Clinic Memories

The last couple of days will go in the memory book for me. Probably Katie and Hannah too. Leslie made a quick trip to the States to visit her uncle before he passed away, so were short on staff.

Yesterday morning started out busy, giving out numbers and preaching at 7 outside of clinic. By the time I got back out there at 8, Katie and Hannah had already delivered a baby and were in the middle of care for an 11 month old girl with a heart defect. The baby was a stillborn, most likely dying a few days before. The mom, a young Mayan woman said she stopped feeling the baby move about 3 days before. It was a sad day, full of many very sick people, a baby funeral, and other people who kept coming to our door after clinic. This morning we were prepared for another long day at San Andres clinic, but God was merciful and there were few really sick people. We gave out a lot of food and milk, did a lot of ultrasounds, and saw many of our chronic patients (mostly diabetes and hypertension).

There was a point in the afternoon when I laughed to myself because I thought we had ran out of food only to have Rosa (our translator) surprise me by pulling a bag of beans, rice, oats, and sugar out of a "secret" spot in the cabinet. It is so hard to tell a hungry mom and her kids to come back in a week because we're out of food, and I was so relieved when Rosa pulled that bag out! Upon a visit to the orphanage where our friends Sebastian and Juanito distribute corn, I found out that we had just enough for the day. We sent out 3,100 lbs of corn to 31 families, and didn't have a bag left when everyone had passed through. That's cutting it a little close, but like Juanito said to me, "at least there won't be any to go bad throughout the week!" Next week's corn will be all fresh stuff.

Here is a picture of one of the houses Sebastian visited. It belongs to a widow named Micaela who he started on the corn program...Tomorrow Leslie and three good friends from our church in St. Louis will be coming in for a few days. We'll be happy to see them.