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It was a night of food, fellowship, fundraising, and fun. Our Partnership Council outdid itself, and we are grateful for the wonderful turnout and support to fund the ministry! A great night was had by all. Did you attend? Here’s a Cliff’s Notes version if you weren’t able to make it:
Our guest speaker, Dr. David Jeffcoach, spoke about his time as a surgeon in Soddo, Ethiopia. We are proud to have partnered with Dr. Jeffcoach and the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS) with a 40-foot container of supplies and equipment in November 2021. He shared about the lack of medical care, especially surgery in Africa. In a shocking illustration, he compared the concentration of surgeons in Ethiopia vs. the Fresno/Clovis area. He shared that if we had the same number of surgeons per capita as Ethiopia, we’d have just two surgeons for the entire Fresno/Clovis area!
We received an update from MMI board chairman Dr. Ralph Handly. MMI continues to ship full and partial shipments and has plans to increase this. We are looking to increase volunteer numbers and raise funds; both have declined during the COVID-19 years. The largest task is finding affordable warehouse storage to grow our shipping capabilities.
We also heard a special 25th-anniversary message from our founders, Tom and Nancy Stoeckel, about MMI’s work from 1998 to today. MMI has had such strong support over the years, and many volunteers have been with MMI since the beginning. They went on to talk about the current needs; our most pressing need is a warehouse. They shared that we are losing our current shipping warehouse on Cedar Ave this month and are actively looking for another warehouse space to house our inventory and is also equipped with a loading dock to ship. We’d like to talk to you if you know of anything available!
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