Thursday, February 14, 2019
Friends, do you know anyone whose water for the home has to be carried in from a fountain 15.5 miles away? No? Then please let me introduce you to the people of Santa Ana, Ceguaca in Santa Barbara where dehydration is such a common condition here.
Fortunately for the community of Santa Ana, they are part of the FOB Community Partnership Program and are partnered with Trinity United Methodist Church in Richmond, Virginia. This partnership offers support for their community leaders, midwife training and community lectures and workshops throughout the year along with the visits from Mountain Medical Teams like ours. Thank you Trinity UMC for your support of this wonderful community.
There are 94 families, and most cook with wood stoves inside their homes that have no chimneys. Coughing is a frequent complaint, and we’ve dispensed hundreds of bottles of cough syrup.
The medical team today saw 202 patients; our dentist saw 53 of them and did 80 tooth extractions. The high rate of decayed teeth comes from the absence of teeth brushing and too much sugar. This is a sugar cane country and these mountain parents work the sugarcane fields. Mothers are known to sweeten baby’s milk with sugar and allow children to suck on the sugar cane. Children and adults are in desperate need of toothbrushes and so far this week we have handed out 745 toothbrushes (donated by our friends at home) and given baggies of toothpowder that our team hand mixed last Sunday using equal parts of salt and baking soda.
Our doctors and nurses are seeing conditions they haven’t seen for decades in the US.
The weather was cold with drizzling rain all day but the villagers were lined up at the gate waiting. They stood huddled in the mist from 8:00am to 5:30pm when we packed up for home and they remained calm, pleasant and patient throughout the day. Sus Manos Team left no patient unseen.
We all are so grateful for your donations that have enabled Sus Manos to help as many as we have.
All God’s best to you.
~Bunny Eilers
