the kropps have a
heart for brazil
wife’s roots and husband’s medical skills combine to help orphans in Jacunda have a chance at a better life
Project Rescue of Amazon Youth is a Christian nonprofit organization that serves abused, neglected, orphaned and at-need children in the Amazon area of Brazil. Volunteers from the United States, working through the organization’s board of directors in Kansas and Brazil, communicate and commute to Jacunda, Para, to provide supplies, financial aid and medical assistance. The Jacunda campus is located on eight acres of land and provides housing for the children, meals, classrooms, library, chapel and a community medical clinic. Teenagers from the Project Rescue house transition to Tocantinopolis for further education and employment opportunities. Dr. Mark Kropp, a family practitioner who works in quality assurance at Lilly/Elanco, and his wife relocated to Augusta three years ago. They recently became involved with Project Rescue and traveled to the Amazon to volunteer in the medical clinic last fall. Kropp spoke to verge about his experiences in Jacunda and his plans for future mission work. Verge: How did you first hear about Project Rescue? Kropp: My wife is Brazilian and we started selling Brazilian food in the marketplace at the Savannah River every Saturday. We learned about Arts in the Heart, I contacted them and they said to get in touch with Maria Berger, who does the Brazil tent. We befriended each other and participated in the Brazil presentation at Arts in the Heart. Maria had become aware of Project Rescue, which was supporting this orphanage. One of the past presidents, Michael Ryan, is the [editorial] page editor at The Augusta Chronicle. He had written a book and I was reading in the dedication how Michael Ryan had been to Brazil. I was interested in combining my medical background with traveling to the Amazon and found that maybe this would be exactly what I was looking for. I made contacts and had to send in my curriculum vitae and be interviewed by a nurse practitioner who has been going there for the past five years. We were invited to go and we spent a week at the orphanage in September 2011. Verge: What was your involvement during that week? Kropp: I practice family medicine. There is a clinic available to all the residents of Jacunda. They show up about 6 a.m. and the office opens at 8 a.m. and closes at 8 p.m. The clinic sees patients for anything you think is possible: geriatrics, pediatrics, ob-gyn, diabetes, vaccinations, cardiovascular. Verge: Were you familiar with the Amazon region before becoming involved with Project Rescue? Kropp: I had taken several trips to Sao Paulo and Rio but had never been to the Amazon. Para is the frontier, the start of the true Amazon as we know it. We hear about defoliation, and that’s the area that got cut down and it turns very dusty. They have decided, because of their organic, green background to allow a lot of the vegetation to grow back. Verge: Had you done mission work before? Kropp: It was my first time. I was elected treasurer of my alumni association from my medical school, American University in St. Maarten, and our school had their first medical mission trip this year to Bolivia; we sponsored 17 students going for a week. I was aware of Doctors With Wings and things like that, but I had never done something like this before, although my clinicals were done
ORPHANED IN BRAZIL Girls at the Project Rescue orphanagein Jacunda
“My wife realized these people
only have water coming from the river and she came
up with the idea of solar panels and a heater for hot showers.”
— Dr. mark kropp
in the Caribbean, so it wasn’t too unfamiliar to deal with limited supplies and equipment and very poor people. Verge: What were your impressions upon arrival in Brazil? Kropp: We were in a pretty big airplane and landed on a one-lane strip in the Amazon, so that was the first shock. It was a two-hour drive [to Jacunda]. The first part was on a relatively smooth road where the clear-cutting took place, and then we got into where growth had returned and our driver was maneuvering around big potholes. When we arrived in Jacunda, it was more amazement in my wife’s eyes because they build everything in concrete in the south, but in Jacunda, it’s wood. The [orphanage] campus has a nice wall around it. The two buildings are wonderful. The clinics are 10 years old and more modern than what we had seen in the town, which was more of a shantytown. There was an outdoor classroom. The medical clinic has a modern interior and computers. They don’t have a satellite connection yet for Internet, but the television has video and DVDs. The food was wonderful. The kids are needy; they like to be hugged, they love playing games.
Verge: What are their greatest needs? Kropp: Lilly has a program where we’re sending out employees around the world and lot of those places are orphanages. The kids need hugs and attention. The food supply looked strong. They’re taking cold showers. My wife realized these people only have water coming from the river and she came up with the idea of solar panels and a heater for hot showers. They were starting a vegetable garden and it was simple – we mailed [seeds] to provide fresh vegetables and give the kids a chance at a project that’s their own. They always need cash donations. Verge: Is there a tie-in between your work with Lilly and your work with Project Rescue? Kropp: Through my medical school and our rotations, we have availability to go on medical missions our first and second years and clinical rotations in our third and fourth years. Through the alumni association, I’m building a medical mission of particular students to go down the last week in August on summer break to participate in family practice. Third- and fourth-year rotations will go to a place like Jacunda, a non-U.S. accredited site, for six weeks. My contribution is going to be more family practice and bringing along students to help. We’re also putting together a program for credit scores and using the classroom to talk about tropical diseases like malaria, yellow fever, snake bites, etcetera. My wife will go again in February and I will go at the end of August. For more information about Project Rescue of Amazon Youth, visit praymission.embarqspace.com. by ALISON RICTHER photo MARK KROPP
vergelive.com | community driven news | December 14, 2011 19