THANK YOU from Kathy Bruce

Dear Dr. Tim and Shelia and the rest of you!

Hi, just wanted to write you all a note and thank you again for coming in June with the medical caravan! You were a blessing to this community, and we received many thanks afterwards for your attention. A few days after the caravan, one fellow brought us a big bag of ‘naranjillas’ and said he just wanted to say thanks for bringing the doctors. He said you were a blessing to him and his family, a great boon to the community, and that the eye clinic/glasses help was just a special bonus. He wanted us to pass those thanks on to you all—and I suppose the fruit was for you as well! Sorry we ate those all up on you!! The folks in this region aren’t especially thankful---just not very outspoken in that way---so this really meant a lot, having this fellow come to voice his thanks. I hope that’s an encouragement to you!

One more little story—there is one family in this community who have been very against our presence here in RV from years ago. They have talked bad about us behind our backs, and caused problems for us on more than one occasion. Well, they came to the caravan, and evidently the mom (grandma) of the family (Moises’ wife) had received some medicine for something (I think it was just pain pills for backache but I’m not sure). We heard from one of the believers later that this woman was doing great, was quite sure you all cured all her aches and pains for the time being anyhow, and was raving about what good doctors you were! So you all even made our ‘enemies’ happy!!! The Lord is very merciful and we believe He has His own ways of vindicating His work…thanks for being a part of that!

I also wanted to update you on Gloria, the Awa lady with scleroderma. She took her medicine faithfully for several months after her finger was amputated last summer, but about January she really let off, and even with our encouragement just wasn’t taking the medicine. “Oh, I just take a pill every now and then, and I’m fine!” she told me several times. Sort of scary, with the prednisone and other medicine she was taking…but very Awa-ish. The last few months we noticed she wasn’t doing so well again, and about the time you all came I think she was realizing that her fingers weren’t doing well and it was time to do something… Dr. Tim, I wanted to be there with her and bring her in to talk with you—but I got stuck up here at the houses with no-one else to watch so that I never even made it over to the caravan those two days you were up here. So…..I tried several times to get her hooked up with a rheumatologist who comes to Ibarra once a month. Whew, such problems! We had several false tries…The one day I actually got Gloria to Ibarra and we were actually sitting in the office waiting for this Dr---and then the receptionist finally came over to say that the Dr. had cancelled her trip this month….at the last minute. Well, finally I took her over to an internist who lives in Ibarra—not sure how much he knows about the disease but he did seem helpful and willing to research it. So…Gloria is back on medication and is slowly improving (her fingers along the base of her fingernails were having little infected spots and her hands were really tough and she was losing some movement).

THANKS very much for the bottles of prednisone that you left, Dr. Tim, that’s a great help!!! She needs to go back for a check-up and some lab work this next week. And I’m praying that this internist (Dr. Manuel Santamaria) will be interested in studying up a little on scleroderma!!! Appreciate your prayers there!

Well, I just wanted to say a big THANKS to all of you, for your time and love to these people whom very few take time to notice. It is a good testimony for the Lord and boosts our involvement in the community. We see glasses everywhere we go---visible reminders of your
time here. Sorry this note is slow in coming—but maybe it will be an encouragement for you all to hear!

In His love and with much appreciation,
Kathy Bruce for all of us here with the Awa work