This has been a week full of travel! Saturday I was in Tijuana for a brigada - a health fair that Mexican Medical puts on in partnership with a Mexican alliance of churches. We do these three or four times a year and it is the coolest thing. MexMed brings about 50 volunteers from the States including all kinds of medical providers, and the Mexican alliance of churches brings about the same number of volunteers from their network. There is A TON of planning involved for each one, and that happens through many meetings in the months and weeks before each brigada. Everything is free, and there are lots of different services offered based on the providers that come - everything from medical consults to foot washing to nutrition and diabetes education to lab services to a children's area to a fully stocked pharmacy! The Mexican pastors follow up with each person who attended in the weeks after the brigada, which is the part that I love. This isn't a day where we (Americans) swoop in for a day and think we've fixed everything. We realize that we can do very little in a day, and instead rely on the people who live there - the pastors and local congregations - to follow up with the people who attended.
This time I finally got to translate for a nurse practitioner, Tina! I don't have that much medical Spanish (which really is a whole other language), but I have wanted to translate for a doctor/NP/PA so badly. I had been praying that God would somehow give me the words I needed to say and understand, but I was kind of nervous once I really thought about just how badly this could go. It's one thing if I mess up as I tell a story and people think I'm talking about a tree instead of a book. Funny, but not harmful. Messing up when translating for a medical provider can be really dangerous! Anyway, when I met Tina, she told me that about 95% of her patients speak Spanish - she knew all the medical words! But could hardly translate a verb. It was PERFECT. Together, we were a complete Spanish speaking machine! Such a clear answer to prayer...it was super encouraging.

The team - volunteers from both sides of the border - circling up for prayer before the brigada starts. 

L: Tina examining a patient, top R: sign advertising the brigada,
bottom R: Dr. Tamez meeting with the medical providers

Tuesday we brought a dental team to an orphanage we had never been to, a couple hours southeast of Tijuana. It was so different from Gabriel House. I can hardly describe it. The staff take really good care of these children (that's one thing both places have in common!) and their teeth looked great. It was a good experience. Lots more kids needed to be anesthetized than we're used to, though, so that was definitely interesting as we dealt with recovery and the meds wearing off!

Yesterday Amy and I went to Biola for the Missions Conference. We talked to a LOT of students. It was encouraging to be swept up in their saving the world mentality. Ha! It made me feel really old. Some of those freshmen could NOT have been 18. No way. 

Hopefully some teams will come as a result of this or students will be summer interns at some of our sites. We shall see!

I've got a team at Gabriel House the week after next and then am going to visit Rachel in the Dominican Republic in April! I am counting down the days...can't wait to see her life and work alongside her! She came to Gabriel House with me last spring...now it's my turn!