Sunday, February 26, 2012

Well, the days are getting longer, finally!  We started taking advantage of the earlier sunrises to start exercising again.  So we are feeling both empowered and sore!
Our ministry work is going well, with clinics staying busy and our new outreach efforts making some ground.  We have had several contacts through clinic that Gaspar has follow up on or referred to local churches for followup.  One man and his wife are very open to hearing about the gospel and more teaching.  They are from our new outreach clinic in Chicua I. 
The Leche for Life program is still on our front burner and we are actively looking for first-time pregnant moms from our partner churches to enroll in the nutrition education sessions.  On Tuesday, it hit home how prevalent malnutrition still is here.  I saw a pair of twins, 18mo-old weighing 22 and 23 pounds (not exactly fat, but within normal).  They were developing well and came in for respiratory infections. Shortly after that I saw a 4 year-old who weighed 21 pounds.  He was so little, and had been sick with a respirtatory illness as well.  Mom said he's not much of an eater, but is active and playful.  Despite his severe stunting from chronic malnutrition, he did not demonstrate signs of acute malnutrition.  I treated him for pnuemonia, intestinal parasites, and gave him vitamins and counseled mom on proper nutrition, eliminating the ever-popular crackers and chips and candy from his diet.  The surprising thing about this whole encounter is that none of my promoters--full time or volunteer noticed that he was that underweight.  It is such a common thing to be chronically malnourished, that it is almost the norm here.  Be praying for us to be effective in our teaching as we target new moms, and later all moms with our women's health talks. 

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