susanna Circle made Shower Kits for the homeless

A servant's heart

Serving at Love in Action

Click on this LINK to see more photos from many of our projects!

This is our last blog from Panama!  Thank you for reading!  Today we had a great time touring Panama City, including seeing the Canal, the Colonial section of the city, the oldest section of the city, and last but not least, souvenir shopping! Tomorrow we will get on the bus at 5am, and those of us flying back to Atlanta will depart at 8am. We hope to return to Dothan around 5pm-ish. We had a great time, but we all look forward to seeing our loved ones again.

We also want to thank the Methodist Church in Panama for hosting us.  Rhett Thompson, the missionary who helped organize and lead our team, was a great team member and we appreciate him for his leadership.  We also want to acknowledge that, even though our team has contributed much to the Ngobe people in the past week, our work is only one small part of the ongoing work that the Methodist Church has been doing in the reservation region, day after day, month after month. We had a cast of many wonderful Panamanians on our team that made our mission possible.

Thank you for praying for us, and for following the work that we have been doing. I took time to write this blog with the hope that our readers would catch a greater vision for God’s mission in the world and how to be a part of that vision. I wrote biographies of our missionaries to illustrate the point that our missionaries are not necessarily different than many of our blog readers, and even though each person is uniquely gifted, the greatest qualification for being a missionary is simply responding in obedience to the mission call that God has placed upon each person who calls Jesus Christ their Lord and Savior. Perhaps God is calling you, too, to go outside of your comfort zone and serve Him, whether that be at home or around the world.

Thanks for being a part of our journey.  God bless you! Pastor Mike Hoppe

Blessings from the Old City in Panama City! We will see you soon.

On Friday afternoon we closed up shop at the clinic, but not before a packed day of assisting others and doing the Lord’s work. A five-year old boy with six toes on one foot needed an amputation so that he could wear shoes. One of our doctors, an orthopedic surgeon, was able to perform the amputation on-site. The procedure was very successful, and we had one happy little boy once the procedure was over!

Smiling now that the toe amputation procedure is over!

Prayer Update: We updated you previously about two young boys whom we transported to the hospital, one hour away, for further testing. Richardo, the 1-year old boy, was diagnosed with pneumonia and will receive further treatment so that he can heal.  We’re thankful that he is doing so well.  However, the other 10-year old boy, who had swollen lymph glands, had a worst-case diagnosis.  His blood work revealed that the 10-year old has leukemia. We left the family in the care of Panamanian doctors, and we will continue to pray for this child and his family.

A day in pictures: We had a wonderful final day on the reservation.  Here are a few photos from our final day.

Closing with the kids

Maria working with the children

Children at our Parasite Treatment Station.

A waiting line at our pharmacy station

Angie with her sporty new Ngobe dress!

Ngobe woman receives a new pair of glasses for the first time

After closing up shop on the reservation, we flew back to Panama City, where we had a great dinner together

We would like you to pray for a 1-year old boy named Richardo, who came to our clinic today.  Richardo’s mother walked five hours through the jungle to reach our clinic.  She knew her little boy had a fever, but she didn’t know just  how high. Richardo had a temperature of 105 degrees, dehydration, and pneumonia. When he arrived, he was breathing heavily and staring blankly at the ceiling.  Our clinic immediately started giving him fluids and cooling him off. The doctors eventually made the decision to rush him to the nearest hospital, a one-hour drive away, for more treatment. Two members of our team made the drive along with the family to the hospital. When he left our clinic, we had successfully lowered his temperature to 101 degrees.  Along with Richardo, we also rushed another 10-year old boy to the hospital who had swollen lymph glands throughout his body. Overall, our clinic picked-up speed today with double the number of patients showing up due to the fact that the river level is lower.

Treating baby Richardo

Over 100 patients were waiting for us to open the clinic when we arrived at 9am

Heavy rains in the past few days makes streets on the reservation nearly impassable

Nurse Emily in triage

I promised the team that I would post this photo

Tomorrow, Friday, will be our final day at the clinic. We will work half-day, and then we’ll fly back to Panama City. On Saturday, we will have a fun day. We will see the Canal as well as go to a dinner theater in the evening. Its hard to believe that our trip is winding down! I hope to update this blog on Friday afternoon or evening if possible.

