Newsletter Fall / Winter 2024

Surgery teams have begun again! After a five-year break, Surgery Team #34 arrived in Santa Cruz on September 6th. More than 50 patients received life-changing surgeries. Here are some of their stories…

Eduardo is a 59-year-old man who lives in Santa Cruz with his mother and sister. He works as a security guard for a condominium. He had had a hernia for about a year and a half when he came to the Mission of Hope clinic in July of this year. He came out of curiosity to ask if we did surgery there and found out that a team was coming in September to provide a week of free surgeries. Eduardo had surgery on a Thursday afternoon. By the next morning, he was up walking around with very little pain and ready to go home.

This was not Eduardo’s first surgery. He suffered with the pain of gallstones for five years. Finally, in the year 2000, the pain was so intense that he felt like he was going to die. He went to a medical clinic seeking treatment, only to find out that he needed surgery. He had no money and no insurance. Doctors there told him that if he would sell them one of his kidneys, he would have the money to pay for the gall bladder surgery. Because he was in so much pain and because he had no resources of his own, he sold them his kidney!

Claudia is 40 years old. She lives with her husband and two children about an hour from Santa Cruz. She earns money by baking bread and selling it from her house. After months of heavy bleeding, Claudia needed a hysterectomy. Doctors in the small town where she lives wanted to do the surgery there, but her sister insisted that she come to Mission of Hope. She and her husband came, not knowing that we were already screening patients for a week of surgery. They slept outside the clinic all night so they could be the first ones to enter the next morning. Claudia was so happy to make the list!

Luis is a 63-year-old man who lives in Santa Cruz with his wife and grown son. He earned his living as a bus driver until recently when the pain of two hernias caused him to stop working.

When Luis was 50 years old, he contracted Guillain-Barre syndrome, a condition which left him totally paralyzed. He could not even move his neck. Doctors told him he would never walk again, but he found a physical therapist who had faith and was willing to work with him. After a year and a half of grueling physical therapy, Luis was able to walk again!

Luis was the last case on the surgery schedule Tuesday evening. The next morning, he was up and walking the halls and smiling as if he had never even had surgery. In fact, he was walking so much that his surgeon had to tell him to stop walking and rest!

Yngrid is 38 years old. She lives with her husband and 4 children in Santa Cruz. She has suffered with the pain of gallstones for ten years. She has stayed at home caring for the children while her husband worked as a truck driver.

In years past, both her brother and her sister had surgery at Mission of Hope, so it was only natural that Yngrid would also want to go there for surgery. She was planning to go to the clinic five years ago, but then Covid shut everything down, and the teams stopped coming. She said she was willing to wait for the teams to come back. She did not want to have surgery anywhere else!

Elvio is 40 years old. He worked in heavy construction for many years building homes. Three years ago, he developed a painful hernia, so he decided to change careers and become a painter. One of his co-workers told him that a team from the US was coming to Mission of Hope to do hernia surgery. Elvio was in the process of screening for surgery when he had a terrible accident. While he was painting, he fell off the ladder onto a hard tile floor and broke his arm.

He went to the emergency room of a local hospital where he was told the arm would heal itself. He then went to his screening appointment at Mission of Hope, x-rays in hand. In the clinic, Dr. Tapia looked at the x-rays and said the bones were not lined up in a way that would lend themselves to proper healing. Elvio was also in tremendous pain. So, Mission of Hope paid for Elvio to get the surgery he needed to heal the broken bones. Thankfully, he was able to have surgery on his arm and be discharged just in time to also have surgery to repair his hernia! Now he is recovering from both surgeries.

Claudia Beatriz is a 39-year-old single mom with two school-aged children. She earns her living by cleaning people’s houses. Five years ago, she started having pain. She went to a local hospital where an ultrasound revealed gallstones. The doctor there told her she needed to have surgery.

Claudia started putting money aside whenever she could. Just when she thought she had enough for the surgery, things got complicated. First, she could not find anyone to take care of her children. Then her father got sick with Covid and died. In the end, she found herself with no money left for surgery. She is so happy and appreciative to have had her surgery at Mission of Hope. Doctors removed her gall bladder containing 30 stones!

A $150,000 matching gift challenge is now in effect. All donations between now and December 31st up to $150,000 will be doubled by an anonymous donor to help fund our clinics in the coming year. Thank you for partnering with us to serve the poor and needy in Bolivia.