MVP is excited about our 2013 mission tours, our first tour dpearts in just a few days! We will certainly appreciate your prayers and all your support while our teams are in the field. We have serveral important updates to share about our Altiplano tour in July, a new tour in August, a reminder about supporting Casa de Esperanza, and tours this fall to Paraguay and Peru.

Ron Haynes, one of our in-country hosts from Lovely Feet Ministries is visiting the churches in our target zone for the tour this summer. Due to some community celebrations that would limit...     Continue Reading

Recently Fidel and Charita Corrales (Directors of Casa de Esperanza) have shared with us their growing concern—a very basic need—to pay all the bills associated with supporting 80+ children. Various changes require the orphanage to look to other churches and individuals to help support the children.

Our Mission at Casa de Esperanza:

With your help, we want to take care of these homeless children and young people, so they can find secure and productive place in the Bolivian societ...     Continue Reading

It is now Saturday evening and we had a Wonderful day! We walked downhill to a village called Playa, it took 1 hour to get down the hill but uphill was a bit more difficult. The return trip took about 90 minutes as the path was very muddy and slippery. We had two donkeys carry our supplies and had clinic in a small village church. People came from miles around to be treated. The nurses took extra time to pray with the patients and several of them stated they had never heard the name of Jesus! One lady asked Jessica – how do you receive Jesus? She took an apple and told her some people only see the apple (which doesn't help you), you must partake of the apple to receive its benefits. The woman's eyes lit up and she stopped and prayed with Jessica on the spot!Today we treated 100 patients (not counting glasses, fluoride and worm treatments), so our count is 940 patients + innumerable professions of faith which Pastor Trino promises to follow up on.Again, thank you for taking the time to read these letters and to pray for us!Today is Thursday and we are still in Marayhuca Incahuasi, so far we have had 6 clinics on this trip. Tomorrow we are traveling to an even more remote village (if it doesn't rain). This might be the last letter until Sunday! We have now treated close to 840 patients (not counting the vision test, the dispensing of prescription glasses, fluoride treatment in the schools, and deworming of the children in the schools). Just for fun I am going to give you a brief outline of a typical day: 615 AM – team wakes up, bathroom (4 blocks away), dress and close up our belongings. 730 AM walk to breakfast, and have a devotion. 815 brief team meeting and prayer for the day. 900-1230 Clinic, 1230 – 200 lunch, 200-600 clinic, 630-830 movie/church service. 900 supper and 1000, set up for bed and collapse in our sleeping bags. Wearing three layers, because the temp is 58 degrees. 615AM we will pack up, eat and head to the next village.

Man makes plans – God changes them! Last night it rained all night which means we could not travel up any higher, so we packed up the van, and tried to make it to another village which was ...     Continue Reading

Dear Family and Friends,

From September 20-28, 2012, we served with a team of 10 (7 from North Carolina, 1 from Chicago, Tom and I from the St. Louis region). We went to San Luis, Cuba at the request of Cuban Western...     Continue Reading

Dear family and friends,It is now Monday afternoon and we are in La Paz. Last time I wrote, it was Friday afternoon and we were still in Cochabamba. Well, since then; the police, fireman, nurses and doctors put on a mock mess casualty in Cochabamba; they re-created a collision between two buses. Our team was supposed to evaluate their efficiency! Our team was humbled by their efforts, by the ability of the various departments to work together. In total, we were able to hold four seminars, reaching close to four hundred doctors, nurses, and first responders. This weekend was spent sight-seeing on Lake Titicaca. Now, we are in the middle of an emergency medical seminar in La Paz. This weekend we had two of the team not feeling well, probably because of the high altitude. But today, everyone is feeling good! Today we have only one seminar, tomorrow the whole team will be teaching four different seminars, two physician seminars, one nursing seminar, and one first responder seminar. We will also set two hours aside for hands on practice in CPR, airway, splinting...etc. Thank you all for your prayers in support!Today is Friday morning and we are all in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The team is doing wonderful, maybe a little sleep deprived, but they are so kind, giving, doing a wonderful job educating their Bolivian Counterparts. We arrived in Cochabamba—Wednesday afternoon around 4:00 pm, we went by taxi to our Hotel, most of the team went sight seeing to see the HUGE statue of Christ that over looks thecity of Cochabamba. Wednesday evening we met our host in Cochabamba, most of the team had a chance to tour the hospital. That evening we had some necessary 'tweaking' of our schedule of subjects/speakers on Wednesday night (to better meet their needs/requests of our host), so besides being sleep deprived, because of our 'red eye flight', they were awake updating our curriculum/speakers late into the night.

