“Pray, give or go,” explained Vicki Klemm of Exeter. “We can pray about missions, give, or go or do a combination of them.”
She strongly believes this and recently returned from a medical mission in Honduras. She joined Ron and Maryann Schernikau of Beaver Crossing and the work they started called “Mission of Love.”
Klemm has known the Schernikau’s for over 20 years and during that time has watched as the mission group has served the mountain people of rural Honduras and Guatemala with medical clinics.
This year as part of the team Klemm explained that several of the men in their group traveled to Honduras prior to the departure of the rest of the group so that they could put the finishing touches on new church buildings built by the natives in rural areas.
Klemm and the group of four others spent a week in Honduras. After arriving in country they met with a missionary in Honduras who runs a Bible college and used that as their base. The first day they sorted and bagged the medications they had shipped from the United States.
They did four clinics in different areas of the mountains using the new church buildings. Klemm explained that she “took blood pressures and they fill prescriptions – It’s a band aid (for the rural people). We are showing the love of Christ in doing that, we are filling a need.”
She estimated they saw about 500 during the four days of clinics in the rural areas. When she wasn’t taking blood pressures and helping in the clinic she was out playing with the kids.
Klemm was very touched by the giving spirit of the missionaries in residence. She explained that many of them live in homes with dirt floors and meager supplies but they “took care of our lunches and fed us well and they don’t have much.”
The group was there during the time coffee was being picked which Klemm found interesting. She also commented on the terrible roads, there weren’t a lot of cars where they were. The majority of transportation was done by motorbikes and horses – she even saw a team of oxen in use.
For many of the pastors in Honduras education has become a priority, especially for young girls. Most young people quit school before sixth grade to help their families pick coffee beans. Seeing an immediate need, their missionary team pooled together to raise enough funds to pay for four young women to have the supplies to keep going to school through to the eighth grade.
“It was so meaningful, not just a mission trip. We were filling a need, it means so much to bless people like that. That is just what it is all about,” explained Klemm.
She saw God’s hand work before they went on the mission trip and during it. She and Maryann Schernikau received a phone call from the airlines the week before they were to leave that there was a problem with their ticket and it would cost $300 to rebook their flight. That Sunday at church someone came up to her and mentioned he wanted to give to her mission trip and offered her $300.
In the past she has taken two mission trips to Ecuador with youth groups and one to Ireland but plans to return with the Mission of Love group next year with a few more language lessons under her belt.
“I could still communicate, just in love – it always works. I didn’t know how to say rain all I could remember to say was Jesus agua and the older lady I was with understood and she laughed,” Klemm explained.
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