Sept. 12, Lost Journal when Computer Crashed!

Sept. 12, 2009

Our burn patient Enil is on day 13 now, beginning to heal. Still not out of the woods as far as grafts is concerned, but no decision yet on those. Each crisis here like that makes the need for specific equipment glaring. Right now we could use a Dermatone, that cheesecutter type device that slices off the skin to use for grafting. Ours is archaic. Anyone got one stuffed away on the top shelf?

Our new RN’s arrived Monday and I began to orient them to us and the hospital. I promised them that we would not do the “sink or swim” method of orientation, that they would NOT be asked to do something before having been checked off. Yeah, right! Wednesday after having assigned them to their places for the day, John let me know about 9 (as I was beginning the hour+ dressing change on Enil) that I needed to be the ambulance STAT to take an OB patient at 8 cm. to Ceiba. Not my favorite job, as I dread getting caught on the road delivering a baby. I changed the job description of Belkis for the day and enlisted her companionship to transport. We hit the road, and thankfully many of the speed bumps had been leveled in road repair recently. We made the low flying trip in 55 minutes instead of the 75 I usually take. I kept one eye on the road and the cows and chickens crossing, and the other on the rearview mirror to watch for signs of pushing! By God’s grace, she did not begin pushing til we arrived at the hospital. Whew!

We arrived back in the campo to find that a 14 yr old girl had come in in our absence, having been shot in the face by her boyfiend (oops, that friend!) at fairly close range. She was just coming out of surgery, and a big repair job of her tongue and mouth and face by Dr. Jeff. As she is unable to talk til she heals, I gave her a notepad and pen to communicate. I was so touched when I asked her the second day if there was anything I could do for her and she wrote, “Ore por mi”, pray for me.

John went up to Satal in the mountains on Tuesday, getting to be a regular clinic up there monthly. We are beginning to see results in the care there, more folks following up down below with ultrasounds and coming down to have their babies. Recently a road has gone thru to the mountain village making that 1 hr hike at the end of the old road not necessary any more. Makes the trip more feasible, tho it will still not be passable in rainy season. Our Dr. Don has begun some home groups meeting for bible study, and has been doing programs in the school. We are thankful for such open doors here.

Just got back from another trip to the hospital. #3 for the day. The first was when the guard from the gate rode up on a motorbike he borrowed this AM at 7:30 as they couldn’t reach us for some reason by radio. A lady was ready to deliver, so we both scooted down to be there to help Dr. Joel, who was on call and found himself caught with this imminent birth. I was done with my part and on the road to the music program by 8:45- now that’s an efficient mother. The second trip was to give John a tetanus shot as he got himself with the drill while working here at the house. The 3rd. was just because ER was too busy for the nurse to handle that plus her inpatients, so just got her thru the worst of it. Time for bed.

Exciting note from church this afternoon. Angelica, for the first time in over a year, was emotionally healthy enough to lead singing. I had met with her twice during the week as she cleans house for us and she worked on the songs she wanted. Decided to pick 3 hymns, which we haven’t used much here, but she loves them. Well, she did great, and there were an unusually large number of attendees. There was great participation with her selected hymns…made me happy to see her glowing. Met with the pastor and a young couple I have been very involved with now for 3 years to discuss their role in the church. Have seen them thru some troubled times, so was a great joy to see them ready to make mature decisions. They were the ones that got married a short time ago.
Sept. 15 Honduras Independence Day- clinic closed today in honor of their holiday. We will celebrate with the fellow missionaries, the Tumlinsons, later today with a program on the history of Honduras and typical Honduran food, hosted by Cynthia, who is Honduran.

“Is today the day?”

Julia, Bonnie and John Barnett, "out to eat"
The staff dealing with the burn victim

September 7, 2009, Monday

In the book, Safely Home by Randy Alcorn, the Chinese Christians taught their children that came to the point of being born again to ask the Lord daily on arising, “Lord, is today the day?” There are many martyrs in the Underground church in china, and they learn young that there is a heavy cost to following Jesus. That they need to be prepared to suffer, and even die, for Something that outlasts life.

