APRIL MISSION TRIP POSTPONED
Widespread forest fires throughout Guatemala forced the postponement of our April mission trip. The President of Guatemala activated a national calamity protocol, which closed schools and roads. Medications from outside the country were denied entrance through customs. As noted below, the trip has been rescheduled.
RESCHEDULED MISSION TRIP: SEPTEMBER 30 - OCTOBER 4
The April mission trip to Jalapa has been rescheduled for Monday September 30 through Friday October 4. The trip is open to additional volunteers, both medical and non-medical. Deadline for registration is July 15. Cost is $1500 per volunteer, which includes flights, meals, and lodging. The purpose of the trip is medical missions (clinics), food distribution, and church support (children's activities). Anyone who wants to join the mission team should contact Randy Stewart (256-302-4296).
FOUR FRIENDS SPOTLIGHT: ALICIA ROE
BOARD OF DIRECTORS UPDATE
The Board of Directors of Four Friends International is composed of seven members, each of whom has traveled to Jalapa at least one time. They oversee and advise the various operations of the ministry. After years of faithful service, Millie Sebek has rotated off the board. It is almost impossible to list all the ways Millie has supported our ministry, but a partial list would include serving as secretary of the Board, packing supplies and medications, weighing luggage for trips, printing labels for medications, emailing correspondences, and preparing customs documents. We are grateful for her work in the ministry over the years. Taking her place on the Board is Leeah Harcrow. As a nurse, she has traveled to Jalapa multiple times and was one of the leaders who helped start Operation Amalia, our diaper ministry. Welcome, Leeah! The remaining board members are Mark Brock, Keith Collins, Kaye Dean, Jack Hamilton, Shannon McGee, and Randy Stewart.
AN OVERVIEW OF FOUR FRIENDS
I was invited by my home church (Dawson Memorial Baptist in Homewood) to provide a summary of our ministry for the current edition of its quarterly magazine. The article below should remind you why the organization came to be and how it ministers today.
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The First and the Last, the One who was dead and came to life, says, “I know your affliction and poverty, yet you are rich.” —Revelation 2:8-9a
“I want you to go on a medical mission trip to Guatemala.”
These words from my pastor thirteen years ago changed my life. Even though I immediately said “yes,” I did so reluctantly. Granted, I had good credentials to be a medical-church support volunteer. I was a physician, a bivocational music minister, and the son of a pastor. In fact, my father had been in charge of Tennessee Baptist mission partnerships with the Philippines, Venezuela, and Chile. But I never went with him on any of his mission excursions—something I regret now. I told him I was too busy with school, too busy with medical practice, too busy at church. The truth was I really didn’t want to go. This time, however, I did not have an excuse, because God was prompting me.
Our team traveled to the city of Jalapa, a three-hour drive into the mountains east of Guatemala City. There we encountered widespread poverty. Many people struggled for life’s essentials, including medical care. Diabetics, hypertensives, and epileptics could not obtain their medications due either to lack of funds or supply.
We teamed with a wonderful congregation in downtown Jalapa—the Life in Jesus Baptist Church. These visionary Christians, themselves poor, had established a mission church in Los Laureles, one the poorest areas on the outskirts of Jalapa. Four hundred yards from that mission church was the city dump, where families lived in shelters made of trash and scavenged for food, clothing, and recyclables.
The call of God was clear as we left Jalapa that week. We must partner with the Guatemalan Christians and minister to people who were both spiritually and physically ill. It was similar to the approach Jesus used with the paralytic (Mark 2), first forgiving his sins then healing him. We named our organization Four Friends International, after the four men who carried that paralytic and lowered him through the roof. Our motto of service became: “Pick up your corner of the cot.”
A decade later we now operate three clinics in the Jalapa area. The clinic at Los Laureles was built in 2014 and began treating patients a year later. On the opposite side of town, in the rural village of Los Pinos, a second clinic was constructed and became operational in 2018. Both clinics are staffed by Guatemalans and provide free medical care and medicines Monday through Saturday of each week. The nurse of each clinic resides in an attached rear apartment. Adjacent to the clinics are the two mission churches. At Los Laureles and Los Pinos, it is impossible to enter the clinic without noticing the church or to enter the church without seeing the clinic. The two are inseparably linked both in proximity and purpose.
Two years ago we established the Four Wheels Clinic, our mobile unit, which travels to three mountain communities near Jalapa to provide ongoing care. Staffed by a nurse and a driver, this van carries medicines to the people of El Divisidero, Laguna del Pito, and El Charro each week. We are praying that God will use this mobile unit to plant seeds from which a new mountain church will grow.
All together, our stationary and mobile clinics treat over 1500 patients each month, and more than 100,000 patient visits have been recorded since 2015. Included in this number are twenty infants from the city dump, to whom we supply diapers and infant supplies each month.
There are several ways that you can “pick up your corner of the cot” to bring the sick to Jesus. You can add us to your prayer list. You can travel with us to Jalapa as a medical or church support volunteer. You can support us financially through monetary gifts. You can also spread the word to others about Four Friends International. Perhaps God will call them into service as clearly as He called me, and their lives may never be the same.
Richer Than You Think
– on behalf of my brothers and
sisters in Christ in Guatemala –
If you look at me now, you'd shed a tear
and you’d say a prayer for me;
But beyond all the pain of my circumstance
is something you can't see.
I am dressed in His righteousness,
clothed in His love,
washed in the fountain of grace;
Sheltered under His wing,
my debt paid on Calvary's tree;
in Jesus, I'm richer than you think.
If you look at me now, my wardrobe so bare,
my meager food and drink,
You would not see the white robe I wear
at Jesus' banquet feast.
I am dressed in His righteousness,
clothed in His love,
washed in the fountain of grace;
Feasting on the Bread of Life,
drinking the Living Water of Christ;
in Jesus, I'm richer than you think.
If you look at me now from earth's point of view,
I am the least of all;
But things will be changed when,
on heaven's shore,
I hear my Savior call:
“Come, be dressed in My righteousness,
clothed in My love,
washed in the fountain of grace;
Walk here on streets of pure gold,
heir to a mansion untold.”
In Jesus, I'm richer than you think.
Richer, richer!
I'm richer, so much richer!
In Jesus, I have all things.
--Randy Stewart
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| As of today, Four Friends International has sufficient funds to continue its present ministries through August 15, 2024. Thank you so much for your continued generosity! |
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