Asociación San Lucas is a Christian organisation working to improve both the physical and spiritual health of the people of Moyobamba and its surrounding area. Most of the staff working at the clinic are Christians, trying to show their love of Jesus Christ through practical service. Each day at the clinic, all the staff meet for a time of worship, with singing, prayer and a short Bible study led by a member of staff or a local pastor. I even had to take one of the devotions, speaking on idolatry and had to do it all obviously in Spanish! It was a scary experience, given that I had not even been able to speak Spanish a few months before.

Asociación San Lucas is involved in improving water sanitation, community health (including sexual health, preventing and treating HIV/AIDS, paediatrics and obstetric care, through the training of community health advisers from the villages), and agriculture and farming for some of the poorest villages of the Department of Moyobamba. Even though I was there as a medical student, I was able to get involved in everything.

I was given the opportunity to visit a couple of villages where San Lucas is working to provide a clean water supply, rather than the dirty river which families are currently using as washing, cooking and drinking water. For one of these villages, Neuvo Milagro (New Miracle), a new water supply had been found on the land of the local shaman. Locals told us that he goes down into this cave to consult the Devil, but, praise to God, he was willing to allow San Lucas to use this supply if it turned out to be uncontaminated.

The Amazon Rainforest is not called the rainforest for nothing - it had been raining, pouring all day so we had to tramp through a foot of mud and muddy water to get to the cave! When we did get there, the five men (I wasn't allowed to go down because I was a girl!) disappeared into a cave about 20 feet below the ground. Being abandoned in a rainforest wasn't much fun, but it got worse when a little stream above the cave burst its banks! I have never been so scared in my life! I was praying desperately for them, debating whether to attempt to make it back to the shaman's house on my own. I knew that he had a mobile phone there (having one of the few mobiles in the area), although I don't really know who I could have called! Eventually, after 45 minutes of fervent prayer, the men suddenly struggled through what was now a raging waterfall and scrambled up the side of the cave!

1. Clínica San Lucas
2. The evangelical church in Guillermo, another village where San Lucas worked
3. Children playing in the water of the Río Mayo, a tributary of the Amazon
4. The men climb down into the cave. That's the shaman in the fake Brazil top and blue plastic sheeting - not quite how I imagined a witch doctor to look!