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!

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

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.

Heather Hall: Heather joined the mission team to serve in both the medical and children’s stations. Heather was born in Germany into a military family. Later, as her family lived in the United States, she remembers as a little girl watching television shows that featured the great needs in faraway places such as Africa. She always wanted to go on a mission trip to help the neediest around the world but she never found the opportunity to serve the Lord in that way. However, several years ago, after she came to Covenant, she learned of the church’s work in Panama. She noted that her friend, Maria, and she had talked about going on the Panama trip this year, and when an announcement in the church bulletin advertised the need for missionaries to serve on the team this year, she was excited that she and Maria might have the opportunity to serve together.

Heather is a respiratory therapist at Mike’s Southside Pharmacy and Equipment. With her medical experience, Heather adds much to the team, where she is serving in the triage station. Also, as a mother of two, she feels right at home working with the Ngobe children. She noted, “Every day that I am here, I pray that people will see Jesus in me. Coming here and serving is what Jesus would do.” Even though this mission experience is Heather’s first, she is looking forward the possibility of returning in the future. “I have much more respect for Covenant and what it does by seeing this mission that we have,” she said. Heather wants her husband, Scott, and her kids, Maddie and Allie that she misses them and loves them very much.

Naaman Strength: Naaman joins our mission this year as the team’s dentist. Naaman has worked at Dixieland Dental for the past nine years, and this trip is the first time that he has been able to use his dental experience on the mission

Naaman and Angie

field. One of the greatest opportunities that Naaman has experienced on this trip is the ability to serve alongside his wife, Angie.  Angie is serving as his dental assistant every day.

“At first, I didn’t think I could handle (the experience),” Naaman said about the mission trip to Panama. But the experience has proved worthwhile. He first considered going on the trip when the pastors asked him to consider using his gifts on the mission field. Then, he recalls, Hays McKay preached a sermon about the importance of making a drastic change in your life for the glory of God, and at that moment, “I knew that I was supposed to go to Panama.”  One of the most difficult aspects of going to the mission field was leaving behind their two children, Gabriel and Saylor, for the week. “When we talked on the phone last night, we were all in tears,” he said. But overall, Naaman shared that the experience has been extremely humbling, a great reminder of the blessings from God that we all have, and a chance to see firsthand the love of God. If Naaman had only one thing to say on this blog, it would be, “Go Gators!”  (He said not to print that, but I did).

Today was a very eventful day. Since the river level is down, more people were able to cross the river and come to the clinic. Our doctors worked nonstop all day. We took another group of our missionaries down the steep muddy pathway

Elderly Ngobe woman selling her homemade wares

to the river, and we watched the Ngobe struggle to pull the old rusty cage across the river. Experiencing this scene has been one of the most profound sights for our missionaries…it gives us the chance to really appreciate the types of challenges that the Ngobe must face daily. Tomorrow, some of us will have a chance to cross the river in the cage ourselves!  Across the river is the Ngobe reservation, and it will be an amazing opportunity to see some of the homes of the people we are serving. I look forward to giving you an update about that!

Clinic: The doctors today saw a one week-old baby was suffering from scabies. We gave the baby treatment, which we give to almost all of the patients that come through the clinic.  All patients also receive lice and parasite treatment, which are rampant among the Ngobe population. We are also receiving many people interested in receiving eyeglasses. (Thanks to everyone who donated them!) It is priceless to see the look on their face when they can “see” what they had been missing!  The dentist saw 23 patients today, and because Dr. Naaman does not have the facilities required to fill cavities, he had to pull teeth from nearly all of these patients.  Some of these patients had extremely severe cavities that needed to be pulled.

Larry, Ben, and others helping to make concrete

Children: The children’s department discovered that the Ngobe children LOVE bubbles!  Kids of all ages spend most of today blowing bubbles. The pastor of the church came and told stories about Jesus to the children. We had purchased Christian children’s books in the US, and we read some of the stories to them today…the kids listened very attentively to the stories.

Construction: Last week, prior to our arrival, the Methodist Church in Auburn had made great improvements to the new building on the site. The new site will be used as a dental clinic so that we can do more advanced dental procedures in the future. Today, a couple of our team members, Larry and Ben, were filling cement in a walkway that leads to the new building.

Prayers: We thank God that our team has great chemistry…we are all getting along great, and everyone is in great health. We are expecting tomorrow to be the biggest attendance of the week. We are also thankful that the Harrells, our team members from Louisiana, were able to visit the orphanage today where they adopted a little Ngobe girl a few years ago.

Feel free to leave comments!  I’ll pass on your comments to the team.

Time (the Pharmacist) Quote of the day: "I've finally found a chair as hard as my head!"

Susan takes photos of children and families as gifts

Dr. Cal, our team member from Ohio, sees a young patient

Dr. Naaman and Angie work in the dental clinic

Susan takes photos of children and families as gifts