MAP International Spring 2023 Newsletter

medicine for all people

medicine for all people

Thanks to your generosity, we’re expanding our warehouse to reach more people than ever before!

Through a collaborative network of donors, partners, staff, and volunteers, MAP International distributed more than $700 million worth of life-changing medicine and health supplies to over 86 countries last year.

MAP’s current 40,000 square feet of warehouse space in Brunswick, GA, is beyond capacity. We are currently leasing three external warehouses. In order to expand our impact worldwide, we need to expand the space where we receive, store, and prepare our donated medicine and health

supplies for distribution. The foundation is being laid for a new warehouse facility that will provide an additional 43,000 square feet of space next to our existing warehouse and distribution center. Upon completion in 2023, MAP’s distribution center capacity will be more than doubled at 83,000 square feet.

This means that now we will be able to double our impact and reach even more communities than ever before. And for the tens of millions of people in the developing world — many of whom are

children — who die from diseases that could have been prevented or treated with a few dollars’ worth of medicine, this could be a lifesaving difference.

In this newsletter, you will read stories of hope, healing and lives transformed. It is thanks to the gifts of our supporters like you that this is possible. Each life saved, each person healed, each community transformed are testaments to God’s infinite mercy. Please know that your generosity and compassion are what make all of this work possible.

Our mission: To provide medicine and health supplies to those in need around the world so they might experience life to the fullest.

Samuelito gets lifesaving medicine

All first-time parents get a bit panicky when their child gets sick. For those of us fortunate enough to live where there is an abundance of resources, the panic is often unwarranted.

But for parents like María Jose and Elber, who live in a poor community in Guatemala, their panic was real. Their only son, Samuelito, was sick and clearly needed medicine, but they had no way to help him. Where they live, there is no public clinic nearby, and even the fee-forservice clinics are too far away and much too expensive for them to afford.

Fortunately, they were directed to a clinic run by a group of churches that serves the needs

of their particular neighborhood. One of the volunteer physicians at the clinic, Dr. Layla, diagnosed Samuelito with a respiratory infection. Now they had answers. But what about medicine?

MAP International has been partnering with this clinic for the last decade, and because of MAP’s Bringing Children Health program, Dr. Layla has access to quality children’s antibiotics. She was able to send Samuelito home with the medicine he needed, at no charge to his parents.

Samuelito is now recovered and back to his old happy self — playing with his dog and walking down to the corner with his dad each morning when he leaves for work.

It’s easy to put a price on a bottle of medicine. But there is no way for a parent to quantify the value of their child’s health being restored. Thanks to donors like you, Samuelito has health and hope.

Bringing health and hope to rural Ghana

Imagine if you were sick and had no car. That there were no pharmacies in your town. And the closest clinic was 20 miles away. What would you do?

For those living in the Mpranease community in Kumasi, Ghana, that is their reality. The Mpranease Health Center, which is located 20 miles from most of the communities that they serve, tells stories of many patients who, due to lack of transportation and the ability to pay for services, put off coming to the clinic until their health conditions have become severe.

By the time patients get to the clinic for care, those with high blood pressure are at extreme risk for having a stroke, pregnant women who have had no prenatal care end up delivering a stillborn baby, or die in childbirth themselves, and children who started out with a simple cold show up with a fullblown case of pneumonia.

Last summer, the Mpranease Health Center received a delivery of hope. A friend and partner of MAP, Irene Darko, came to serve at the clinic for a month, and brought with her a large donation of MAP

medicine and health supplies — prenatal vitamins, fever reducers, vitamins, and other over-thecounter medicines, as well as bandages, sutures, stethoscopes, and personal protective equipment (PPE).

This donation better equipped the medical staff of this clinic to offer more effective healthcare to their patients, and enabled them to offer these medications to patients free of charge, thereby alleviating further financial burden for those who sought care. Irene’s team is invested in the Mpranease community, and is working to improve the quality of life for its people long-term.

