A Day of Firsts

Sunday.  The Lord’s Day.  A day of rest for some, but not for Luke 9:2 Ministries.  Today was our first day of clinic.  We held our first clinic here at the compound where we are staying in Cofradia.  Cofradia is about 1 hour’s drive from Tegucigalpa, but it seems worlds away.  Unlike the hustle and bustle of the big city, Cofradia is a rural, mountain community, where the animals and the children roam freely.

Having our clinic here at the compound was nice in one way because we didn’t have to factor in travel time. That meant we didn’t have to be at breakfast until 7:00 a.m., a relative luxury since some mornings, our breakfast will be at 6:00.

After a time of singing, devotions, and prayer, we began to set up for the start of the clinic.  The first day always involves a learning curve for first timers, and today was no exception.  We have a number of folks that have never before served with Luke 9:2 Ministries:  Missy Shaw and Will Shaw, Doug and Deb Duty, and Shannon Guy, all from Nashville; Debby Harding and Barbara Gentry from Oregon, and Brettany Morgan from Georgia.  Several more have served with Luke 9:2 Ministries, but never before here in Cofradia.

This morning, for the first time, we held a Women’s Conference in conjunction with the clinic.  About 30 women from the village attended.  Deb Duty led the conference and focused on the idea that we are beautiful in God’s eyes just the way we are.
 We don’t have to try to look like or be like someone else.  We need to find contentment in the fact that God made us as we are, and that in itself makes us beautiful.  Deb also focused on the biblical role of a wife.  Many women in these communities are the victims of spousal abuse, and Deb taught them that scripture teaches submission by a wife is what occurs in a household where the husband is also submitting himself to Christ.  When a husband is mistreating his wife, the Bible does not command her to stay in that situation.  Letsby, the pastor’s wife, said that was exactly what these women needed to hear, because many of them are in abusive situations.

Also, for the first time, we used refraction techniques to prescribe glasses for patients with vision problems.  These new methods proved to be more challenging than we anticipated.  It seems that it is fashionable down here to wear glasses. The kids and teenagers were prone to say whatever they thought they had to in order to get a pair of glasses.  That was sad to hear, given the number of reading glasses I have at home.  But, by the end of the day, we distributed 126 pairs of reading, prescription and sunglasses.

By the end of the day, we had seen about 400 patients.  Prayer requests:  Pray for our endurance.  Many team members reported fatigue setting in well before the end of the day.  Also, pray that we will continue to rely on God’s spirit to guide our actions and to provide for our needs.  Eric Ward said it best tonight: “Everybody just does their thing so God can do His thing.”