Dental Missions in the land of Machu Picchu!

Mark Just Gentle Care Missions, a dental team from Anchorage, Alaska, served with CFCI Peru on October 16-22 this year.

Dr. Just has been going on dental missions since 2008. Since then he and his team have provided care in the Philippines, Honduras, Guyana and this year, the team decided to travel to Peru with CFCI.

In Rimac, Peru, the team helped five schools, the local police office, and a public market place that was open to all of the locals. As a group they also felt the need to provide care, as a thank you, to the church that was hosting them.

In the schools they encountered many children whose mouths were in the worst shape. They saw six-year-old kids that needed all their baby teeth removed. They saw teenagers with many adult teeth that already needed extractions. It became apparent that the lack of dental health education, as well as the lack of finances, is a major issue in Rimac. While the team wanted to extract as many teeth as they could to get the kids out of pain, they were told that they were not allowed to remove teeth without permission from the children's parents. This put them in a tough spot so, instead they did a few fillings and made sure that all the children received a cleaning and education on how to properly brush and floss.

At the market, police station, and church the majority of the adults’ mouths were in similar condition to the children that they saw in the schools. Surprisingly, the team came across many who did not want to extract their teeth, though many were broken at the gum line and abscessed. These teeth definitely needed extractions and could not be saved, but they wanted the team to ‘fix’ them instead. Nevertheless, the team did what they could to give them the most proper care and most importantly… dental health education!

The team found that the people of Peru are very different from what North Americans are used to, they are high spirited, positive, hard working and built tough, but EXTREMELY kind hearted people. 

A team member reports, "It has only been two weeks since we have been back and we miss the Peruvians DEARLY!!! We could not have asked for a more successful mission and this is ALL thanks to Andres, his son Gabriel, our host family (the Vega family), and all who helped with this mission. They were the absolute best, they catered to our needs, jumped right on tasks that needed attending to, made sure that the we were ALWAYS safe and comfortable, even when we ventured out to Machu Picchu! It seems to be that they gave us no other choice, but to come back to Peru." 

If you'd like information about serving in Peru please contact angieb@cfci.org.

Thoughts on God's Favor from Dave Gehrls, CFCI Missionary in Omaha, Nebraska

Thoughts on GOD’s FAVOR from Dave Gehrls

Everyone in vocational ministry will share about the dry times of struggling to be faithful to God’s call when there is little or no fruit…God allows these times to test, strengthen and develop greater Christ-likeness. Many can also share about times of God’s favor where they felt literally carried on a tide of God’s Spirit.

Jesus said He only did what He saw the Father doing…and that is the secret to God’s favor…learning to see with the eyes of Christ. Especially during times of God’s Favor we need to learn humility because, in our humanity, we will never fully arrive in this life.

I am definitely still learning to hear and follow God instead of asking Him to follow and bless one of my ideas…but several times this year we have experienced God’s Favor as the Lord led us to come along side a venture or initiate something. Each time I felt the Lord wanted to do something special…and each time there was a time when it looked like we were going to fail and I wondered if I had heard the Lord. But as we prayed and kept our eyes focused on Jesus, God showed up at just the right time and did something wonderful.

EXAMPLES OF GOD’s FAVOR in 2013:

The “More God, Less Crime” conference on April 28th which brought together about 150 Law Enforcement, City & State Government, Pastors and local ministry leaders for a day with Dr. Byron Johnson, one of the leading criminologists in the nation who has documented reduction in crime when churches get more involved with the police. Dr. Johnson was impressed with the level of synergy we have in Omaha that he feels is needed in other cities. We are already working on the next steps to involve more believers in needs facing our community. A DVD of the conference is be available in a few days…please contact me if you would like a free copy.

South Omaha Peace Walk in August: Homicides were up this summer especially in South Omaha. A young Hispanic woman had been murdered and dumped in an open gravesite. Instead of doing our usual First Responders PrayerWalk at the site I felt led to encourage the Hispanic Pastors alliance to call for a public PrayerWalk for Peace in South Omaha the following Sunday afternoon. The alliance leaders met Friday evening and Saturdaymorning we sent out announcements. Saturday afternoon Captain Belcastro got permission to meet at 24th & N and walk four blocks up 24th Street and back. I also got a call that Mayor Stothert wanted to come. Sundayafternoon, on one days notice, the Hispanic pastors with a police escort led a full block long walk of several hundred families including Mayor Stothert, her husband, and community leaders praying for peace on their streets and it headlined the TV news that night… GOD’s FAVOR!

South Omaha Stakeholders: After the August PrayerWalk in South Omaha I felt the Lord say the time was right to encourage “Stakeholders” in South Omaha. “Stakeholders” are the people, churches, businesses, police, government and community organizations who have stake in their local neighborhood coming together to take back their streets from those causing violence. In several North Omaha Stakeholders areas violence has been reduced as much as 80%. Southeast Precinct Captain Belcastro has come to every homicide Prayerwalk in her precinct and after several planning meetings we saw about 40 key leaders meet at a local grade school for an introduction to Stakeholders by Willie Barney in October. Children in this school speak at least six different languages and a several more dialects representing 15 or more different cultures many of whom are recent refugees from violence torn countries. At the end of this meeting they all committed to do Stakeholders and a local lead committee came together with a strong faith based leadership…GOD’s FAVOR!

Favor with City Leaders: Precinct Captains send officers to every First Responders PrayerWalk and often come themselves. Mayor Jean Stothert sends several from her personal staff to every FRPW and she has been to five since she was elected last May. For some reason Jean, two female Captains and a female Homicide Detective often greet me at PrayerWalks with a public hug…GOD’s FAVOR.

Favor with other ministries: We have developed significant Kingdom partnerships with many churches and almost every ministry in Omaha…we are Teammates not competitors.

And I could go on with current examples of GOD’s FAVOR in Omaha and Tijuana.

The Secret to GOD’s FAVOR: Seek to see with the eyes of Christ what the Father is doing then follow Him and get involved with a servant heart. Who does He want to Save Today, Heal Today, Set Free Today…?