Sorry…

Sorry for stopping so abruptly on my last blog entry. I still can’t believe people (i.e. Katy) would actually sit and read the whole thing… thanks though! Encouragement to write more…

I so was tired last night. I had gotten off the plane, June 20th at 7am and by 8:30am I was sitting in dining room #4 of Mt. Sinai Hospital ready to listen to Dr. B’s introduction to Oral surgery at the hospital. Though I was tired during the day, think my excitement and anticipation kept me awake as we keenly listened to Dr. B describe how we would manage jaw fractures, swellings, infection… a bit scared though, hospital based dentistry is totally different from what we’ve been learning in dental school. I am sure you will hear about it later on this blog.

Brazil Day 4- part 2
So after admiring the beautiful sky, we arrived back at the hotel for dinner. After dinner, we sat and discussed the following day’s plan. As Pastor Elicio had prepared us earlier, flexibility and readiness to follow the holy spirit’s prompting were key. Turns out the Pocone church had expressed that there was need for medical, dental and optometry in the town as well. The doctors and nurses could set up in the church whereas church had a arranged an old dental clinic about a 5 minute drive from the church.

Dr. Upchurch, the optometrist wanted to stay another day in Piriam to finish examination and treatment of the rest of the villagers. As for the dental team, there were 3 dentists in total, my mentor Dr. Lin, Dr. Lucianne from the Cuiaba church and myself ( I still can’t believe I’m actually a dentist!) We decided that Dr. Lucianne would go to the clinic in Pocone taking Kevin as his assistant while the rest of us would return to the village of Piriam by boat.

Just to summarize on the day 4, and to give you a bigger picture of the mission team, (no it wasn’t just dental =p) part of the team had gone back to the town of Pocone to help in

1. The construction of the church – the team came back so tanned.. the sun was scorching
2. Children’s ministry
3. The soccer team –soccer is really really big in Brazil. A former Brazilian professional soccer player from Rio de Janeiro organized a session teaching over 200 children to play soccer integrated with the gospel

At Piriam, the village where the dental team had gone, others teams included

1. The cooking team – who cooked meals for those coming for treatment
2. the medical team – nurses and doctors from Texas, Cuiaba and Pocone
   a. most of the treatment was dispensing of medication, cleaning of wounds. We had doctors including pediatrics, orthopaedic, neurosurgeon, ObGyn, psychiatry, general family…
3. the physio team – a physio from Texas
4. the optometry team – Dr. Upchurch brought over 500 pairs of prescription glasses and 600 sunglasses. The Optometry tent was set up under a tree, and to obtain absolute darkness for some of the eye exams, Dr. Upchurch was do the examinations under a black garbage bag. (pictures are coming.. I didn’t really get a chance to take pictures so waiting for others..)

The evangelism team – each team member from Texas had written out their testimony and had it translated beforehand into Portuguese and had several copies on hand. When we got off the boat, there was actually a group of older men from the village, I was guessing elders standing watching us we unloaded all our gear. You could tell that they were very sceptical and wondering why a bunch of foreigners were coming to their village. Pastor Elicio had visited the village before the rest of the team arrived in Brazil, and as he was talking to the villagers one of them said, “why would anyone want to come here, no one ever cares for us.”

Kim, a nurse from Texas, was telling me later that night that several of the men had come to accept Christ that very day. As she described their harsh faces turning to smiles, tears filled her eyes. The evangelism team from Texas, with their translators had approached these men right when we got off the boat and many had come to know a bit more about a personal relationship with Christ.

As I type this I am reminded again of the importance of unity of the body of Christ.

Brazil Day 5
Early morning call, then devotions as a large group. Dr. Upchurch shared the passage of Luke 10:38-41, the all too familiar passage of Martha and Mary. Dr. Upchurh went on to share how this passage had hit him on his final days before leaving Texas. He was running around making sure things would be in order; the office would be able to operate without him, bills were paid, family matters were in place – the passage reminded him that he was so focused on doing, that he had forgotten what the most important thing was.. to just sit at the Lord’s feet listening to Him.

Dr. Upchurch’s insight especially struck a chord with me as I could identify with the craziness before leaving for Brazil. Graduation on June 8th, the formal on 9th and I left on June 10th. I was still meeting with classmates who were moving down to the states on the morning of the 10th before my flight, viewing houses with the real estate agent 5 hours before the flight. I was also juggling thoughts about relationships, decisions about grad programs and anticipating arriving back in Toronto to start a residency program.. I know my heart wasn’t still before the Lord… Priscilla Y actually pointed this out at the airport before I left and I know it was something she was praying for - that during this trip I would be focused on the Lord and doing His work. For anyone planning on a mission trip in the future and a lesson I learnt the hard way, preparation is key... including rest!

After worship, prayer time and alone quiet time, the teams went their separate ways. Dr. Lin decided that he wanted a few of us to take the faster speed boats to the villages and start before the bigger PantanalVida arrived. So we packed a couple instruments and headed out on the speed boats. We arrived at Piriam at about 8am and set up in one of the medical tents. The word had gotten around and line-ups had already formed for treatment.

One lady from a neighbouring village had been there since 7am! The patient was named Anna and had a little girl named Adriana who also needed extractions. It just happened that our translator, Pastor Elicio’s wife, was named Adriana and her daughter was named Anna. The patient sat in a chair and I did my first extraction kneeling while the patient’s head was propped by a neck support pillow, the second was a big easier as I got used to the awkward position. By the 5th extraction, the bigger boat had arrived and we brought our instruments back on board.

On day 5, I got to use the dental room, which had a light and chair so my back got a bit of a rest, while Dr. Lin used the consultation room with a the bed and flashlight. We did extractions non stop, and at about 1pm I wolfed down a lunch. There were several cases where I still had to ask Dr. Lin for help. I had been trained to extract root tips with fancy instruments such as drills, careful diagnosis with xrays, (o we didn’t have a bone drill on the boat) whereas here all I had was basic instruments, everything was by feel as there was no suction, so after a while everything was covered with blood. It was a humbling experience because in some cases I would be trying and trying, Dr Lin would come over and it would take him 2 seconds. Much to learn, much to learn… A reality check for any pride I might have had since graduation, papers, awards mean nothing when you are faced with a difficult case…

I spent most of the day in the tiny room and didn’t really get a chance to step outside to take pictures so I would look forward to dinner as we heard reports and sharing from different teams, the stories of individuals and their questions as they wanted to know more about Christ and that day alone over 100 accepting Christ in various teams.

At dinner Kevin shared about the tiny room that they had for dental treatment in Pocone. Dr. Lucianne and him spent the whole morning cleaning up. They had found all these old extraction tools covered with grease and other unknown substances along with a broken chair but faint light. Patients had started coming at about 11 am and they worked non stop as well. Dr. Lucianne wanted an additional person to help with oral hygiene instruction the following day, i.e. teaching to brush their teeth… It was between Yvonne and Jenn. After hearing Kevin’s report, both were reluctant to go… but Jenn finally agreed…

I need to sleep now.. early day at Sinai again. I know I have started many stories here but believe me there is more and some pretty cool continuations and endings…

To be continued….