Local doctor, nurses go on medical mission trip

A mission team composed of a doctor, a nurse practitioner, a lab technician, five nurses and seven others departed yesterday for Guatemala, where they will spend a week providing basic medical care to Mayan Indians.
The trip, sponsored by the Chilton Baptist Association, is the first of its kind the association has ever spearheaded.

Dr. Keith Funderburk, the only medical doctor on the team, expects the trip to be a learning experience for him as he has never been outside of the U.S. before.

"From what I understand, they don't even have basic medical care," he said. "Here we're trained to decide when people have complicated diseases, but we'll see things down there that have been eliminated from here."

Skin diseases and gastrointestinal infections are among the disorders the team expects to encounter when examining and diagnosing the natives. They are taking medicines with them such as antibiotics, vitamins, rash treatments and steroid creams.

"They say different areas have different problems, but most of it's just basic needs," Funderburk said. "Some of the things will be basic enough that nurses will know how to treat them."

For Carlos Lemus, Hispanic missionary with the Chilton and Autauga Baptist Associations, the trip will be a return home. He was just there in November on a different mission team and is familiar with all the perils facing the villagers.

"In the small villages, sewage goes into the lake and they also get their water from the lake," Lemus said.

For that reason the team members must drink bottled water. They must also avoid eating certain fruits in the country, which are known to infect people with gastrointestinal infections.

Monday and Tuesday they will be seeing residents of Panabaj, a village ravaged by mudslides caused by Hurricane Stan, which struck the area about the same time Hurricane Katrina struck the U.S. Gulf Coast, killing over 1,000.

In the refugee camp about 5,700 families each live in small rooms and must go to a community area to cook and use the restroom. Lemus said they sleep on mattresses on the floor.

"If it wasn't for the help of the Chilton Baptist Association and international organizations like the European Union, these people would be in limbo," he added. "That is a way to show God's love to a people in deep need."

Wednesday the team will see residents of another village, Chacaya. During the trip they are staying at the El Eden Baptist Camp, which is about two miles from Santiago Atitlan.

Lemus called it "an honor and a privilege" to help people in his own country.

"This is a way to show compassion by deeds and not words," he said.

By Scott Mims
Source: www.clantonadvertiser.com