Medical Camp

After breakfast, Bharat picked us up from the Montana Vista and drove us to a village called Chandmuni. It is maybe a mile or so south of the City Center Mall. It used to be a tea village, but the workers are not picking tea anymore. Many of them have found jobs in Siliguri, some at the mall.

The above is the City Center Mall from Chandmuni village.

The medical camp was scheduled to begin at 9 and when we got there, the camp was ready to go, and there were even some patients waiting to be seen by the doctors.m Here is a video, giving you the lay of the land – it was not like the medical camps we had previously done with LTC.

Throughout the day, ten doctors (I think 4 of them were from Bharat’s church) spent some time in our tent, seeing the 300 or so Adivasi who came to our camp. Some of them were able to spend several hours with us. Others were only there for an hour or two, during their breaks from work. These were some of the top doctors in the Siliguri area. We had general practitioners, an OB/GYN, some pediatricians, a neuro-surgeon, and even a dentist. (Rob is going to visit the dentist later today to get a cap glued back on, I think…)

I spoke with a young man who had a skin rash that he developed playing football. He loves football but is going to school because his mom has convinced him that it is really hard to make a living playing football. He had an exam at his medium school in the early afternoon and was hoping to see a doctor in time to get to school. I prayed with him, that the doctors would be able to determine what the cause was and how to best treat it and that God would heal him to good health.

Each patient signed in with their name, gender, phone number and address so we could follow up with them to make sure their treatment was working and to do counseling with those who desired it.

We both had our BP checked and according to my daughter-in-law we’re doing just fine!

After the medical camp, we visited with an old friend from our LTC days, Dipesh Mukia. He leads a fellowship in this village. The land was donated by one of the members of the fellowship and the fellowship not only raised the funds and bought the materials, but constructed this building in which to meet for worship.

We encouraged these believers and were every more encouraged by them. We prayed for their continued faithfulness and partnership with God. They prayed for us as well! It was a great blessing for both Rob and I! There is a great opportunity to partner with this fellowship on future visits…and we’ll share more about that when we get home.

We then picked up Bandana and went to a new mall in Siliguri – the Vega Circle. It had 7 floors of shops, the sixth was a food court and a toy store, the top was a movie theater. We had an ethnically eclectic dinner and then returned to our hotel, where I think I fell asleep wishing 10, maybe 5 minutes of hitting the sheets.

Update from breakfast…I found this new treatment for allergies here at the Montana Vista. Cleared my sinuses up right away!