A new year is here. The final chapter has been written for 2025 and we turn to another. Let’s reach over and grab a fresh journal shall we? I think that I will choose a yellow one with crisp pages. This year feels hopeful to me. We are a mere 10 days into the new year and already we have had some wonderful moments in ministry. As is the tradition, we begin the new year with VBS.
This year, the Lord led MAG into a season of building - not just facilities and infrastructure, but PEOPLE and communities! Systems and equipment, aircraft and flight programs, hospitals, etc. are necessary, but built only to give us the capacity to serve others in meaningful ways. This has been a fantastic year of building lives and families and deeper faith; a year of equipping leaders and nurturing disciples of Jesus across every age and stage of life; a year of encouraging and being encouraged.
Last month we were so blessed by two teams from Holmes County, Ohio. Both of them worked jointly together with another church to raise the funds to purchase a solar system robust enough to meet the current demands of the clinic and to have enough energy to keep it stable under heavy use, for instance, during our brigades. Not only did they provide the equipment but they shipped it down and to provided the labor and technicians to install it. It truly was an effort of love and we are so grateful.
This spring, we hosted a dental team for a week. All but one in this team had worked together in the past doing many mission trips together. Having been all over the world, they knew what to expect, and they worked together flawlessly. I loved going to the clinic to watch them work together. Obviously a big part of our health outreach is caring for the souls of our patients as well.
This has been the busiest two months on record for us here in Rus Rus. Busy, but oh so good. We have throughly been enjoying our time here with all of the teams who have graced our doorstep. We’ve been encouraged and uplifted so much.
The first week of January we started the new year with our annual VBS here in Rus Rus and some surrounding communities.
(Click on the link below to view PDF)
MAG aircraft are often the only way IN for medicine and supplies, and the only way OUT for critically ill or injured patients like this gunshot patient (below) being airlifted from the remote Miskito village of Wampusirpi.
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In addition to the electrical team, we also had a Honduran survey team, led by Kentucky architect Jim Burris, begin work on a topographical mapping and site survey. This is the first step in the development of a complete architectural and infrastructure Master Plan for the Rus Rus Hospital and Mission Base.
The wonderful volunteers from International Health Service returned to MAG’s mission base in Rus Rus from February 18-26, 2013 to conduct a free medical and dental clinic. This is the third consecutive year that MAG has partnered with IHS to deliver critically needed care to the Miskito people of Eastern Honduras.
(Click on the link below to view PDF)
Photojournalist Andrew Tonn recently spent some time with us in Rus Rus. Here is a wonderful picture of some of the village children helping spread a newly harvested rice crop being set out to dry. For more of Andrew's work go to www.AndrewTonnphoto.com
Imagine you're a pilot needing to do an emergency medical flight with a critically injured patient. You need to make a 300 nm flight over rugged mountains and remote jungle. You have no radar services or radio communications and absolutely no idea what the conditions are just over the horizon, let alone whether or not you can even LAND when you get there!