By Javier Garcia
Dear friends and fellow workers,
I am really pleased to share with you the experience I had in Burkina Faso last July. I went there to help prepare for the second medical missionary campaign that will take place from 28 December to 5 January, 2009. A team of 48 people (physicians, nurses, professionals and students) will be sharing a very special Christmas with the people in Burkina, trying to meet their needs.
This project is organised by emsimision, an NGO linked to Agape Spain, and Campus pour Christ— Burkina Faso. It has been an intense and exhausting experience, but a blessing at the same time. We worked 16 hours a day –making contacts, trying to open doors for the gospel and working on all the details of the second medical missionary campaign. The Lord has blessed us with good relationships with individuals, organisations, institutions and the government. This is a brief summary of what was accomplished:
Emsimision has been officially established in Burkina. Fofana Lazare—National Director of Campus pour Christ – will act as national director for emsimision, too. This guarantees coordination from inside the country, as well as the follow-up of projects and contacts.- We have laid the foundation for an official cooperation agreement between the Burkina government, the general hospital of Ouagadougou, the Central University School of Medicine and emsimision. This will allow us to establish direct relationships between European professionals and those in Burkina.
- We developed a very special relationship with a school for deaf-mute kids—CEFISE. We plan to develop a medical campaign there; we will provide hearing aids and help them with schooling.
- Cooperation agreements have been established with several different organisations. The idea is to mobilise believing professionals and students to make the most of the medical work carried out by the emsimision team. Each medical campaign will go together with an evangelistic campaign— sharing the gospel with everyone and showing the JESUS film every evening. Churches will be in charge of following up contacts and it all will be coordinated by Campus pour Christ and emsimision Burkina.
- We began a relationship with several primary and secondary schools, in order to help by providing school packages (25 € each) with everything students need (books, etc,) to build a better future for themselves in Burkina.
I could keep on listing doors the Lord opened, but it might be too much information at once. You can imagine, though, the impact all this could have on spreading the gospel and strengthening churches and CCC! We always identified ourselves as a Christian organisation, and we had good opportunities to share our faith and to pray with officials such as the Health Minister, who is from another religion.
As I conclude, I want us to remember that our Lord Jesus taught by example that the Great Commission and the Great Commandment are two sides of the same coin. May our commitment grow in both areas, and may we live accordingly! The Lord will bless our obedience and He will bring forth fruit.
In His love,
Javier