My Morning at Mayfield

"What can you do with three dollars?"

I posed this question today to an assembly of young woman at Mayfield High School here in Southern California as part of their volunteer fair. I was there to share with them the work of Mission Doctors and encourage them to get involved with the One Million Patients Project.

I rarely get a chance to speak with young people about MDA, so I was happy to have this opportunity.  Community organizations, ranging from food pantries, to Aids Walk LA representatives spoke for a moment about our respective organizations, and we each had a chance to invite the the students to stop by our table to get more information.  It was a wonderful morning, and I am excited that so many signed up for more information and to help us with the One Million Patients Project!   Hopefully some budding filmmakers will produce a video for our student video contest!

I look forward to being with them again next year!

What are you doing March 23-25?

If you are like 40,000 Catholics from across the country and around the world you will be traveling to Anaheim for the annual Religious Education Congress or as a friend of mine lovingly calls it the Catholic state fair.   We in the Mission Doctors office can’t miss this opportunity to share our work with at the nation’s largest annual gathering of Catholics!  This year we will be sharing the One Million Patients Project and showing attendees how to put themselves “in the picture” (details to come in my next blog post). 
 

So if you are going to join us in Anaheim, stop by booth 468, we would love to say “Hello!” and thank you for your support.   

Bambelela / Never Give Up

A weekend spent at the Religious Ed Congress in Anaheim with 40,000 Catholics is something that I have head referred to as the ‘Catholic County Fair’!

The spirit of the event is busy, beautiful, tiring, and blessed!

My role for the weekend was once again to represent Mission Doctors Association at a booth, and specifically the One Million Patient Project. We gave out hundreds of fliers describing the T-Shirt design contest that ends April 30 – and invited people to sign up to receive the packet for High Schools, Youth Ministries, Confirmation, etc. We had many sign up and Jessica is working on getting these out today!

As we were packing up in the rain on Sunday I still found myself singing Bambelela from the Mass on Friday with Fr. Martin and Marty Haugen leading the music. Never Give Up is a strong message as it related to the people of South Africa and their struggles toward independence, but it is a message that resounds for all people all the time.

The middle of Lent can be a time when we can feel like throwing in the towel on our sacrificing, we can become weary with the season – so this may be why even now on Tuesday a.m. I am singing ‘Never Give Up’ as I face a desk covered with more projects than I have hours!

So… Bambelela – Never Give Up! Take heart – we are on the journey together!

(Bambelela by Marty Haugen is available on ITunes)

What a weekend!

As many of you know, this past weekend was the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress in Anaheim and what a weekend! We shared a booth with Lay Mission-Helpers and had the opportunity to share the story of this great work that has gone on for more than 50 years – there were more than 21,000 registered attendees!

We premiered OMPP...the One Million Patients Project and talked to anyone that would listen about the work of Mission Doctors. Visit www.OneMillionPatients.org

Thousands of faces, hundreds of bookmarks, old friends and new, handshakes & hugs ...phew! It was a great weekend, but needless to say - a quiet Sunday evening was very much appreciated.

But no time to rest….We are so excited about this upcoming weekend, our 2010 Mission Doctors Retreat/Seminar. Doctors and their spouses from around the country are traveling to Los Angeles to learn about Mission Doctors and the opportunities to serve short term in Africa or Latin America. Please keep us in your prayers this weekend, as doctors discern their call to serve. On Sunday our local friend will join us for Mass at LMU. A busy time, but an exciting time as we are all working together to bring health care to those most in need.