Honduras Missions - Hearts and Hands

Today was our last work day of the week.  We typically pack up on Thursday afternoon and leave Tocoa/La Ceibita area on Friday am to break up the drive up towards San Pedro Sula.  Tomorrow we will come together over a team dinner and spend time with our translators celebrating and thanking them for their invaluable service to us this week.  They are truly a part of our team. Pharmacy was a little slower today which is good because we were running out of some of the more common drugs.  Today I met the youngest patient and the oldest patient!  The youngest patient was 10 days old and the oldest was 110! Eldest patient Youngest Patient All week long, because of the size of our team out here, we have been divided into a specific group to make devotions a little easier to manage. We do small group devotions in the morning and then all gather in the evening for devotion and reflection on the day.  Here is my small group, the “wings” - women in God’s...

Today was the bestest day!  We had a great day in pharmacy, keeping things moving along.  It’s been a fun team to work with for the past few days.  We are busy but still find time to have fun.  The only bummer was that we started to run out of meds.  The team said that they believed this week to be a record with the number of patients we have seen so far.  I believe it is around 800 in just 3 days.  Our doctors have been able to refer patients to specialty areas as needed or to the central de salud where a team of our nurses are working and we have a dentist working too.  Lots of good things happening but most importantly, time spent building relationships with the local church and community and having fun with the kiddos hanging around the clinic.  Those kiddos are a patient bunch and a lot of fun to hang out with!  We threw lifesaver mints through he open slats in the windows at a couple of girls hanging around and it quickly became ...

Today I had the opportunity to work in the pharmacy area helping get all the medications ready for the patients coming through the clinic.  There are a variety of medicines and some common ones that are sent home with people.  Vitamins, Tylenol & Ibuprofen being some of the basic stuff but also parasite medication and blood pressure meds as well as insulin shots being distributed here and there. Pharmacy is a busy place that does not stop.  Even at lunch we took shifts to make sure that the flow keeps going and everyone gets the medications they need.  Today we saw over 300 patients in the clinic.  It was a busy day!   Even though it is busy and everyone is tired, people take the time to talk to one another, people are still smiling and having fun.   Tonight people shared stories of their day and one particular story stood out for me.  It was one of our doctors who was talking about how towards the end of the day when they were so exha...

Today was the first day of the medical mission in full swing.  The clinic was set up in the church the night before and pharmacy got their stuff set up this am.  At about 10:30am they started seeing patients and I think the estimate of patients was about 200.  Over 1000 prescriptions were written.  Ears were cleaned in the Central de Salud, dental procedures done and the nurses worked with the ladies with women’s health.  Lots of people a little bit healthier today with the work of the doctors and nurses on the team.  Our translators are a priceless part of our mission and we could not do this work without them.  Some of them learning way more about certain health things than they thought they would ever know. I spent the morning observing the training of the volunteers for VBS.  The two North American VBS leaders spent time talking with Pastor Orlin before they came to figure out a curriculum for the VBS based on what the children are being tau...

Today we let the team sleep in and rest after their long travel day on Saturday.    So the morning was just spent resting, reflecting and chatting with new team mates and getting to know each other.    Some of us gathered in the late morning, early lunch time to plan out our itineraries for the week and to make sure everyone is on the same page.    With a team this big we need to know all the moving parts.    We have 28 Northern Americans, 12 translators and more volunteers that are local to La Ceibita and Tocoa!    On Thursday we will all wear our red shirts and get a huge team picture which will be great!   We all gathered for lunch at the local restaurant that works with us and the mission and then had devotions, and larger team meetings.    In the afternoon everyone was cleaned up and we were heading to the church service.    We stopped by the new special needs school first so the team who had just ar...

A little comic relief and no Mike was not “lost”. Today was a little bit of a chill day as we were prepped and ready to receive the team tonight.    We did a little exploring and then headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up to go over to Pastor Orlin and Lorenas house for dinner tonight.    It has been wonderful getting to know them a little more this trip.    Mike was fairly confident he knew which way to go and about 30 minutes before we left it just started pouring and the roads quickly flooded.    There is no where for the water to drain into so it just stands on the road.    A lot of roads are dirt roads so lots of pot holes etc.    We turned down the dirt road to go towards the house and we were told to turn right at the soccer field.    We turned right and after the soccer field and then it all fell apart.    We drove up and down dirt roads that were flooded and could not find where we were go...

Today we were invited to the dedication of the new special needs school.    Things usually take a long time to get done here in Honduras,    but this special needs school went up fast and furious!    We started with the groundbreaking and laying of the first stone in August, and now 6 months later we have 4 classrooms, and the school has grown from 30 kids to 60 kids.     It’s amazing what the local team has accomplished in such a short time.    These beautiful children now have a place they can call home and it is there’s forever! The ceremony was attended by the mayor and other important folks from the city.    We also got the chance to walk around the plot where we are going to be building a new church in June.    It is right next to the special needs school and we hope to integrate them both over time with each other.   After a busy morning of celebrating the school, we headed to the grocer...