“This donation was a blessing to the people and staff of this small medical facility,” says Irene. “These people are in dire need of assistance and the MAP medication was received with joy and tears in their eyes.”

An end to suffering in the Democratic Republic of Congo

For women in Africa who experience long or difficult births, they often suffer from birth trauma that leaves them incontinent, leaking urine or feces uncontrollably. Because of their condition, they then become outcasts in their community — losing friends, jobs, sometimes even their husbands.

It is for these women that Dr. Shannon Potter, an OB/ GYN from the U.S., donates her time and expertise. She has spent a significant amount of time performing life-changing surgeries for women all over Africa, most recently in the town of Vanga, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

There, armed with an ample supply of high-quality Ethicon sutures and special surgical needles from MAP International, she and a medical mission team operated on 49 women who were suffering from a variety of severe fistula cases.

One of her patients was a woman who had been suffering for 29 years after doctors performed a symphysiotomy during her long labor, an outdated surgical procedure in which a woman’s pelvis is broken apart at the cartilage in order to expedite a delivery when a cesarean section is not feasible. Here is her story in her own words:

“I was expecting a child and for a whole week I had labor pains, so I was taken to the hospital after having already labored in a health center. And I delivered a boy and the urine started to pour out of my vagina, but my son was killed mysteriously.

“Now it has been 29 years that I’ve had this sickness. After having it, I started to be uncomfortable. I couldn’t stay in the community because I smelled like urine. I avoided the church because I was wet just sitting down, and even my business I could no longer do because I was not going to be received well knowing that I would dirty their chair or their bed.

“My husband heard the news on the radio and we came. After this operation, I think that this time I will be healed and I have not had any more leakage of urine this time. It is a good thing. I will be able to get my life back and I will be happy.”

Thanks to MAP supporters, Dr. Potter had the supplies and medicine she needed to perform life-changing surgery and give hope to the women of Vanga.

Jean will never forget the moment he regained his sight

Jean is a 31-year-old man who builds houses as a profession, which may shock some because he lived with total blindness for many years. Jean had long accepted his blindness. But supporting his wife and eightyear-old child in rural Haiti had become increasingly difficult.

Then he heard about a clinic that offered him a glimmer of hope. It was a rainy summer afternoon when Jean arrived at the medical clinic and heard the life-changing words of the doctor who said he could help.

Jean needed cataract surgery on both eyes, which were done in a single operation. Jean spent the night at the hospital recovering

with patches over his eyes. As soon as the patches were removed, Jean easily passed the visual tests. He could see the faces of the healthcare workers and easily state how many fingers his doctor was holding up.

Jean made a quick recovery and was soon able to step outside of the clinic to reunite with his family and friends. Seeing the faces of his loved ones filled Jean with so much joy and love.

MAP is happy to have provided the supplies needed for Jean’s surgery, and we are committed to continuing our efforts for the people around the world who have limited access to care.

THANKS TO YOU,

MAP’s year-end matching gift campaign exceeded its goal!

The money raised will be used to serve even more people in 2023, including:

• Providing more than 132,000 full courses of lifesaving pediatric antibiotics to children suffering infections

• Reaching millions of pregnant women worldwide by providing more than 6,600,000 treatments of critical prenatal vitamins

• Supplying approximately 2.7 million treatments for hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease and asthma

RINGINGMEDICINE TOTHEWORL

2022MATCHING GIFTCAMPAIGN

“We are so grateful to all of our supporters. You are the reason we are able to get lifesaving medicine and health supplies to where they need to go,” says Steve Stirling, President and CEO of MAP International. “We are blessed beyond measure for all the generous, compassionate people who are members of our MAP family and help bring health and hope to some of the world’s poorest, most forgotten people and communities.”

Thanks to outstanding generosity of our supporters, the year-end 2022 Bringing Medicine to the World Matching Gift campaign surpassed our goal, raising a total of more than $600,000.