Honduras Missions - Hearts and Hands

 Well today was a travel day.  We always travel to San Pedro Sula the day before our flight so we can make sure we don’t miss our flight the next day.  Never know what traffic is going to be like and it’s an 8 hour drive.  The drive didn’t seem to bad, just long and my back was a tad bit sore after we got here.  Feels better to be moving around.  After we arrived at the hotel and freshened up, we had our team dinner together at a restaurant in the city.  It was amazing and so good to spend time together as a team.  It’s always bittersweet for me to leave.  Happy to be going home to my family but sad to be leaving my Honduran family.  Our translators and the folks in La Ceibita and Tocoa have become such good friends and we love every single one of them.  Our work could not happen without our translators - they are priceless to us  So important to the work we do here, but we also just have so much fun together.  They work h...

 Thursday - our half day of the trip.  Half day because we have to spend the afternoon tearing down clinics and doing inventory of supplies for next times.  But the first half of the day was work as usual and each area was busy seeing patients, handing out glasses and prescriptions.   Since we had a half day optical clinic I was only about to see about 24 people for glasses.  But they were all members of the community and it was good to be able to help them. It was a fast paced morning and when we were all done seeing patients, everyone stepped up to help pack up the optical clinic.  Got it done in record time. Which was great because it meant I was able to ride with Pastor and Lorena over to the Tocoa feeding center and visit the kids there.  It was such a great feeling to see the kids from the special needs school get fed a nutritious meal!  The principal of the school, Lizeth has been such a blessing for those kiddos.  She is such an advoc...

 Today was a busy day in optical!  We saw 54 patients and gave out about 15 or prescriptions. We were pretty much done with the school kids with the exception of a few so a lot of today was seeing community members and teachers.  The teachers were fun to talk to and spent time making fun of the principals new glasses and the frames!  In good kind hearted way of course!  He didn’t care - he saw very clearly and was very happy with his glasses!  We had lots of helpers today too and it was fun to see everyone jumping in to do what they could to help.  The optical clinic ran late because I hated to turn any one away after they had been waiting for so long.  But we managed to get through everyone and it felt good to know we had helped so many today.   The women’s health spent time doing Pap smears and did about 17.  We learned today that cervical cancer is one of the most deadly cancers here in Honduras because it goes undetected for so long....

 Day two busy but good.  By now people are in their routines and things are running relatively smoothly.   Apparently Valentine’s Day is celebrated big here.  Even the kids at the school were wearing red.  I even got a little valentines from my sweet little Valery - loved that she did that for me.  ❤️ We did have a team member get sick today, but it isn’t uncommon for someone, especially a new person to come down with something.  Lots to be aware of and sometimes travelers tummy just happens.   Our days are filled with the “work” and the people we meet, but we always try to keep in mind the reason we are here and the relationships we create.  It’s about the people and those commitments we make.  We are not just here or a week, we are a part of each others lives and we are all family.  Yes the “work” is important, but the relationships more so.   I don’t have much of an update from the other areas outside of optical because we h...

  Today was our first actual day in the field working in our various different posts for the week.  We are in multiple locations.  The medical clinic at the church, VBS at the feeding center, Kid health checks at the La ceibita school, optometry at the la Ceibita school, Neurological checks at the special needs school and surgeries at the hospital.  26 of us with our various wonderful translators just trying to give what we can to help those that need it the most.  It’s hard, some days, that you can’t help everyone.  One of our team members touched on this a bit tonight in devotion and while it is heart wrenching sometimes to not be able to help, it is a comfort to know that God can and will in his time.   At the La Ceibita school, the kids were receiving health checks, ear cleanings and lice checks.  They were also receiving preliminary vision screening and if it was deemed they needed more vision tests they were sent to me. I saw about 30+ kids ...