To The Hospital We Must Go

Yesterday I was able to spend a night at the local government run hospital here. It was an eye opener as to how much we as US citizens have so much for which to be thankful.

Friday morning we got a call from Carla, a young mother in the church. She had to take her daughter to the small private hospital in Ojojona. She was sick with a fever and was in a lot of pain. We called her a few hours later and she reported that the doctors diagnosed Isella with a amoeba cyst, but she had bought the medicine and was resting. 

Around 6:30 pm that night, we got a call from a frantic Carla. Isella was crying every time she moved and her fever was back up. She asked if I would take her to the main public hospital. I left with Bro. Ernesto (for my security), Carla, Nora (her sister), and Isella. Normally Jason is the one who makes hospital runs as Hospital Escuela is not the safest place in the world.

We arrived at around 7:30 and stood in line. We couldn't even figure out where the line was so we had to ask. There were probably about 100 people in this little room and only about 30 chairs. Once we figured out where the line was Nora stood in it while Carla and I rotated holding Isella. The line was progressing fairly quickly. It only took us about an hour to make it to the chairs. Once Carla had a seat, Nora and I stood off to the side and talked.

The line was moving fairly well and Carla was soon in the front row. It was about 10:00 pm and I was thinking we would soon be on our way home. However, I didn't expect to have one emergency after another.

One young man was brought in by ambulance. We heard yelling and screaming in pain and then looked outside and saw the ambulance. They sat outside with the young man in the ambulance for about 30 minutes before a doctor came out and saw him. They then proceeded, with one man on each side of him holding his arms, to walk him into the examination rooms. My first though was why don't they have a stretcher to put this young man on. They also brought in two new-born babies. One was brought in one of the plastic new-born bed you normally find in the hospital. The other was just in a plastic box. It made me so happy that I didn't have to come to this hospital to have my children.

The doctors had to come out several times and tell the people to stop opening the examination room door and walking in to insist that their child be seen first. Unless it is an emergency, they would be seen in the order of arrival. One young lady said her baby had been having convulsions. The doctor just looked at her with disbelief and said, "Tell me the truth, when was the last time she had convulsions?". The mother honestly admitted that she hadn't had any in two days and took her place in the line.

Carla sat in the same chair from 10:00 until 1:45 when thankfully, she was finally able to be seen. I didn't get to go into the exam room, but I watched when Carla went in. I was shocked to see some of the beds covered with a sheet that hadn't been changed for at least that night. Others were just covered with big black plastic bags. 

She was in and out with the doctor confirming the diagnosis of the other clinic and then prescribing her the medicine needed. The doctor said that part of Isella's problem was that she was given a prescription for an adult and that was tearing her stomach up even worse.

When we finally had everything done we had to go to the pharmacy to get the medicine. The first order of business was to find where the pharmacy was in this building. We found it, but I was shocked as I walked down the halls to see how many people were laying on the cold, hard floor sleeping. Some had brought newspaper to lay on. On our way to the pharmacy we saw probably 200 or more. I was never so thankful that I was able to go home and sleep on a nice comfortable bed.

We left right at 2:00 am and I was never so glad to leave any place in my life. The floors were very dirty, the bathrooms didn't have water, lights, or even toilet paper. Two babies had thrown up when we were in the waiting room and when we had left that hadn't even been cleaned up yet. It made me so thankful that we have a private hospital to take our children to. 

We had to stop by a pharmacy to buy a dosage syringe since they didn't give you any way to measure the medicine you were supposed to give the patient. After that I had to stop for gas and then I was free to go home.

I pulled into the gas station and they started filling my tank. I was finally done and was putting my debit card back in my purse when I was side-swiped by a drunk taxi driver. Thankfully all he did was transfer his white paint to my bumper, but he drove off like his tail was on fire. Bro. Ernest and Nora were able to get the number on his taxi and told me that we needed to stop and report it. So, we had one more stop on our way home. 

I was unsure if I should stop or just drive by the police station. Normally there is someone outside checking the cars that drive by. When we got close there was a car in front of me that stopped and the police in the building rushed out and saluted. I rolled down my window and one of the police tried to wave my past, but I signaled that I needed to talk to them. Soon my car was surrounded by police. They took the information and called to the other police in the area to look out for this taxi. They were very nice. I thanked them and we were finally able to go home. 

I finally got home just after 3:00 am. I was so glad to have had this experience and I was doubly glad that Carla felt comfortable enough with us to call us when she needed help. This is something we try to encourage in the people in our church. They don't always make use of our help though. I was also thankful for the time to get to know Nora. Her kids are faithful in my class, but she has never come to church. I will be writing another blog to introduce you all to this sweet lady.

Living in a Third World Country

Many times it seems that it is all I can do to get one thing done. This past week was full of fun, unexpected events, and brakes in our plans.

It all started when we were coming home from church on Sunday. The brakes in our truck were making a funny sound. Normally brakes start squeaking to let you know you are going to have to change them soon, but ours sounded like metal on metal and didn't seem to be responding all that well. Since we were coming home to have lunch, Jason decided to leave the truck parked and take our small car instead. You do not want to drive down the winding Honduran roads when you are not 100% sure of your brakes. Normally taking the car is not a problem, but we were also taking some of our church people to the service in Los Jutes. So we (the kids and I) had to stay at home from this service. I was excited that maybe I could watch the service from our home church, but unfortunately, the power went out for several hours so that didn't materialize.

First thing Monday morning, Jason took the brakes off of the truck and found out that we had no brake pad left. So he took the parts and went into Tegucigalpa to get the new brakes. He got to the store, having called ahead to make sure they had the parts, and was told that the brakes wouldn't be in until the next day. So home he came with no brake pads. 