Maria Boyd: Maria joins our team this year to serve in both the clinic and in children’s ministry. Ever since Maria went on a mission trip to Honduras ten years ago, she has wanted to find another opportunity to serve internationally. Going on an international mission trip often provides the opportunity to grow personally. For Maria, going personally means learning patience, working with a team, and being reminded of the materialistic ways that so often invade our American lifestyle. “Sometimes we just need to go on a mission trip to see all that God has put here on this earth and to also see all the needs that are out there,” she said.

Maria is a Radiation Therapist and works at 21^st Century Oncology in Dothan. Her medical experience and love of children has been a great asset for the team. Maria has played with and taught children, worked in the photo station, and worked in the triage in the clinic. As a wife to Joel and mother to two wonderful children, she is thankful for her family s support as she serves the Lord on this trip. Overall, she is thankful for the opportunity to learn about the Ngobe people and their needs, to serve God, and “to be a part of answering someone’s prayers.” She hopes others will sense their own calling to participate in God’s mission on future trips, as she hopes to do in the future as well.

Ben McNeely: Ben, a seventeen year old student at Northview High School, joins our team this year to work on the construction team and to assist in other areas. Ben joins his father, Tim, who is directing the Pharmacy on our team. Ben is enjoying is first mission trip. He hoped that the experience would give him opportunities to learn about a new culture and country, and in the end, he has discovered how fortunate and blessed his own life is. He joined the team with a great spirit, willing to assist in any way that was needed. He has spent much of his time mixing concrete and digging trenches for a new building being constructed on the mission site. Hard work is great practice for his aspirations of joining the Marines following graduation.  As an ROTC high school student, Ben is following in the military footsteps of other family members. This first mission experience has been a powerful experience, and he hopes to participate in other mission experiences in the future. “I would definitely return if I know that I could help more in the future. I’d recommend that others come and see how people live and work in other parts of the world,” he said.

Albert Miller: Dr. Bert joined the team as one of our doctors and serves in the clinic every day. Bert is a physician in the ER at Dale Medical Center. Bert is relatively new to our community and Covenant UMC, but he has a fascinating history. Bert was born into an Amish family in Ohio. As a child, he did not have electricity or flush toilets. Also, according to Amish tradition, he grew up speaking German and completed only the eighth grade. Later, he was able to enter college and eventually medical school. Bert had never been a member of a Methodist church before joining Covenant this year.

Bert, and his wife Pat (who is also on our mission trip this year), have made many international trips in the past, but he has never had the opportunity to go on a mission trip. Due to the long and hard hours that his job required, he was never able to take the time to serve on a mission, but he always wanted to find the opportunity to give back in that way.  On the mission trip this year, Bert gained a great appreciation for the hardships that the Ngobe face daily. He understands their physical hardships, but he also feels a strong calling to seek the Lord in extending spiritual healing to the Native Americans of this land. He sees this year’s trip as the first of many opportunities he hopes to take in the coming years to give back in mission, to serve the people that God loves around the world.

Yevette Harrell: Yevette joins our team this year as a nurse, and while she serves in many capacities, she also directs our eyeglasses clinic. Yevette joined the team along with her husband, Dr. Richard, her sister, Sheree, and one of her sons, Tyler. The family is from Louisiana, and they found out about our mission trip because of this blog that we posted about our trip last year. After we returned from Panama last year, Yevette called the church and inquired about the possibility of joining us the following year. Her family had adopted a young Ngobe girl, Rosa, from an orphanage in the region where we work.  Yevette wanted to return to the Ngobe reservation to serve the people of her wonderful adopted girl. So, by randomly searching on the internet, she happened to find us.  We have been blessed to have them join us this year!

In addition to her son, Tyler, and daughter, Rosa, Yevette has another son, Jacob, who is a student at Louisiana Tech. The Harrells have never had the opportunity to serve on a mission trip in the past, and she noted, “this has been an answer to prayer.” The Harrells used one day this week to visit the orphanage where their daughter is from, and they hope to continue to establish a relationship with the people of this region. On our team, Yevette’s nursing skills and joyful personality have added much to the chemistry and depth of our week’s experience. Yevette wants to thank her family for watching Rosa during this week and Jacob and Kyle for taking care of so many things while they are away.