Where to begin.
I am constantly being molded and shaped each time I travel to another country. Each foreign land offers something unique and beautiful in the big picture that paints an eternal perspective. I am reminded of God creativity and extravagant love for people! How amazing is He! On the other hand, traveling can be a painful experience. You realize that your own idea of "normal" is not necessarily the world's "normal", and you question whether we have everything backwards. You see pain, suffering, poverty... and it's overwhelming. I find it especially difficult to make relationships with people of other cultures only to return home after a short few weeks. I often feel like I leave behind a piece of myself, and the faces I've met cannot be erased from my mind.
But I think that's all how it's supposed to be. We're supposed to be challenged and chiseled. Growth doesn't just happen-- it's a process that often includes aches and pains.
Before we even got engaged, Blake and I talked about the desire we both had to someday live overseas... whether long-term, or short-term. We definitely have dreams and ideas of what this could mean, but we're looking to God for direction. To start, it will be a while before we could actually get up and move. Blake has 2 yrs of school left, then residency, then debt to pay off. Aside from that, during this trip I felt a sense of affirmation that living overseas may very well be in our future.
I could go on and on with stories from our time in Honduras, but I'll have to cut down and share just some of the highlights:
Pink Nails
I must have painted 20 kajillion Honduran fingernails while I was over there. The little girls loved to get their nails painted, and they would say "que bonita! (beautiful!)"
I had so much fun painting nails. Pictures cannot rightfully show how beautiful the children were!
Mountain Medicine
Honduran people living in the mountains have minimal access to healthcare. This became evident to me when I saw a continuing line of people who traveled miles on foot to see our doctors and receive treatment. Field medicine was a portion of our trip in which we set up clinic in the mountains and brought our resources to the people. On the day I participated in field medicine we saw 251 patients. Remarkably, other days saw as many as 600 patients!
The Story of How I Snuck into the Delivery Room to Help Assisted in a Delivery
By far, one of the highlights of the trip was witnessing a birth! Well... I wasn't really supposed to be there.... but that's beyond the point.
All week I had been saying, "somebody needs to have a baby! I want to help deliver one!" Finally, one day Blake watched as a young woman was carted into the adjacent room we were in and he said, "well, looks like a delivery is about to happen!"
It was like my heart skipped a beat. No seriously. Meanwhile, I side-stepped into the room and the door simultaneously closed behind me. I was later told that everyone was instructed (on the other side of the door) to not enter unless we're asked to help. I've heard that many of the med students were anxious to get in the room.... the one that I "snuck" into.
So here I am in the delivery room. It's just me, the Honduran obstetrician, and a Honduran nursing student. The mother is crying, "Ay, doctora!! Me ayuda!! Me ayuda!!" It's obvious that the baby is about to pop out any moment. This girl had not been given any anesthesia or pain medication. Despite the fact, she hardly screams. Next thing I know, I'm being given instructions in Spanish... do this, do that...
wait, how did I become in charge??
Oh right... I side-stepped into the room.
It was entirely chaotic, but I tend to thrive on chaos.
I kid you not... less than 20 minutes after the woman arrived, the baby was out. Wet. Crying. Beautiful baby boy. By that time, three of my teammates were in the room to help. Together we cleaned the baby, gave him his eye drops and Vit K shot, and handed him to the exhausted mother. Such a cool experience and a true miracle to witness!
Surgery
An orthopedic surgeon and his team joined us on the trip. So then, the hospital elected patients for surgery and had them lined up for us when we got there. Some of the surgeries included ganglion cyst removal, resetting of a clavicle bone, and several ACL reconstructions.
The surgery that I scrubbed in for was a bilateral amputation of a sixth toe. The patient, an 8-year old little girl, was born with 6 toes on each foot. Even though her condition had no real medical risks, it greatly affected her self-esteem...she would keep her feet hidden from peers in fear of being teased. I assisted in surgery by operating the vacuum sucker to clear away blood, holding back tissue with surgical instruments, and cutting the stitches after the surgeon made each suture. As minor as my role was, I was totally loving it! The little girl regained consciousness with some nausea, but she could hardly hold back her smile. Evidently, her parents promised her before going into surgery that they would buy her a new pair of sandals like her friends after she got out of surgery. She wanted to jump right out of that hospital bed and find a pair of sandals!
Bilingual Worship
After church on Sunday, I was searching all over the hospital campus looking for Blake. I could not find him anywhere! And where did I finally find him? He was jamming out with the Honduran worship team ;-)
He actually led worship most of the nights during our team meetings, which I think he really enjoyed doing again.
Clean Water
Something as essential as water is scarce in the villages surrounding the hospital. Each day we were there, a team was sent out to deliver clean water in this 700 gallon tank that fit on the truck bed. As we passed the houses, people would beam a joyful smile and retreat into their homes to get containers (of all kinds) to fill with water. One man thanked us by picking an orange (which was actually green) from his tree for each of us... makes me wonder if I willingly give the same proportion of my belongings to others.
We are both so thankful to have had the opportunity to go on this trip! My prayer is that the people we served understand our driving motivation to serve. It is because of Christ's love....that incredible love is something we want to share with others.
And when you experience a love so overwhelming, it doesn't take much to motivate you to cross seas and talk about it ;)