I wonder if Noel awoke Saturday with that question on his 12 yr old mind. As I got out of Dr. Don’s car and began to unload the guitars and keyboards from our weekly Saturday AM music class in Margarita, I heard Heidi shout at me, “Code Blue! They are calling you from the hospital!” I ran for the driveway and hopped on the motor scooter. The downhill ride to the hospital gave me time to pray and calm my “Fight or Flight” response. I arrived in the ER just about 5 minutes after they had begun CPR on a young man who is a student of Dr. Don’s in LisLis in the music program in the school there. Noel had been diving in shallow river water, hunting shrimp while the ladies were doing laundry in the river and got caught on a submerged root. It was too late when it was finally noticed he’d not come back up. We worked hard for about 30 minutes before calling the code, the whole time praying audibly that God would choose to miraculously bring him to life. For Noel, Saturday WAS the day.

We had a pretty sober Sunday School class Sunday Am in the aftermath of this event, as our kids are about 12. Life and Death are SO “in your face” here, nothing to sugar coat the reality of either. Very few of our kids have not seen the death of a baby in the family or the death of a mom or other close relative, most up close. They understand that they need to decide now whom they will serve, and with that choice, where they will spend eternity.

Several weeks ago my Honduran friend, Ritza, shared her dream about Loma de Luz being flooded with RN’s. I wisely told her that we could be sure that was just a normal silly dream because we couldn’t afford even 1 LPN with our current shortage of funds, much less RN’s at triple the wages. Last Monday, just a week ago, we said kind of a happy goodbye to a young LPN that had pinchhit for us during the vacation of one of our nurses. He did not prove to be a good gamble, so were thankful it was short term, but it left us with big gaps in the scheduling, and with 2 nurses needing to postpone their vacations for lack of staffing. About 4 PM I got a call from the gate that a nursing instructor from the RN program in Ceiba needed to talk with me. She arrived with 2 new graduate RN’s in tow. Her story was that they had been placed to do their 1 year of social service for the government out in the Mosquitia, but that the cost of living was higher than the small stipend they receive so the government had told her to send them to us! We ARE part of the public system as well as a private hospital, making us a site for MD’s and nurses to do their service time. A major WOW! Today I began intense training of Rosa and Beklis, to have them trained before we leave for Nepal in October. Thursday this week, an RN from the US arrives for 6-12 months to help us, and tomorrow another Honduran RN begins volunteering for John, as she can’t find employment. Hm, the count is now 4 RN’s, and I am in touch with one more, an American trained Master’s degree RN who is Honduran…and you guessed it, wants to volunteer with us until she gets her Honduran license to get some experience! I guess that 5 RN’s, all unpaid by us, constitutes a flood of them. Ritza, I stand corrected. Your dream WAS a vision from God!

In the wake of such good news last Monday, I was bringing a birthday cake down to Silvia, one of the nurses, and saw a lot of action in ER, long after the day shift should have left. They were working on a young man who had been badly burned in a home gasoline fire, receiving 2^nd. Degree burns over about 45% of his body. I joined them to get him stable and took staff home after. It’s been a challenge to work twice daily with Enil on cleaning his body and reapplying dressings with our limited handicapped accessible bathrooms and showers. But we have seen great improvement, bonded with he and his wife, a teacher at our local highschool. I said years ago when our daughter Kate was working in the Burn Unit at Hillcrest that I would NEVER work with burns. Hm. Sure makes me admire her, tho. Its been a tremendous challenge for staff, and we’ve even enlisted visitors to help as it takes about 1 ½ hrs. to do him.

Last week passed in a blur more or less, with the bright spot being a whirlwind visit from John and Bonnie Barnett (our pastor and wife from our Tulsa days). I went to Ceiba to pick them up at the ferry dock from Roatan after work Tuesday. Julia had taken them there for a birthday celebration for her mom as they entered the country. John and Bonnie had accompanied Julia on her 5^th trip here in less than 2 years, to be able to see the area she has fallen in love with. (and that has fallen in love with her!) They were with us just 2 nights, before we turned around and drove them back to San Pedro. Having company and seeing our work here thru their eyes and hearing about it from their point of view always causes us to stop and thank the Lord for allowing us to serve Him here for this time. Julia will stay for 3 months to help Lisa in administration.