Thursday, we were able to facilitate all four of our planned Seminars, in 4 different rooms. Three of the conference rooms were on the Hospital Complex, with the fourth team in a conference r...     Continue Reading

It is impossible for me to share with you the joy, the pain, the peace that accompanies you on these trips. These trips forces your eyes open--to see the pain, poverty, suffering that most of our world lives with daily, but you also see the miracles, the victories, and the joys. On the Buvuma Islands, people still live in villages, by tribes. They cannot imagine a world where you don't know your neighbor, where you don't share their pain, sorrow and victories. Leaving them is so hard, they are so genuine in their love and concern for us, at night while we slept, we could hear Jimmie (one our the evangelists) standing outside our tents praying for us.

God has really blessed this trip, comparing this year to the past, sure, there was more mud, more RAIN, more wet sleeping bags, more bugs, later nights of working, etc... But, all I could say...     Continue Reading

The July team to Beni/Santa Cruz is in the air on the way home. This team started the tour with some significant difficulty and frustration related to baggage not arriving. Every day we would make our plans, within hours we were revising those plans... I don't think any member of the team ever doubted that God was formulating a better way for us!

We split our time in country between the departments (states) of Beni and Santa Cruz. In Beni, near the capital city of Trinidad we were serving in lowland jungle territory, we served in Cami...     Continue Reading

Our clinic tour through the department of Pando with a focus on the city and villages around Cobija has concluded and it was a great success! The plan was to go by river and take this grand adventure... God changed our plans a few weeks ago, and because of the flexibility and positive attitudes of this team, we ended up with a bigger better plan than we could have ever dreamt.

Pando is an incredible place, with incredible people... Our team often times was at the mercy of others, we went on faith after we lost our first coordinator to some political problems. But G...     Continue Reading

Our clinic tour through the Uyuni Salt Flats has concluded and it was a great success! In all we treated 512 patients during 7 clinics in 5 communities plus several home visits. We also taught and evangelized in 12 classrooms to 359 students. In all we worked with nearly 900 people in the communities near Llica and Salinas on the northern end of the Uyuni Salt Flats. Our ...travels took us through 6 departments and 2 countries (we briefly crossed the boarder into Chile). The team has rode many busses and the back of a pick up truck to get around.

A few highlights:

Our medical team: Mirriam, Jenni, Jen, Whitney, and Carlos were all so compassionate and thorough treating our patients. Something very significant we were spending ...     Continue Reading

This trip to Bolivia will be different from our other trips to Bolivia, on this trip we will have two separate teams—a surgery team and a remote team.  Both teams will spend the first week in ...     Continue Reading

This trip accomplished much more than we ever could have imagined. For everyone who was praying for our work, God certainly blessed the efforts in an 'imeasurably more' style just as Ephesians 3:20 promises.

One of our most challenging locations was Puina due to the cold weather and high altitude. Our purpose to visit here was to open an opportunity for the church in Queara to re-plant the church...     Continue Reading

Nine months ago when we arrived in Sayhuani we found not a single Christian and a baby dying of starvation. The village felt that the family had “enough” children and pressured the mother into letting him die by not feeding him. The February team Bolivian doctors consulted with Maria (the mom) and she agreed to let us take the 8 day old baby with no name to the city of La Paz to see if he could be saved. Maria agreed and as an afterthought gave the baby the name Pedro.

Today, Pedro is living in Sayhuani healthy and happy with his family. About two weeks later Maria came to her senses and began to fight for her baby to live. Today, Sayhuani has a small ...     Continue Reading

Below is our itinerary for our next Bolivian Adventure! We will be spending the bulk of our time working with the remote villages around Sayhuani and Apolo in the department of La Paz. There is an established missionary in Apolo that we will be assisting to reach the remote Villages surrounding Apolo.

Many will remember Sayhuani from MVP Bolivia's February Highlands tour. We visited the village and met baby Pedro who was severely malnurrished and in need of advanced medical care. We are ve...     Continue Reading

US Doctors from Washington University in St. Louis Missouri are eaching Emergency Medicine and Advance Trauma to the Academy of Physicians in La Paz, Sucre, and Potosi. Also, during this week Donna an EMS Training Specialist for the St. Louis Fire Department and Julie Dalechek, RN are teaching a Nursing Seminar at the University and 2-First Responder Seminars in Sucre and Potosi. All of the educators will to teach an “Advance First Responder’s Course” in La Paz on Friday, followed by a “Mock Trauma” in a large auditorium in La Paz. We're going to work through a plane crash with 34 patients!

A work team is also along for the education tour. MVP volunteers and leaders often stop and help at the orphanage in Caranavi, Casa de Esperanza. This is a lovely orphanage which is run by a ...     Continue Reading

Pando is like the wild west of Bolivia. I don't think I have ever seen so many motor cycles in my life. There were little mopeds, dirt bikes, and mini-van-cycle (no different than any other bike, except for the family of 5 that were all riding at once). The department is often cut off from the rest of the country due to impassible roads.

In all there were 22 team members along for the ride. Nine from North America, four Bolivian doctors, two Bolivian dentists, three missionaries from the Department of La Paz, and four represe...     Continue Reading