Day 8- Monday

There's several things that I would like to update everyone on, but by the end of the day I'm usually too wiped. Plus, I've come down with something and have been running a fever and feeling pretty crappy. On Monday, we had one group go to the village of Springfield. It is a community of traditional Amish folk. They are the real deal. This was a first for any medical team going in there. They have allowed government officials to come into the community, but up until now, they have not had a team of healthcare workers come into the village and offer assistance. It's truly groundbreaking for the organization we are with Pro Belize, and an honor for us all. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures. Apparently, they believe taking a picture takes a piece of your soul, so we didn't want to start a collection.


The other half of us went to the village of Armenia. This is the second time I've been to this village. It was one of my favorite villages and it is also one of the poorest. As you get further from the main roads and easy transportation to jobs becomes more scarce, the level of poverty grows. We treated a ton of patients here and because school was back in session we started teaching in the schools as well.


Halfway through the day, I brought two students with myself and Adrian and we went for a follow-up visit in the village of Santa Marta (otherwise known as St. Margarets). Here, we came to visit the woman I've encountered in several dreams and whom I've had this great need to go and see. Bonificia has been blind for at least 30 years. She's got pretty severe diabetes that even with her medication isn't being properly regulated. That's why she went blind in the first place. I went believing sincerely that we were going to see a miracle. I thought that if we just prayed hard enough that we would see some healing take place and see God do something radical. Myself, the students, and the family all laid hands on the woman and started to pray with her. I wasn't sure really what to say, but I knew God knew what my heart was feeling. Several of us, including Bonificia and her husband started crying. Adrian said many beautiful words, and we kinda wrapped things up. Unfortunately, the woman didn't regain her vision back or anything, but she told us how good she felt and how happy she felt. She thanked us profusely and told us we were always welcomed back. While I went to this woman's home convinced that we were going to see a miracle, it would be ashame to dismiss what God has in store for her. Perhaps the vision being restored is not that of her eyes, but a vision of hope, a vision of love, a vision of connection with something much greater than any of us. Maybe God is working on his time. Maybe we started something moving that will reep results beyond what we will see. I'm not quite sure what happened there, but I do know that there was some healing that took place. It was beautiful and I was so proud of the girls Steph and Justine for taking the leap of faith with me. It was a blessed moment.

Later in the day, we transported a patient to the hospital with a blood glucose level of 454. She got on an insulin drip to get her levels normalized. Meanwhile, this guy comes limping into their ER with blood pooring down his leg. He had sliced his leg open with a machette. These types of wounds are very common down here because people use their machettes as a primary tool to do so many things. This guy, just whacked himself in the process of doing his day's work. It was amazing to see though. He just barely missed the artery that you could see pulsing in sync with his heart. The doc stitched it up, gave him a tetnus shot, and he was good to go. By the way, the only thing he got for pain was a lidocaine injection around the site... no painkillers!




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Anyhow, that's how Monday looked. It was a busy one and a productive one. I skipped dinner and settled into bed around 7 because I was feeling so crappy. But, I did wake up Tuesday morning feeling a little better.