First Day of Clinic

Ben Cason, MS-3

Today we held our first day of clinic. We set up shop in a small covered amphitheatre in an outlying neighborhood in the hills. The drive getting there was quite adventurous, and at times we wondered whether we would be hiking the final couple of miles. Thanks to our very skilled bus driver, we were able to get within a few hundred yards of the amphitheatre before we had to start carrying supplies by hand.

After getting settled and manning our stations - intake, physician, pharmacy, evangelism, children, and outreach - we began seeing patients. I was assigned to intake in the morning and was immediately aware of how difficult today would have been if it had not been for our amazing interpreters. The language barrier still made communication difficult at times, but we were able to get patients through our station pretty quickly so that their health concerns could be addressed. It was remarkable how many health problems many of these patients had, and today was the first time many of these people had seen a physician in about a year.

After lunch, most of us changed stations. Emily and I were assigned to the evangelism and prayer station ("the E team"). We teamed up with a local minister who was able to interpret for us as we attempted to address these patients' spiritual needs after they had been treated medically. It was truly a blessing to see how thankful these people were to have people from another country donate their time to take care of them. Most of the people seemed to understand that we were there out of love, and some of them knew that our love came out of our relationship with Christ. Many of those who came through our station were believers themselves, and all of them had some knowledge of the Gospel, mostly from a Catholic background.

Those who were not believers were given the opportunity to receive Christ, and many new believers were added to the Kingdom.

The crowd as we arrived around 10:00. Some of these had been waiting since before 6:00.

 

Me taking vitals at intake.

Griffin had a great time playing with the kids. Apparently Hershey's Kisses are the way into children's hearts even here.

Tricia and Ethan playing with the kids.

Here's Shante taking a patient's vitals at intake in the afternoon.

Dr. Butts deep in converstation with one of our Honduran physicians, Radolpho.

This is a father and daughter we were able to help receive Christ. On the far left in Ricardo, who was both a minister for the people and an interpreter for us.

We thank God for the great success we had today. Please continue to pray for the people of Honduras and especially for the new believers, as they will be facing new challenges in the midst of an already difficult life.