Hi Everyone.
I will be leaving for Dakar, Senegal in 7 days on June 1st. Since the last post, I have received my assignment and everything is in order. An enormous thanks is due for all the support I have received on all fronts. My financial support base has raised upwards of $4600 for the trip which has been extremely welcomed not only by myself but also by the team leaders as they were able to purchase more medicines than anticipated due to the everyone's incredible generosity.

My Mediquest assignment as a missionary is quite incredible and I will working in Senegal from June 2 to June 17. In that time the Mediquest team will travel to Senegalese villages to offer medical services to the villagers who rarely receive care from trained professionals. My roll in the team will be to do everything I can to make everyone's life easier. This includes taking vitals (Blood pressure and heart rate) and histories, entertaining the waiting children(playing soccer), helping the villagers get situated, educating the villagers, ministering and praying for the villagers, and helping determine which patients are in the most desperate need. I will also spend sometime observing and helping the professionals with their work. I have been asked a few times what aliments the team will see most frequently and the list is long. Most often we will see people will various kinds of fungal infections(these are usually pretty bad since they do not get treatment), people with lots of aches and pains from carrying water jugs, babies, and food while doing daily chores, people with gastroenteritis, respiratory infections, STDs, and malaria. On a little higher note, AIDS in Senegal is rare and has been continuously decreasing.

An interesting side note on the medical side, what we consider logical reasoning to explain ailments isn't the norm in Senegal. People will often believe that an accident 10 years ago is the cause for their illness and that the illness can be cured in 24 hours since they saw a doctor. They also have a hard time distinguishing one disease from another. For example, when asking a patient with aches what other symptoms they have, they might simply answer with "malaria." To them aches is synonymous with malaria, and not just a symptom.

In addition to our work in the rural environment we will be ministering to the Talibe boys. The Talibe boys are most often from 4-12 years old and can be found begging. In theory, the boys begging is to help them pay their alms(about 90% of Senegal is Islamic) while they attend daaras, the Islamic schools. But more often than not, the daaras act as cover for economic exploitation of the Talibe boys. Their teachers send the boys out to beg and upon their return they take the money "earned" for their own purposes. The daaras position as a morally essential institution prevents missionaries and aid groups from altering its corruption but it is my hope that in Dakar we, as Christians, can bring some smiles to the Talibe boy's face that will resonate with them as the joy in Christianity.