"We are the clay and You our potter" Isa 64:8

Yesterday we didn't go back to hospital Escuales. Doctora said she had two house calls to make and she wanted us to go with her nurse so she could stay and work at the clinic. We grabbed our backpacks with a few medical supplies in them and hopped in the car with Jedida, a rather feisty, yet caring nurse, who puts up with our limited Spanish. We drove about 20 mins into one of the mountains and pulled over in front of a metal gate. Jedida knocked on the door and we were let in by a small boy who beamed when he saw us. We said hello to an elderly woman and walked back into the furthest room in the house. There lay a teenage boy in his bed with his younger brother sitting at his side. The brother quickly left when he saw us. The room had one window facing the street, a TV and an old play station. The boy's hands and feet were wrapped, and a catheter hung by his bed. He was a paraplegic and we were there to clean a large pressure ulcer. Apparently Jedida had been taking care of h...

All along the walls were metal stretchers separated by curtains that were pulled back. The nurses station situated in the middle was full of medical students and residents either sitting and talking or doing paperwork. On the other side of the room there are a few beds with a small mattress atop a board frame. Each bed is full and each each stretcher housed one and sometimes two patents. It is so crowded, people are waiting in line for a bed or stretcher in this emergency room. As I walk in I pass patients holding X-rays waiting to be read, a row of patients sitting in chairs waiting for a bed, some with hands or feet wrapped in bandages soaked in blood. Several look like they had been beat up with swollen faces, some are lying in pools of blood waiting for stitches. I couldn't help but wonder why in the world all the students and residents were standing around with so much that needed to be done! One resident pulls me over to a bed and pulls out the patients CT scan and shows me ...

January 21 I sat across the room from her talking in broken Spanglish with other medical students and the doctors. She was another young mother here to deliver and like most of the women in this room she wailed in pain with each contraction and even cried out 'doctor, doctor!' As our conversation eased, I again heard her cry and felt the urge to go sit beside her and try any seemingly small measure to bring comfort, but I hesitated because I knew it would be difficult to converse with my very limited Spanish. There was just enough room for me to sit between her and the next laboring mother. I tried to ask in Spanish her baby's name which she told me, then she said in perfect English, "it hurts really bad". Woah, she's speaks English! This began a long discourse where I do believe we became friends.  22 year old Hope was in college as a marketing major when she became pregnant. Apparently this caused many problems in her family and even caused her to s...

First night in labor and delivery Well I had my first over night 12 hour shift last Wednesday night. I was nervous mostly because I didn't know how my body would hold up. We arrived at the hospital a little after 7, and were taken to a room with 8 beds against 2 walls. Several beds were already occupied by mothers in labor. Their were also several Honduran medical students who really acted like residents. The physician came in and we rounded on those who were there. Trying to determine who was ready to deliver and who, if any, needed surgery. It didn't take long before the first was whisked to the delivery room. One student was gowned up and ready to go. Now, as I have never delivered or even actually seen a live birth, This was quite fascinating! I am still in awe of how God created the womb, but more in awe of all the changes that take place with that first breath! Buts that's for another time. My extremely limited Spanish did hinder some of what I could do, and real...

Well I made it to Honduras. One day late, but I didn't miss much. We bought some groceries and then settled into our apartment for the month. My last visit here I was surprised to find that Baxter provided internet services for those staying here, as well as the clinic I was working in. So this was my fist international trip where I expected to have some form of communication with those back home. Well when I arrived I found out neither of those internet services were working, and even now as I type (1-15-15) it is in hopes that eventually I will be able to post this online sometime later. Communication has always been the hardest part for me on these trips. I want to know that I can reach people if I need to, and honestly I just like to keep in touch with people back home if possible. Maybe this is a product of my generation? Or maybe it's sin . . . Trying to have and maintain some form of control? Before I left the states, my pastor preached a sermon on James 1. "Cons...

I can picture us sitting in the see-saw contemplating ways that we would never have to part and our friendship could last forever. I don't know who came up with it first, but hey I have a little brother and you have a little sister! Let's marry them! Then we will officially be sisters and can always be together! So what do we do? We grab both of them and marry them then and there, both of us acting as the pastor of course. But our little scheme didn't work. Her family still moved to GA. The year was 1997. These almost 20 years since I've never quite found a friend that is so much like me. Same sporty, outdoorsy, I'm going to play with the guys because they're cooler, attitude. We would hide under pews at church or anything else so we didn't have to go home, and once she even buried her shoe in the playground so we would have to stay and 'look' for it!  Flash forward to yesterday. I finally left for a rotation in Honduras which I was so incredibl...