OUR FIRST OUTREACH

Yesterday was our first chance to use what we have learned so far. We went to a tribal group near the mountains of Mindoro. We saw over a hundred people. Some had been walking all night to reach the clinic. While the people all seemed pretty healthy, they were all very short because of poor nutrition. The tallest man that I met wasn't even my height and the women were all less than 5 feet. You could tell by looking at their hands and feet that they worked very hard all day every day. The children looked much younger and the adults looked much older than they actually were.
Most of the people just had a cough and cold. They mainly just come to get the free vitamins. There was a few more serious patients though, one women was nearly nine months pregnant and severely anemic, but they can't afford the iron supplements. We gave her what we could but we have limited resources. The saddest thing I saw was an 11 year old boy who was blind from cataracts. They could be removed relatively easily in hospital and his sight would be nearly normal. Unfortunately the hospital is about 90km away, and the tribe does not have a vehicle. There were a couple other patients who needed to go the hospital too but the director said it was unlikely they woud go.
I couldn't believe how tough the kids were. There was a twelve year old boy whose father had cut the side of his foot with an axe. It cut nearly through the bone. They have no way of dressing wounds so he has been walking on it and working in the rice fields. We cleaned and patched him up and he didn't even flinch. There was also a five year old with a couple of badly infected wounds on his arm and foot. He laid there completely still, at home people (myself included) have cried for much lesser things.
At the end we shared the gospel with the tribe. About seven of them asked Jesus into their heart. The best was this little old granny who seemed to just fill with joy. Her big toothless grin was amazing.