Project 3 - Medical:

A. HIV / AIDS:

June 2007:

On our June 2007 visit, we had the opportunity of meeting the women of "Santa Micaela." We met in an upper room of a run-down building. Each of the Peruvian women (about 12) in this room had SIDA (AIDS in English). They told us their stories with many tears. Each of them have been isolated from their orginal families for there is a stigma that they are unhealthy and will give the disease easily to others. So the only family they now have are they women that meet in this upper room. They have very little opportunity to obtain medical assistance. They can be contacted my email:

• santamicaela_1605@yahoo.es or
• stamicaela@hotmail.com.

June 2006:

Luz Divina in Marquez, Peru has an active program for education the youth about the dangers of AIDS (known as SIDA in Peru) and how it is contracted. At the June 2006 Vacation Bible School held at Belen Lutheran Church about 450 of the youth as well as adults were instructed in the ways HIV/AIDS is contracted. In the photos below, each of the painted faced actors are from Lima and have AIDS. They wanted very much to show the dangers of contracting AIDS to the people attending. Their presentation was a pantomime of the various ways a person can contract the disease.

Click for larger images!

Tim Warner has worked with medical doctors in the Los Angeles area where he previously lived. Together they have made a CD (in Spanish) about the way people can contract AIDS. Should anyone need CD's about AID's you can email Tim Warner. Tim works for Gilead pharmaceutical and sells HIV / AIDS medicine.

Below are some movies and general links concerning AIDS:

• ONE.org!
• Every 3 Seconds!
• ELCA Aids

B. Operation San Andres (OAS):

A large group of medical doctors in the Houston area has formed a group known as Operation San Andres. (View their Flier) Dr. Luis Campos, a heart surgeon at Memorial Herman Hospital heads up the organization. They travel to Peru two to three times a year to provide eye, ear, and general surgery for those people that cannot afford them.

As it turns out, they have a clinic just about 1 block from our Emanuel Lutheran Church in Peru. This year, OAS is providing free vitamins to all the children of Emanuel Lutheran.