Mending Bodies and Healing Hearts

      Some days are harder than others. Some days are full of patients that are here for routine operations such as having their gallbladder removed or come in for stitches in their cut finger. These are the good days, when we can laugh with the patient and make lighthearted conversation. And then there are hard days, when it seems like every patient is very ill and needing a lot of attention. Those days can bring lots of talks with patients about death, the life thereafter, and sweet discussions about God. Sometimes these patients are children such as baby Isaac who was brought in from our Children's home due to severe respiratory distress just yesterday. We thought for sure that he was going to die. We fought to give him his every breath. If he stopped breathing, he was going to die as we do not have a ventilator small enough to support his tiny lungs. It's so hard to watch a baby struggle. His tiny chest collapsing with every breath. With a lot of IV fluids and some de...

 As several other single missionary women and I were sitting at the hospital bus stop waiting for the church van to pick us up this morning, we started talking about culture. I am not entirely sure of what started the conversation but Julie said, "Sometimes I feel like as an American I don't really have culture." "Sure you have culture!" exclaimed Annie, "You have a very mixed culture. An American culture. Americans are very independent, value their individuality and privacy, have high expectations, and very success driven."   We went on to talk about the difference in American versus Honduran culture. Hondurans are very dependent on each other as a family unit and there is no such thing as privacy. Everyone knows everything about everyone even without Facebook. As a Honduran, if you are admitted in the hospital, everyone in your community knows you are there and what is wrong with you even if they don't personally know you. You might  even get...

Oasis: pleasant or peaceful area or period in the midst of a difficult or hectic place or situation           I can't believe how fast time seems to go by as I had started this incredible journey 8 months ago. This journey has been amazing but yet difficult at the same time, very difficult.  It is difficult to give up everything that I called mine: my car, my dear horse Starbuck, my cozy apartment, my cuddly kitties, my family, my friends, my independence, and my job.         Everything is new and different when living in a different country with a different culture. Imagine having to do the job you've done so well for years but now in a different language without the convenience  of modern equipment? I am having to be reliant on other people as I have to ask for rides from other missionaries to even go to the grocery store which is 1.5 hour away. Learning to cook for myself has been a whole other adventure in itself.   ...

      It has been a rough week for all of us here at Hospital Loma as we have had three deaths in this week alone. All of them being completely unexpected, one of which was a beautiful 18 month old little girl and another that was horribly traumatic for us all.  We attempt to resuscitate almost everyone who goes into cardiac arrest because we believe that everyone is worth a second chance at life in God's eyes. A second chance to believe in the God who saves. Although we try, it is seldom that we are successful at reviving someone due to our lack of resources and inability to provide effective post-cardiac arrest care. It doesn't keep us from trying.        One of the major issues that effects patient care is the mindset of the population of the people who we care for on a daily basis. They are poor. Very poor. Just providing for their daily needs is a constant struggle. Although Hospital Loma de Luz is a mission hospital, the go...

        One beautiful, quiet morning a couple of weeks ago, I was very contentedly sleeping in when I heard loud banging on the front door and someone yelling, "Hellooooo!" Seeing as my roommate, Lizzie, and I have an open door policy, I found that very strange. Most of the other missionaries know to just let themselves in. "Mehh, It can't be that important," I thought, "I am going back to sleep." A few minutes later, I get woken up again by a text message from Lizzie, who was standing in the kitchen, saying that our apartment was flooded.         I jump out of bed in a flash and open my bedroom door to find myself standing in a couple inches of water and water spraying out from under our kitchen sink. That banging on my front door was my neighbor, Hannah, who had jumped out of bed into a lake in her bedroom.  Water continued to spray as we waited for maintenance. Not only did our apartment and the apartment next to us flood, but our...

Ya know when you have one of "those days", one of those horrible, terrible, no good, very bad days? I had one of them the other day and it was awful. It started out that I hadn't slept well for a few days so I was kind of grumpy. Everything that I touched seemed to break or malfunction, it was unbearably hot, I cut open my finger attempting to open one of those loathed glass ampules (my nurse friends know!), and I couldn't seem to find anything. On top of it all I found out only a couple hours into my shift that my dear friend, who was going to come visit me here in Honduras next week, isn't coming anymore. So I was tired, frustrated, dying of heat stoke, and now completely heart broken. I wanted nothing more than to hide from everyone in my air conditioned and have a good cry because it was definitely the end of the world.  Our miracle baby - Issis Milagro     It was the very end of my shift at 2pm, when the mother of our premature baby at the end of the h...

Exodus 17:10-13 So Joshua did what Moses had commanded and fought the army of Amalek. Meanwhile, Moses, Aaron, and Hur climbed to the top of a nearby hill. As as Moses held up the staff in his hand, the Israelites had the advantage. But whenever he dropped his hand, the Amalekites gained the advantage. Moses' arms soon became so tired he could not longer hold them up. So Aaron and Hur found a stone for him to sit on. Then they stood on each side of Moses holding up his hands. So his hands held steady until sunset. As a result, Joshua overwhelmed the army of Amalek in battle.  The other day, as I was giving Jasmine her scheduled tube feeding of yogurt and  protein, my arms grew increasingly numb and tingly as I held up the syringe high in the air to allow the feeding to drain down the tube.  As I was watching the ventilator give Jasmine her every breath, my tired arms reminded me of the story of Moses in Exodus. As long as he held his arms up before the Lord, the I...