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Babies are more vulnerable in rural Nicaragua
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We work in difficult to reach areas of Nicaragua
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The communities we serve are remote
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Our rural health team travels out to communities to train, support and supervise rural clinics
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Health promoters see patients in their homes
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Or see patients in their community clinics
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Making sure the most vulnerable people, moms and their babies are visited
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We visit and support rural health committees who organize for improved health
"Never
again will there be in it a infant who live but a few days..." Isaiah
65:20 NIV
This
is a journal article to share our gratitude for the privilege of serving as
your IM missionaries and the importance of your World Mission Offering as well
as targeted support for missionaries. Without your support, we would not be on
the field here in Nicaragua, nor would any of our other missionary colleagues
all over the world! We are also so grateful for all those who supported the All
Staff Gathering and the World Mission Conference this year. We were able to
meet so many people and learn from our missionary colleagues, partners, and our
IM churches to see how God is working through so many people to transform our
world. So THANK YOU to all our churches, partners, and individual
supporters who keep all of us on the field in IM!
As your medical missionaries, we thank IM and the World Mission
Offering for helping to make it possible for all of us together to reach people
in remote areas of Nicaragua with no other access to healthcare. Thanks to our
missionary support, we have the opportunity dedicate ourselves as physicians
and public health professionals to the ministry of AMOS Health and Hope. AMOS
stands for A Ministry of Sharing, and is also named for the prophet Amos
because of his sensitivity to the poor and marginalized populations we work with. The mission of AMOS is to
witness to rural communities by sharing the Gospel and serving rural
communities with basic preventive health care so that children and women do not
die of easily preventable deaths. In Nicaragua, many children die from completely preventable causes of death simply because of the lack of access
to healthcare and the conditions of extreme poverty they live in. We train
local village leaders to become barefoot doctors, or "health
promoters" who can treat the most common illnesses and prevent unnecessary
deaths in children and women. We see the community as our partners and accompany them in identifying and solving problems like anemia, malnutrition and the need for clean water. Our health promoter follow the example of Jesus in addressing spiritual, emotional, and spiritual health.
Since we helped found AMOS in 2006, it has grown from a few people
serving a handful of communities to an organization now working in 34 rural
communities and serving more than 20,000 people. The growth has been
possible thanks to 1) your missionary support, 2) a growing network of
individuals and churches who have felt called to participate in mission with
AMOS through volunteering, prayer and financial support and 3) and rural communities
themselves who we have accompanied to help build small community clinics,
provide basic medications, and organize to save lives and improve the health
and well being of their communities. Click
here for a link to our latest update video on AMOS
Over
the past five years, your support has made the following possible!
• Trained and supported over 30 health promoters
who took care of over 81,866 rural clinic visits and 22,288 home visits to
people who would otherwise have no other access to health care
• Prevented child
deaths through the network of health promoters and their ability to detect signs
of danger and treat illnesses such as pneumonia and diarrhea which commonly
kill children in remote rural area
• Provided essential
medications to over 10,000 people annually through White Cross! (Thank you
White Cross)
• Received over 74 mission teams and over
167 volunteers who accompany and work alongside communities to support
community-driven projects such as build clinics, repair schools and install
water systems. The actual
projects done by the mission
teams are a way to support the ongoing health work carried on by our staff and
community leaders all year round.
• Provided over 1000
families with clean water filters to prevent diarrhea
• Developed a functional community-based primary health care system to serve
the rural poor that can serve as a model for other low-resources settings.
• Provided sustainable and dignified jobs
to over 40 staff members at AMOS.
• Developed a 9 week global health
practicum and internship for students interested in global health
• Accompanied our rural communities so they
may be encouraged and be empowered to be active participants in the well-being
and health of their communities
With
much gratitude,