October 2007 - Adult Servant Trip
MEDICAL TEAM FROM ST. MATTHEW BARRINGTON SERVES IN MEXICO
For the twenty-fourth time since 1995, St. Matthew Lutheran Church, Barrington, sent a mission team to serve in Mexico. The 31-member team, which returned October 20, provided medical care for people living in communities to the east and south of Ciudad Juarez.
By the end of the week, the team had helped 664 people. While medical care is available in this area, most of the people coming to the clinics cannot afford that care.
The team's main clinic and pharmacy were located at Santisima Trinidad, the Lutheran church in Zaragosa. Clinics also operated at three remote sites--San Francisco, San Marcos, and Polo Gamboa--where people allowed the team to use their homes and yards for the clinics.
Polo Gamboa is the poorest of these communities. The area has no sewers or safe water supply. Because of these conditions, diarrhea and intestinal parasites are common medical complaints.
Providing clinics at these three remote sites also demands a great deal of flexibility and creativity from the medical team. Tarps, bed sheets, wire, and duct tape are all employed to transform yards and homes into clinics.
Not all the medical team members come from St. Matthew Congregation. This year four members came from St. Peter Lutheran Church, Arlington Heights, two joined the team through Lutheran Church Charities in Addison, and five came from other parts of the United States. They became team members through Lutherans in Medical Missions, a mission agency in St. Louis which helps to connect medical personnel with groups sponsoring medical mission trips.
Because most members of the medical team could not speak Spanish, St. Matthew entered into a unique partnership with San Pablo, the Spanish-speaking Lutheran church in Aurora. The pastor of that congregation, the Rev. Alex Merlo, and three members of his congregation, joined the team and worked as translators.
"One of the blessings of working in this area year after year," stated the Rev. Gerald Schalk, medical team leader and pastor at St. Matthew, "is that we have come to know the people and their needs. The trusting relationship which has developed between our teams and the people we serve has helped to increase our effectiveness."
