Hey guys!
This week’s feature Friday is being hijacked by my school’s Christian Medical and Dental Association (CMDA) because we held an amazing Medical missions outreach last weekend to Tewure & Budu Ode, which are villages in Oyo State!
The outreach had been planned over several weeks and we are so pleased to share the outcome! So it all started officially on Friday night, the school buses from both of Bowen’s campuses (Iwo & Ogbomosho) brought both clinical and pre-clinical Medical Students to our meeting site, Alaafia Baptist Church, Tewure. We began with prayers, as of course it is the key!
Next we moved to a nearby school where we held a free outdoor movie screening and played a Yoruba film titled: “O To Gee” (Enough is Enough).
In a nutshell, the film was about the deceptions that wealth, fame and power was all that there was to life, and taught the importance of having a relationship with God as He provides inner peace that no amount of wealth can buy.
Later we had dinner and took some announcements and divided ourselves into prayer chain groups: 12-1am, 1-2am, 2-3am, 3-4am and 4-5am, before we went to bed.
Each group had a prayer leader and we raised up the people of the village and the outreach in general before God.
The next morning we woke up by 6am for morning devotion and headed out into the community for the Morning Cry; which was just basically our method of sensitizing the people about the free medical care that we were going to offer them.
After this, we set up the church into a number of stations:
1. Waiting area – here we gave informative health talks whilst the villagers waited to to get their vitals checked.
2. Vitals – here we checked their blood pressure, temperature & pulse rate. We also offered rapid malaria testing and HIV Screening complete with pre and post test counseling.
3. Consultation – our doctors came down from the hospital and offered their medical services for free, which we are extremely grateful for!
4. Drug dispensary – Based on the prescription given by the doctor from their consultation, each person was given free medications and told the regimen to use in taking it.
5. Counseling & Prayers – we gave the people a window to be prayed for on anything bothering their hearts with our student counselors.
6. Clothing Donations – each person was given the opportunity to select items from our charity that had been donated by medical students.
7. Children’s Corner – They learnt Christian songs like “Father Abraham”, player games and did some coloring in exercises.
8. Women Empowerment- we taught the women how to make African black soap and Coconut milk so they can continue using the skills as a source of income, as the ingredients were readily available in their environment.
Check out some more photos from the outreach!