Monday Part 1

Yesterday you read that our clinic site was at the compound where we are staying, and that there is a nursing home on the premises.  This morning, as we were waiting for the bus to start (see below), Michelle shared her thoughts briefly on what a cool place it is.  Click here to hear her brief description.

Saturday, as we prepared to leave our clinic site, it was discovered that the bus wouldn’t start.  Most of found another way back to the compound, but several of the guys stayed with our crates.  Eventually a mechanic came to our site and rebuilt the starter.  All arrived back at the compound safely (about 1 ½ hours after the rest of us) and we thought the matter was solved.

This morning we were told that we would be traveling our farthest distance and that we needed to get an early start in order to beat the traffic in Tegucigalpa.  We gathered in the dining hall at 6:00 (the time we were told breakfast would be served) and we began eating at 6:00 Honduran time (about 6:15).  Beth Ann said we needed to be on the road at 6:45.  By the time we finished eating, brushed teeth, had our devotion,  and loaded the pickup trucks, it was almost 7:00 a.m.  We piled on the bus and but instead of the roar of a diesel engine, all we heard was the classic “rnnnnn, rnnnn,rnnnn” of a dead battery.

 

Once again the men removed the bus’s battery, and tried to jump start it using another battery and one of the pickup trucks.  They worked diligently for almost an hour, and finally, success!  The bus started!  We cheered, climbed on the bus, and silently dreaded the rush hour traffic waiting for us in Tegucigalpa. 

But we were wrong.  Though the traffic slowed our speed (maybe a good thing?!), we were not caught in the city gridlock we had feared.  We arrived about an hour later than expected at the school in Mateo, but the people gathered were patiently waiting for us inside a building, out of the intense sun.  

Read more about today’s clinic in Part 2.

Regarding other matters:

Not sure how the weather is where you are, but it is just about perfect here.  Each morning it was been a little overcast, and that has kept the temperature down.  Each day we’ve enjoyed a delightful breeze, and my guess is that our temperature is around 80 degrees each day so far.  It does cool off at night, though.  Jackets have been welcome!

The Honduran countryside is a mixture between the beauty of God’s nature, and the squalor of man. Beautiful mountains rise all around Honduras.  Many of those mountainsides are covered with squatter shacks.  Unfortunately, these shacks are often washed out during heavy rains. But, the people return.  Where else do they have to go?

So we do what we can.  We help ease today’s pain.  We offer love, and we offer hope in the name of Jesus.

Staying Put

Clinic was here on our compound today.

This was a good thing for many reasons:

1. No travel time had to be built into the schedule, so we got to sleep late (relatively speaking!) Breakfast was served at 7:00 (yesterday it was 6:00), and then we had our morning devotionals. About 8:15 we began setting up the clinic area and by 9:00 we were ready to go.
2. There is a small nursing home on the compound and we were able to see those patients first. As I mentioned yesterday, the elderly are treated with a great deal of respect here, and they always get to go to the front of the line.
3. We didn’t have to carry our gear very far. The dentist area and glasses set up in the nursing home building. The medical staff set up in the chapel, and pharmacy was in the dining hall (were the drugs were already stored).
4. The bathrooms here are nice!
5. No travel to get back home.

It was a good thing that we didn’t have to travel back, because dental didn’t finish up until after 6:00 (it was dark!). They saw 95 patients and pulled 226 teeth! One patient had 11 teeth pulled! Our dental team did an awesome job today!

We saw 596 patients today, so our medical team was super busy, too. We were fortunate, though, that Laine (doctor) and his son Sean, and Janet (nurse) and her grown son Bryce arrived from Oregon in time to help at the clinic.
 

The extra hands at the de-worming station (Sean) and in the medical area really helped to speed things up.

Caleb, our pharmacist, took us to a new level today. He compounded several medications today, including an asthma treatment for an 11 month old, and he ground an antibiotic and mixed it with fluid so that a gunshot victim could enter it into his feeding tube.



Ms Joanne distributed 97 pairs of reading glasses and 4 pair of sunglasses, and David and Bill distributed 600 lbs of rice, beans and corn.

Of course, Jorge helped register all 595 patients and Pat and Nicki made sure everyone of them had their de-worming medicine and vitaminas!











Letsbi, our chief cook here, made pupusas, tacos, and enchiladas for dinner. What a delicious ending to an exhausting day.










Tomorrow our clinic will be south of Tegucigalpa, so we will have a long travel day again. That’s OK. Its why we are here. But it sure was nice for today to stay put!

Mixed observations from a sleep deprived mind...

