Pacific Union Recorder

Thirty-four Calimesa church members spent March 21 to 28 on a mission trip in Roatán, Honduras. This is the second year the church has sent members to Roatán, the largest of Honduras’s Bay Islands.

The volunteers were divided into teams to provide medical and dental services, conduct children’s ministry activities and help improve the facilities there. Two associate pastors, Saúl Barcelo and Isaac Kim, accompanied them. They ministered to residents of Diamond Rock and the next-door town of Camp Bay, according to Barcelo.

Members of the medical team saw approximately 250 patients this year, ranging from infants to seniors, according to Sarah Giang, a physician.

“We did health screening, provided health education and treated a variety of medical conditions,” Giang reported.

“Another activity that the medical team was involved with again this year was providing continuing education for the physicians on the island,” Giang continued. “It was a good opportunity for us to interact and learn more about some of the medical conditions that are seen on Roatán and be able to provide information that will help the physicians there as they continue to provide care for the patients.”

The eight-member dental team served about 220 people. Using portable dental units they had taken with them from California, they cleaned teeth, removed abscessed or broken teeth, and restored decayed teeth.

Members of the facility improvement team did some electrical work and completed an interior painting project at the Adventist church in Diamond Rock. They also constructed a water tower to collect rainwater to flush the toilets in the Camp Bay School’s restrooms.

An average of 80 children attended the nightly “Power Up” meetings. The series, according to the leader, Stephanie Church, “featured stories, activities and crafts reinforcing the things Jesus can help us ‘power up’ to do: be brave, be thankful, help others, live forever, and tell others about Him.”

Crystal Kandoll, a nurse on the medical team, reported that she didn’t know what to expect when she arrived in Diamond Rock.

“I quickly found and enjoyed my role in helping to take vital signs, check blood sugars, [give] vision tests, and attempting to talk to people with my limited Spanish,” she reported. When the number of medical patients tapered off in the afternoon, she assisted the dentists by holding children who needed to have their teeth extracted. Evenings she helped with children’s ministries.

“It never ceased to surprise me how excited these kids were, even though many of them had their teeth pulled just hours before,” Kandoll continued. “They didn’t stop to cry or complain about the pain in their mouth. Instead, they showed up at the church, maybe out of curiosity, to see what we were doing and maybe to learn about Jesus. It is my prayer, whatever their reason for attending, that these precious children saw the face of Jesus and that they will remember Him long after we have left the island and our presence is forgotten.”