Rock for Peru Benefit Concert!

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Rock for Peru Benefit Concert in LA Area this Friday Night!

Come join us on Friday July 30 from 4:00-10:00pm at Memorial Park in La Canada, CA for Rock for Peru, a benefit concert supporting the Mission.  The event will be headlined by Copperhead (featuring Mission Volunteer Colin Ring) and will feature several local acts including Emovores, Survivalist, and DJ eyelove.  Admission is free, and you can can come and go throughout the event as you like.

Click here for directions to the concert.

We hope to see lots of you there for a good time and a great cause!

Facebook users can click here for more details: Rock for Peru

Mission team departs Ayacucho

By bus and by plane, the team of Ayacucho Mission volunteers left the Andean community at the end of a very successful mission.  At the Ayacucho Regional Hospital, at the Puericultorio Juan Andrés Vivanco Amorín Orphanage, and in the towns of Huanta and Quinua, the team saw well over 1,000 patients during the one week mission, and laid the groundwork for an expanded scope of work to include the surrounding communities.   The Mission thanks the people of Ayacucho and the surrounding towns for welcoming our work and partnering to help the most needy in the community.  And of course, we thank our families, friends, donors and other supporters who made the mission possible.

As the team returns from Peru, the work to plan next year's mission will begin promptly.  I hope you will find ways to get involved to help build another successful mission.

Group Photo from Ayacucho Mission 2010

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Stories from the Field: A Blog of Volunteer Experiences

A number of our volunteers have been writing about their experiences at the mission, and sharing their stories.  We'll be posting some of their reflections on their time in Ayacucho in a blog called Ayacucho Mission: Stories from the Field.


The stories can be found at: http://ayacuchostories.blogspot.com/

Click the link to see the mission through the eyes of the people working on it.

2010 Mission Day 2

Today the group completed a second day of work in all three sites--Ayacucho, and the surrounding towns of Quinua and Huanta.  The excursion to Quinua was especially fruitful and interesting.  The day began with the Director of the AsociaciónVidas Community Health Center, Raquel Yupanqui, leading some members of the community in songs of prayer and welcoming the Ayacucho Mission team.

Dr. Chris Hougen developed a system in which two sets of medical students and translators took the basic health history from each patient, allowing him to move from one patient to another, complete the examination, and prescribe the appropriate treatment.  Medical students Ryan Campbell and Ashley Colter set up a smooth-running field pharmacy, and the Center's staff provided health education and instruction on using the medications for the team.  Petra Duran and Deisy Nava led the diabetes screening effort, and nurse practitioner Tammy Tran tested patients with gastritis for H. pylori, a particularly problematic bacteria in the region, to help assess the best way to address the health needs of this community.

At the end of the day, over 65 patients were examined and treated, and the team was treated by the Center's kitchen to a favorite meal of the Ayacucho region called puka picante.  In addition to the full day's work at the Regional Hospital in Ayacucho and in Huanta, the work in Quinua, made possible by the open-armed welcome by AsociaciónVidas, capped off another successful day on the Mission.

2010 Mission Day 1

Ayacucho Mission 2010 began with parallel campaigns in three locations.  At the Regional Hospital in Ayacucho, over 260 patients were triaged and most of them treated.  Small teams dispatched to the surrounding towns of Quinua and Huanta provided care to additional 100 patients, and will return throughout the week to meet the large demand for medical services

Teams of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, medical students and volunteers, some experienced in missionary work and many new to it, tackled the day with selfless enthusiasm.

In response to a late surge of patients, first time volunteer and Los Angeles physician Esperanza Ramirez and her team treated patients in pediatrics into the evening.  The huge smile on her face as she returned to the hotel summed up the sentiment of the group:  Hard work for others brings joy and satisfaction.  The rest of the week promises to bring much needed help to the people of the Peruvian Andes.

The full team arrives in Ayacucho

After long flights and an 11-hour bus ride from Lima, the full team arrived in Ayacucho to prepare for work Monday.  After a short nap, the group of 87 doctors, nurses, mental health providers, med students and other volunteers attended an orientation meeting at the Health Ministry where they were greeted by the medical director of the Ayacucho Regional Hospital, and the hospital staff who will make their work possible.

The orientation meeting was followed by a welcome dinner at El Mirador, a beautiful scenic outlook about the city, as the sun set behind the mountains.  Folkloric dancers from the university entertained the group, and served as a symbol of the energy and beauty of the Peruvian people the mission sets out to serve.

Ayacucho Mission 2010 Begins!

On Wednesday morning, the advance team of Cesar Aranguri, Loretta Rihbany, Chris Hougen, Taif Kazi, Keren Call, Carol Stegink, Judith Polanco and John Billimek arrived in Ayacucho, and got to work arranging things for next week's campaign.  The team has met with the key officials in Ayacucho and the surrounding communities of Huanta and Quinua to begin work in all three sites on Monday.  Already, they have triaged over 250 patients for next week, treated more than 50, and consulted in the hospital wards on some unique cardiac and pediatric cases.

The remaining volunteers will arrive Saturday morning, and will begin orientation and other preparations to launch the full health campaign at all sites next week.