St. John the Divine, as well as many of our parishioners, support a variety of domestic and foreign organizations that serve the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed through financial contributions and volunteer efforts. A few of the supported organizations were founded, and continue to be operated by SJD parishioners; Mexico Medical Missions, co-founded by Dr. Michael and Maci Berkeley, being an example. Recently Maci Berkeley, shared a first-hand account in her own words of the challenges and the rewards they experience as they live out their call to serve in the remote mountains of Mexico in the name of Jesus.
“Dolores arrived at the hospital having been without food for fifteen days, and perhaps as long as three weeks after her appendix ruptured. She arrived terrified, and with only limited ability to communicate in Spanish with the doctors about her ordeal and the excruciating pain she was enduring. We can almost not imagine the level of psychological and spiritual control brought to bear by the witch doctor in her isolated village – to hold her there with the level of pain she must have been experiencing.
Dr. Chuck, and the anesthesiologist who comes when needed from Chihuahua City, rushed her to surgery. For over eight hours, they tried valiantly to clean out the infection and mend the extensive damage to the forty-six-year old’s entire abdomen. All involved having decades of experience, agreed they had never seen anything comparable and marveled that she had made it to the hospital alive.
For the next eight days, around the clock, everyone fought to keep Dolores alive with her husband
never far from her bedside. Dr. Chuck told her husband that he did not think she had long to live, given the extent of the irreparable damage, and suggested he return to his village and bring their children to see their mother for the last time. The ambulance drove three hours over almost impassible roads and returned with Dolores’ father and three of her children. She rallied and was able to speak to them all. The next morning, I got word that the children were being driven back to school.
I went to the Intensive Care Unit to assure myself that she in fact wished her children to return to their village. Looking into her still beautiful face and eyes, the transformation I observed was amazing: peace, warmth, connection and even joy. Through one of our Tarahumara nurses I asked if she wanted the children to stay longer, that we would make sure they were well cared for, that she could see them whenever she wanted, and still get the rest she needed. She spoke softly to the nurse in Tarahumara, saying she felt very much at home and among family here, and thought the children, ages 8,10 and 13, should return to school. The nurse added, “And you know she is now our sister in Christ!” “Oh, I do know, I can see it!” I replied, “But, please tell her (and I gestured what I was saying) that from one mother to another, that I am praying for more time with her children”.
As the ambulance departed to return the children to their village, Dr. Chuck took Dolores back to surgery for cleaning of the abdomen; Dolores never woke up again. By the time the husband returned from their village, Dolores’s body was prepared and ready to be taken back for burial. We knew that heaven was rejoicing, but it was still a bitter sweet time for the hospital staff who had fought so very hard for Dolores’ survival. However, that valiant fight had provided Dolores with the time she needed to hear that the God who loves her sent His only Son to die for her so that she may have life in Him; she came to believe that truth with her whole heart and die completely at peace.”
--Maci Berkeley, Mexico Medical Missions, 2020
Maci also shared a quote with me a quote that reads as follows: “Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.” From C.T. Studd 1860-1931 English missionary to China, India, and Africa. Of the staff at Mexico Medical Missions, Maci added, “Our staff has truly chosen to run exactly such a ‘rescue shop’”.
Find out more about Mexico Medical Missions.
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