Tuesday I had a visit scheduled with some of our ladies, so Jason once again went to Tegucigalpa early to get the parts. This time, thankfully, he was successful. He got home only to realize that someone had "borrowed" his c-clamps when we were in the states. This meant  a trip back to Tegucigalpa. Unfortunately, at this time I was already in Ojojona making my visit. Here in Honduras if you make a visit for less than an hour you will be considered to be too busy to really care. So once I was done with my visit I went to Tegucigalpa with the kids to do some birthday shopping for Jordan and pick up some c-clamps.

Since Jason was not able to finish the brake job on Tuesday, he had to cancel the service with the soldiers on Wednesday morning. Wednesday dawned overcast and very muggy, so with c-clamps in hand he went out to finish the job. He didn't get very far and he realized that one roter was chipped and had to be replaced, so back to Tegucigalpa he went. By this time he was getting very sick of driving to Tegucigalpa. Thankfully he was able to get the part after only visiting a few shops. He came back home and was able to finish the job with no more problems. 

As he went out for his test drive, he received a phone call from a national who works with us in the church in  Ojojona. His name is Gustavo and he was having severe pain in the lower left side of his abdomen. He thought he was having an appendicitis attack. So, Jason went to pick him up. This was now just a few hours from the time church was supposed to start and it was POURING outside. Jason called me on his way to the hospital to tell me that I wouldn't be going to church that night. It was raining so hard that our street and driveway were raging rivers. Jason drove Bro. Gustavo to the hospital and stayed with him until he was seen by a doctor (who though he had appendicitis and ordered tests) and then left to go back to Ojojona to pick up a family member of Bro. Gustavo in case he had to have surgery (another day I will have to tell you all about the ordeal it is going to a government hospital). After going back to Tegucigalpa to drop off Domingo, the family member, he drove home. When he got home just after midnight, the specialist still had not seen Bro. Gustavo. At 12:30, we got a phone call telling us that the specialist didn't think it was appendicitis and discharged them to come home. Thankfully we were able to find a place for them to stay in Tegucigalpa that night so we didn't have to go back.

Thursday and Friday were much calmer with only a mountain load of English homework to help one of our church kids through and Jordan's birthday celebration on Friday.

After such a stressful week it was great to take a little down time and take Jordan to Denny's for his birthday. He received a tool box with tools, a water gun and a Nintendo DS for his birthday. He was very excited and had a great time. 

Sunday was scheduled to be our baptism Sunday and since it is the first since we have been back, we had a lot to baptize.When we woke up on Sunday morning we were very worried. It was overcast and cold. Baptism services here are held at the river. The people don't want to be baptized in a pool or a baptistery. They want to be baptized how Jesus was. We were unsure if anyone would still want to be baptized with it being so cold. We were so blessed to be able to see 17 people come for baptism. One was a 87 year old man that walked down to the river 1 1/2 hours ahead of schedule to make sure he could get there in time. It was a blessed day. God really blessed. We had to take four truck loads of people home. Many of these people haven't been to church in a long time. We are praying that God dealt with their hearts and they will once again become faithful to the things of the Lord.

Change can be good

For those of you who don't know me really well, I am not a big fan of change. I prefer to continue walking the same paths and very little variation is good for me. I have learned these past few weeks of being back in Honduras that change can be a very good thing.

It all started about a month ago when I was mentioning to Jason how if we didn't do something we were going to lose some of the kids that had been with us for several years. I had noticed that most of the older kids (now between the ages of 12 and 14) were still coming but seemed to be bored every week. Most of these kids have been in Sunday school since they were five and six years old. Unfortunately, there was little I could do. To make the class more geared to their age level, I would have to teach a more advanced lesson which would quickly lose the attention of the younger kids who would then start acting up and distract the older kids. But at the same time I didn't want to lose the older kids. We have seen far too many kids reach 12 years of age and stop coming to church. We didn't want this trend to continue.

Jason had been working with a young man named Gustavo. He strongly feels that God would have this young man take an active part in pastoring the church in Ojojona. Gustavo, one of our Bible Institute students, is from an area called Aragua, but lives in Ojojona. He is a leader in the church in Aragua as the church hasn't had a pastor for several years. Three times a week he makes the hour and a half walk to Aragua to help lead the services. This young man has a burden for the town of Ojojona and has been attending services in both churches for a while now. Jason has started putting him in the pulpit more often and the people love him. He is a great soulwinner and a great asset to our ministry.

Since our goal in Honduras is NOT to pastor one church, but to start and turn churches over to nationals, we feel that this time of unrest in the young people was the perfect catalyst to start the responsibility shift more to the nationals. Jason asked Bro. Gustavo to make a commitment to preach every Sunday morning. This allowed Jason to be free to take a class of young people.

Three weeks ago we split the Sunday school classes. We now have a class from birth to 8 years old and one from 9 to 15 years old. We have seen both classes just about double in this time. The younger kids are learning a lot and even answering questions when asked (a huge step as they acted very shy when with the older kids).

We have a lady in our church who didn't want to help out in Sunday school during our last term but agreed to step in if it was needed during our absence. While we were in the states, the lady in charge of the Sunday school became very sick and Xiomara had to step in and help out. I was very pleased when we came back to Honduras and I was able to hear her teach for the first time. She did such a wonderful job. She came with me to the younger kids class and will eventually take over that class, but as she has never taught little children, she was just going to observe a few weeks before taking on small responsibilities for the class.

Last week, God once again changed her mind. I was all prepared to teach on Sunday, but Audrey got sick. I called her and asked her to teach for me and she was happy to do it. Our first Sunday our attendance was eight children. Our third Sunday we had an attendance of 16. Xiomara is getting more comfortable with the kids and they love her.

I am a slow mover at times. I fear running people off so I err on the side of caution. It is great to see the Lord use circumstances to help "push" people into the place he wants them to be.