81-Year-Old Grandma Finds Hope Against All Odds
Meet Mercedes, a resilient 81-year-old grandmother from the remote Nicaraguan village of La Concordia. Her brown eyes, once clouded with pain, now sparkle with life again. For two agonizing years, Mercedes battled against gallstones, enduring excruciating pain that left her unable to work and her family struggling to make ends meet.
In La Concordia, where survival depends on hard work and resilience, Mercedes and her family harvested and sold wild coffee beans. But when Mercedes fell ill, her family’s livelihood was threatened. Despite their efforts, local doctors refused to operate on Mercedes, deeming her condition too risky due to her age.
Desperate for a solution, Mercedes’s family journeyed over 30 miles to a hospital in San Rafael del Norte, only to face the same heartbreaking rejection from doctors there. It seemed that hope was slipping away until a ray of light appeared in the form of a nurse from Nazareth Clinic.
Thanks to the generosity of compassionate donors like you, the clinic was hosting a surgical mission led by Advance’s Volunteer General Surgeon. Over the past two years, givings had enabled Advance Community to provide life-saving surgeries to thousands in need across Nicaragua, Peru, and Ecuador.
Despite the initial hesitation, the volunteer doctors assessed Mercedes’s risks for surgery, free of charge, and ultimately agreed to operate. Mercedes left the clinic the next day, weary but filled with gratitude and renewed vitality.
Mercedes’s story is just one among many. Countless individuals, from infants to seniors, suffer in silence due to lack of access to basic medical care. Your support can change lives. With your generous donation, you can help fund surgeries for those in need, restoring hope and transforming futures.
