by Nicholas Skinner This November my sister and I had the opportunity to participate in the 2012 Quechua Benefit Mission in Peru. Our family, as Snowmass Alpacas, has sponsored the building of a medical clinic at Casa Chapi. This year the final construction of the clinic was completed, and we were there to attend the…
Category Archives: Mission Articles
InSight Peru 2013 – The Adventure Begins Again!
It is with a great sense of anticipation and excitement that I can announce to you the return of the InSight team to Peru! It seems like such a long time ago, however reading back through this blog, the memories are still very fresh. A new crew has now been assembled – 12 in total, with 6 new faces joining us. I have posted the complete team list in the information to the right of the page, but to Linda Wright, Brooke Morrison, Rob Rix, Tony Roccon, and Janie Hicks, a big welcome! I am also very pleased to say that the inspiration behind the InSight Peru project, Dr Ian Davison, will be making the treck to Chivay with us this time.
Christmas Wishes from Snowmass Alpacas
Snowmass Alpacas – Don, Julie, Nick, Maree, David and Heidi Skinner would like to send a special thank you to the medical team of Quechua Benefit
2012 Mission to Peru
Quechua Benefits 2012 Mission to Peru & The opening of the Snowmass Health Center Fourteen members of the 2012 Quechua Benefit mission traveled to six towns in the Colca Valley on a rotating basis and they inaugurated the Snowmass Health Center with 6 days of continuous operation. They were accompanied by 3 Peruvian doctors and…
Grand Opening: Snowmass Health Center
Julie and Don: I have had the pleasure of participating in the recent Quechua Benefit Mission at Casa Chapi. First, I want to thank you for your generous donation which has allowed the Medical Center to come to fruition. But most of all, I want to compliment you on your children, who were a delight to work with. As a physician with no children, my recent interaction with the youth of America had me feeling very uncertain as to the future of our country. After a week with Heidi and Nick, I feel as if there is truly a future.
WHY WE SUPPORT QUECHUA BENEFIT
Jane and I consider it a privilege to be associated with Quechua Benefit. We want the years we have been allotted to count for something. There are several reasons why we will continue to invest in the activities of Quechua Benefit (QB).
Perrysburg High School graduate finds Peace Corps service exciting, challenging
Lauren Deimling Johns, 26, born in Toledo and a graduate of Fort Meigs Elementary and Perrysburg High School, joined the Peace Corp, after a back injury ended her professional ballet career. She was assigned to Peru, arriving in 2010. Her two-year stint in the High Andes of the South American country ends in August. Next, she plans to go to France and attend graduate school. She tells her Peace Corps story in three parts.
Guiding Principles
Quechua Benefit believes our primary mission is to serve the poor people of Peru and strives to unite those who feel a call and have a heart to serve the poorest of the poor. The organization is a non denominational Faith-based charity that encourages everyone, whatever their belief, to participate in helping the poor and disenfranchised people of the alpaca growing regions of Peru with the shared goals of service and unity of purpose.
The Road to Tisco
When we boarded the bus in Chivay that morning, I had no idea what our medical team was going to encounter that day other than to expect a long, bumpy bus ride to the tiny village of Tisco high in the puna (grasslands) near the source of the Colca River. What would life be like in such an isolated place? How would the native Quechua people respond to outsiders offering to provide medical care to their close-knit community? These questions kept going through my mind as we wound our way toward the top of the Colca Valley.
House Call in Cabanacondi
I have been fortunate enough to do several medical missions around the world. Each time I have returned with a greater appreciation of the bounties of my life AND an admiration for the people we serve.
Life and Death in Peru
I have been fortunate enough to do several medical missions around the world. Each time I have returned with a greater appreciation of the bounties of my life AND an admiration for the people we serve.
November 2011 Mission Testimonial
The entire experience surpassed the wildest measure of my expectations. I am still trying to think of just one reason to not participate again…
Anatomy of a Mission
Quechua Benefit mission participants often leave for Peru excited about the good they are about to do for some of the poorest people on earth. Invariably, at some point in the mission, they begin to realize, almost feeling guilty, that they are the ones who may well be benefiting most from the experience. Missions are often “Chicken Soup” for the participant’s soul. Serving someone in need is powerful spiritual medicine.
Mission in the Andes
The highlands of Peru are home to the vast majority of all the alpacas in the world. The Quechua Indians, who domesticated the vicuna more than five thousand years ago, are the source of the alpaca which now reside in the outside world. Their world of high plains and harsh environment resists the probability of…
Sean Hommel
As a third-year medical student Sean was assigned to Dr. Dwight Bailey’s rural health clinic in the foothills of Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains. It was here that he first envisioned the possibilities ahead of him—a life devoted to serving the poor, living in a small town, and raising kids. Today he fast forwards to Macusani.
Marilyn Nishitani
Marilyn Nishitani sizes up the little girl from Musoq Runa who settles shyly onto the exam table. Maribie’s curious brown eyes take in Marilyn’s crystal blue gaze and pale white face crowned with spiky gray hair. At twelve years of age, an orphan for most of those years, the little girl has never spoken to…
The Gift of Sight
The Quest began in March of 2009. A team of ophthalmologists called Amigo’s based at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon diagnosed 300 patients with cataracts at an eye clinic in Chivay, Peru. These patients represented about 20% of all the patients seen by Amigos.
Rhonda Deschner
Rhonda Deschner is a pediatrician with a soft-spoken manner and a quick smile. Rhonda practiced medicine in Texas for twenty years before heading off to Peru on Quechua Benefit’s November Medical Mission.
Quechua Benefit Peru Trip – Travel Advice
All you need to know about traveling on your first mission to Peru.
Cultural Awareness Tips for Mission Participants
Titles are extraordinarily important – always error on the side of being overly polite by referring to everyone by their appropriate professional of social title (e.g. physicians – “Dr.” or Dra.”).
Find us on Facebook