If you live in the city, country noises bother you.  If you live in the country, city noises keep you awake at night.  If you live a developed country, noises from rural Honduras are like a shot of caffeine right before bedtime - no way you’ll get a good  night’s sleep!

So was our night last night.  Despite rising early the day before and navigating three airports, uninterrupted sleep eluded many of us.  Gunfire was the first unfamiliar noise (a good way away, but unnerving nonetheless).  Then roosters crowing (way before dawn!), dogs barking furiously outside the open windows, and just plain unfamiliar surroundings made sleep seem more like a series of interrupted naps.

Dawn arrived and found us in the dining hall enjoying cereal, fruit, and coffee cake.  Yum!  After devotions  by Darryl and loading of the truck, we piled into the bus for the ride to Las Flores, the community picked for today’s clinic.

The weather this morning was a little cool, so the windows to the bus remained closed.  That was a good thing, because the well maintained dirt road showered everything within reach with a fine white dust as each vehicle traveled its path.  No longer were roadside plants green. Instead, they looked like ghosts of plants past, bravely guarding the road’s path.

Patients were waiting before we arrived

Circling for prayer and a song before the Clinic Day 1

Approximately 250 persons were waiting for us as we arrived at the community center.  Usually clinics are held at a school building where there is plenty of room to spread out and plenty of classrooms for the different stations- registration, de-worming, medical, pharmacy, eye glasses, dental and food distribution.  This site’s layout was more challenging.  It took almost an hour to set everything up and reach the point where we were ready to begin the day with prayer and a song. This year, we learned to sing “This Is The Day” in Spanish.  We all feel it was important for the patients we were about to treat to know why we are here.  Hopefully, our very southern American Spanish communicated!

Hondurans are very respectful of their elders.  All of the “old people” were already at the front of the line and sitting in chairs.  They were the first patients to be seen.  Because some of their physical ailments need a little more attention, and because we are short medical staff, we didn’t finish the “senior” crowd until lunchtime.

Speaking of medical staff, our crew from Oregon was not able to get a flight out of Portland last night, and many of them decided it was best for them to not make the trip this year after all.  By the time they would arrive, 2 of the 5 clinics would have been complete.  Dr. Laine Murphy and his son are still planning to come, and we hope they will arrive tomorrow.  Donna T. and Michelle S. arrived today. Donna helps in dental and is a physical therapist.  Michelle is a pediatrician.  They bring much appreciated additional medically-trained "sets of hands."

Michelle S. checking a set of very swollen tonsils

Dentistry was rockin!  For the first time since I’ve been travelling with the group, they had several spells where the "dentistas" were actually waiting for patients. Certainly having the third trained dentist was huge (Laurie), but we also have a trained dental assistant able to give the anesthesia injections (Heather), and a dedicated interpreter (Meghan).  Those ladies made a great impact!

Laurie enjoying a happy moment with a patient

Meghan helping keep an anxious patient calm

Heather "numbing-m-up"

When we finally saw the last patient (about 4:30) and got the bus packed, we were ready to leave on the bus only to discover that the bus wouldn't start.  The guys tried to hot wire it from a pick up truck (you should have seen them using a machete to expose the copper wire!)  When it became evident we were not going to get the bus started, Dr Ponce called for some vans and pick up trucks to take us back to the compound in Cofradia.  We were tired and hungry, but we perked up once we realized fried chicken and mashed potatoes were being served for supper!  Yum! Yum!

The evening ended with a time of debriefing the day.  This is a time when everyone can share special events they witnessed or experienced during the day, and final counts are shared.  Today we saw 415 patients, had 63 dental patients pulling 123 teeth, gave away 88 pairs of eyeglasses and 650 pounds of food. Whew! No wonder we were tired!

At the end of share time Yvonne, Dr Ponce's wife, apologized for the problems with the bus- They have been such gracious hosts!  Yvonne said it best-when you are about the Lord's business, the devil works hard to get in your way.  

Tomorrow our clinic will be right here at the compound.  It will be nice not to have to factor travel time into our day.  Breakfast is late tomorrow...7:00 a.m!

As I prepare for bed, I hear the sound of crickets, and a preacher at the church with the volume cranked!  Maybe he will wind down soon...or just in time for the roosters to start.

We're Off To A Great Start!

Man, 3:00 a.m. came awfully early! But, unlike years past, there was no snow on the ground in Nashville and it wasn’t even too cold.  Everyone got through airport security smoothly, and then we were off to Miami.

A sunrise from an airplane is just beautiful.  Even those of us half asleep appreciated the beauty of God’s creation.

