Monday, March 25
We met at 7:30 to begin our day with devotions. We also continued sharing what we have seen our first day here. Meiring shared how the family who sat besides her on the flight to Erbil had a baby who cried incessantly for hours. Finally, she felt prompted to sing "Jesus Loves Me" to this baby. After only two choruses, the baby fell asleep. The parents said nothing, but today's Daily Bread reading encourages us to "not be weary in doing good" even when we don't see a response (from the parents) because "at the proper time, we will reap a harvest".
After devotions, we ate breakfast then met up with some of our translators (some would go directly to the IDP - internally displaced person - camp) and we left at 9:30, arriving about 10 at Berseve camp. There are dozens of such camps around Duhok and over a hundred missionaries serving these camps, but only a few around Kuhko ministered to by a handful of missionaries. That is one reason Habibi has chosen to minister in Kuhko and is focusing on 4 camps. The previous medical team which left when we arrived served at two camps and we are serving at the other two camps, all these for the first time. Pioneering work into a new mission field is exciting and very interesting, but also scary since there is no precedent and as Willy said, we don't have to worry about stepping on other people"s toes. We set up the medical team in one large room and they started to work about 10:30 with Christine and a translator doing triage and Johnny and Glenn with their own translators set up at their stations. By now a large crowd had gathered, but a local brother had divided the Berseve camp into 4 quadrants and passed out 100 numbered tickets in each quadrant so he shooed everyone away who did not have tickets and the medical team started to screen the patients numerically, lowest number first. Somehow, by word of mouth all these people had come when we arrived. Meanwhile, the rest of us sang one song and started to meet the children who had come, a half dozen at first, and stone over twenty in a second room. We taught them the alphabet (which most knew already) and then Sunday school songs - somehow Amy, Lily and Sharon kept adlibing teaching material. It rained intermittently the whole day, sometimes quite heavily, so only Kenny braved the elements and set out with a local high school boy as his guide to explore the village. He ended up visiting an elderly man with a small canteen store and had tea with several men (see photo). We broke for lunch at 1 PM, with the medical team seeing almost 30 patients. We resumed work before 2 and the medical team worked until it got dark after 6 PM and they couldn't see before electricity was finally connected, so they saw a couple more patients, 82 in all today. The rest of was was invited by a young girl to visit her home for tea and Willy and Marshall prayed for a young man who asked for prayer for healing. Communication was difficult even though this young man spoke some English but we explained John 14:6 to him, stressing that Jesus is the only way and he could not believe in multiple gods. He promised to meet with us tomorrow when he left. Meantime, Kenny in exploring the camp found a pool hall where many young men hung around shooting pool. He spent several hours with these men, even inviting Marshall to join in. Kenny shooting pool in a cigarette smoke filled room reminds us of Jesus hanging out and partying with sinners. When we left the camp around 6:30, he received numerous 8nvitations to dinner, which he had to turn down. We returned to the hotel, walked to a nearby restaurant (see photo) and debriefed, before retiring for the night around 9:30 PM, very tired but grateful for our first day. Here are some comments from our team members:
Lily - the people hunger for learning
Sharon - kids are so lovely and welcoming
Glenn - great working with a cardiologist. One 14 year old needed a heart transplant. Need to pray for her.
Johnny - lots of patients are overweight, so lots of hypertension, diabetes. Surprised to see in a poor environment.
Mei - great adaptability to respond to needs by our team, but we need to ask God what we are here for and focus more.
Kenny - overwhelmed by their hospitality, hanging out in a pool hall; one of the guys wanted to take him to barber. Kept on being invited. A high school kid shared his hurt when a Yazidi girl burned to death last year.
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