Tonight will be the last night for the team at Hospital Bautista in Guaimaca, they will have a free day tomorrow at the Valley of the Angels to do some shopping and eat lunch, stop at an orphanage, then travel to a different mission house to stay the evening. On Saturday they will be heading back to the airport to fly home.
Pray for safe travel while in Honduras and for safe flights back home.
Another wonderful ordinary day in Honduras. God’s presence was everywhere. In the hospital, in a mountain village, and on the home campus. God’s power is great and His love and mercy is boundless.
The construction crew had another good day. Sandy & Jo Ann’s two spare bedrooms will soon be ready for dry wall. The friendship, help and leadership provided by two Hondurans, Dennis & Franklin was truly a blessing to us and Sandy & Jo Ann.
Dental day 4: We had a wonderful day today. We were in a very large (very air conditioned) room which was nice. We performed around 75 extractions today. We are extremely blessed to have had Danny (our translator). He spoke to the patients with such kindness and concern, it felt as if he were part of our usual team. He also assisted in several procedures and we also let him do an extraction. He was very excited about it, which truly made our entire day. We all felt very blessed to have been a part of this experience.
The surgery crew finished its final operation tonight. It was a week of surprises and bigger than expected operations. Lives were saved by God’s grace and His provision with an awesome team of competent and qualified believers. Guaimaca and the surrounding area have seven less gallbladders to worry about now. None were simple or routine. The Lord’s provision of just the right equipment and personnel created a well-prepared and love filled surgical environment of grace, trust and fun. Lots of lumps and bumps removed and a hernia on a seven year old who did nothing but smile from the moment she jumped onto the OR table to the minute she left for home. What a sweet smile and reminder of why we are here. Diane and Liz have been phenomenal nurse partners on the OR team. They may be rookies to the mission field but their skills, great attitude and humor kept us in good spirits. God has blessed them both with a gift of joy and love for what they do and who they do it to. From day one they brought organization and energy to what is often best described as a chaotic medical environment.
Pam, Gloria, Joan and Jean held down the Prep and Recovery Room area. They had many great opportunities for laying on hands (with the patient still awake), providing comfort and getting to know the patients in a most personal way. Their caring spirit, joyful hearts and earnest work ethic translated to “Jesus is scrubs” for all our often scared and worried patients. Their encounters often lead to our teams ability to gift some patients to meet some particular needs. David McFarland was our “sleep doctor”. David is thorough and caring; everyone goes to sleep seeing his smiling, caring face (so they are not startled when they wake up to his insistence that they take a deep breath). David’s job is key to creating a safe environment that allowed us to go where no PATTH team (or other mission team) had ever gone in the OR here in Guaimaca. What a blessing to have his expertise.
We were joined this week by Maggie Harvey from South Carolina, a scrub tech-holdover from last week’s surgical team. She has a deep abiding faith and love for the Hondurans and is doing some much needed organizing of the OR instruments, equipment and supplies. Maggie would find things that we needed, or just make something up that would work just great. She was a true inspiration to our PATTH surgical team and we will be forever grateful for her wisdom and kind heart. As a surgical team, we are looking forward to a few days of fellowship with the entire team, away from the intensity of the operating room. We think we found a pace we could enjoy and the Lord provided a peace with the volume and scope of what we did. We are already talking about the future and what we can do to improve our mission of serving those with special surgical needs.
The medical brigade team traveled to Puenta Jalan today. A 5 minute travel was welcome compared to the past couple of days, traveling 2 hours to our destination. Our team served an estimated 245 people. After checking in, patients attended a short worship service. Thankfully today, only one scabies treatment was needed compared to the past few days where several cases occurred. Since it was the last day of brigades, many children received the last of our coloring books and crayons, hair ties, silly band bracelets, and any extra toys that had been given out during the week. To the person, we are all humbled by what God has done this week through us.
We are blessed to serve the Honduran people and be served by Sandy and Jo Ann. We all will be leaving richer and filled with God’s glory. Amen.
The Honduras Mission Team
