From Lillian Solt, missionary

We praise the Lord for work teams like RCCPC that come to work shoulder to shoulder with the people of Horquetas and in a very tangible way show the love of Jesus. As some say, "there goes Jesus". It is exciting to see people move out of these comfort zones and get personnally involved in the work of CEDCAS in Costa Rica which changes their lives completely, never being the same person again. I represent CEDCAS (which stands for in Spanish), Health Education and Health Care Center). We are committed to providing "whole person health care", meeting the physical, spiritual, emotional and economic needs of our patients. That is why we have the clinic but also work with rural, poor communities developing micro enterprises to help them care for their families.

We praise the Lord for the gift of $7,500 to the ongoing work of Clinic CEDCAS which allows us to reach out year round to the very poor and suffering in our country. An example of our reaching out has been the help we have been able to give to the earthquake victims who lost everything in the 6.2 earthquake on January 8, 2009. We were able to visit one of the shelters with a partner church from Santo Tomas. Along with food, we have donated drugs and a booklet that we have put together to form medical family health kits which are provided to the families in need. This gives them some common drugs which are over the counter and they can care for their own headaches, fevers, skin infections by washing with a bar of antibacterial soap, etc. RCCPC has been present in the relief effort.

Your gifts also make it possible for us to subsidized the clinic costs so that patients from the squatter communities or the rural communties like Horquetas, can access our excellent services at a minimal cost. The ability for us to charge on a sliding scale is due to the gifts from friends like RCCPC who give generously during the year to help us "reach out and touch them with the love of JESUS". We have an excellent staff for which we praise the Lord. We see approximately 700 - 800 patients a month and of these, we subsidize approximately 250 at a cost of $3,000 or $12 a patient. We need your help and prayers as we seek to raise this amount each month. Thank you for all you have done for us and thank you for coming to work with us during these past couple of days.