After a two-hour stop in Miami, we traveled safely to Tegucigalpa, Honduras.  Many stories have been shared about the short runways and “circling the mountain before dropping to the airport” in Tegucigalpa, and they were pretty much right on target!  The airport sits in a valley - a very heavily populated valley!  But, all the luggage arrived, and the hassle through customs was minimal.

Then, came to bus ride through the city.  Now that was an experience!  Think of the worst rush hour traffic you have ever experienced - then take away all lines in the road, all stop signs and all traffic lights.  Add in the sound of blaring horns and heavy diesel smell - that begins to describe the ride we experienced!

Once outside the city, the ride up the mountain to Cofradia was uneventful.  The compound where we are staying is very nice.   The rooms are mostly bunk bed style, with shared bathrooms for each room.  Supper was spaghetti  and toast, and they were delicious!  

After dinner,  Doug N lead the team through a brief introduction to Honduras. Two things to remember: 1)Don’t drink the water, even when brushing your teeth,  and 2) Don’t put your toilet paper in the toilet (throw it in the trashcan).  We also got a brief overview of how the clinic will be run tomorrow.

Unfortunately, most of the crew from Oregon was not able to join us today.  Their flight out of Eugene was cancelled due to weather.  We are hopeful they will be able to join us tomorrow afternoon.  That will put us at a disadvantage in tomorrow’s clinic since three of that group are either doctor or nurse.  So, please pray that our medical team has enough stamina to make it through tomorrow and that the “reinforcements from Oregon” arrive safely.

That bed is going to feel very good tonight!

The Old and the New

Once again its time for Luke 9:2 Ministries to make its annual journey to Central America.  This year the team is returning to Honduras, but we will be serving in a new area of the country.  We will be flying into Tegucigalpo, Honduras, then riding to our base camp for the week. 

This year we will be staying at Corfradia Camp, and camp owned and operated by the home church of Dr Jorge Ponce.  Dr Ponce is an old and dear friend of Luke 9:2 Ministries.  He has occompanied us many of our medical missions trips.  He is a great doctor and a strong servant of the Lord.  Our time this year will be spent offering clinics in areas where Dr Ponce, a native Honduran, has identified the need to be the greatest.  And because we will be serving in the area near where he lives, he will be able to followup with any medical problems discovered among the patients we serve.

We covet your prayers are we being the final preparations for this year's trip.  We don't know yet how much internet access we will have while at Corfradia Camp, but I will try to publish as many updates of our trip as I can.

" Este es el dia que Hizo el Señor! Dia de alegria y de gozo!"  (Loose translation "This is the day the Lord has made!  I will rejoice and be glad in it!"

Libby

"Have a Safe Walk Home"

Late Tuesday afternoon, our second day at Trascerros where we served a record number of people, Amanda examined an older gentleman. He had also brought his wife to be examined, and she was dying of throat cancer. Debbie examined her (get her to tell you that story). So Amanda finished examining the old man and he brought his wife over to Amanda. According to Amanda they said many things to her to express their appreciation (some of which she’s not sure she completely understood), and then the old woman, dying of throat cancer, took her hand and said “Have a safe walk home.”

Those words have haunted me at so many different levels. When we have friends come to visit, or our kids leave to go back to school, we say “Drive safely”. They are words you express to someone that is close that you care about. These words are the parting thought you say to express that affection. She said to us “Have a safe walk home”.

Geographically I’m guessing her world was very small. Almost everyone that came to our clinics walked, many for two hours or more. The world we live in is so big. We don’t walk anywhere. Consequently, our world is much more fast paced than hers. Are we moving so fast that we no longer see (or care) about those that are right around us? Have a safe walk home.

Finally, I thought about our spiritual walk. For Christians, we are all walking towards “home." Heaven is our final destination. What does it look like to walk there safely? I don’t know. But I’m sure it has much to do with staying close to God through His word, seeking to follow the road He has laid out before us. And, as we have learned in Honduras, there is safety in numbers. We need to share the message of Jesus Christ with those we meet so that we are walking towards heaven surrounded by others walking with Jesus.

This is my fourth mission trip. Logistically they have gone as smoothly as any trip I’ve been on. Your prayers preceded us to “smooth the road” and make it “safe." Thank you. In a few minutes we will be going to the airport to travel back to the United States. Thank you for being a part of our journey. I say to you, “Have a safe walk home."

Click here to see the 2011 mission team you have prayed for so faithfully this week.

Team Slide Show

Each year we try to put together a little slide show for the team to see at the end of the week. You all work so hard at your respective jobs and often do not get a chance to see your fellow team members in action. This is our gift to you.

Doug & Libby