Mission Day 1: Independencia

After a frog-strangler of a storm last night, the sun broke through the clouds this morning. What a beautiful day in Mexico!

After breakfast, the morning's assignment was to empty the trailer of supplies that our farmers & constuction crew drove down from Montana, and to sort and organize them. All the following activities took place simultaneously.

Many of the young people counted and packed bulk vitamins and ibuprofen into small containers to distribute to patients throughout the week.

The 5 nurses each packed their own supply kit with everything they anticipate needing throughout the week.

And there's nothing that makes a bunch of nurses happier than finding a chest of lab tests, latex gloves, and other supplies that have been missing for two years...unearthed from a storage room.

Lucas, our technical wizard, printed off Patient Information sheets, medication labels, name tags, and more.

Brett trundled the 2 large bags of medications to a pair of tables...

...and the pharmacy team inventoried and packed all the meds into the special compartmentalized boxes built by Brett and his father several years ago.

Mike oriented his triage team, teaching them to take blood pressure, temperatures, height and weight, and brief medical histories.

The glasses team unpacked and sorted thousands of pairs of sunglasses and reading glasses. We anticipate giving away about 500 pairs at each village.

Head Nurse Carol trained helpers in giving urinalysis tests, strep test, and blood sugar finger pricks.

Meanwhile, our amazing construction crew was hard at work out behind the main mission area. Art and Brenda have many short-term missionaries come throughout the year to stay and work and live here for various lengths of time. Some couples and families bring their own travel trailers or motor homes, and in the hot weather they simmer and broil in their thin-walled homes. So this year's construction project is to build a giant shade to cover the RV parking area to make the helpers much more comfortable.

Brad welds the trusses....

....While Richard digs holes for the uprights...

....And Himer cuts custom angles on more trusses (as Curt, ever helpful, supervises and provides distractions).

The local San Carlos Community Church has been active with our mission group for many years. Each day about 15-20 of their members will join us to help as translators and general helpers with various facets of the mission. This morning Mat and Mark had an orientation meeting with the local volunteers. I'm constantly amazed at the staggering number of logistics and details required to carry out a mission of this type, but somehow Mark is able to keep all those details in mind and execute them with good humor.

Finally all supplies were sorted and packed and ready for our first afternoon out. Today's village was not in a remote area, as most of our villages will be. We headed to Independencia, one of the poor areas of the city of Guaymas. 

Because of extremely slow internet service here, I'll try to publish this much of the blog post and send the rest separately.