CA RN to Honduras Missionary

Saying a temporary goodbye to Eduardo


Yesterday we had our weekly health clinic. I love the opportunity it gives us to meet new people. We have also been so blessed to have some youth from the village help us out each week. They enjoy working with us, and it gives us a chance to spend one-on-one time with them. We are saying goodbye to Eduardo, a good friend who will be traveling to the island of Roatan to be with his mother for 2 1/2 months. In this time of economic struggles, especially when you live in a third world country - it splits families up. They have been without their mother in their home for almost 6 months. This is "normal" for the people in this community - people go where there is work, and the kids fend for themselves. We will miss Eduardo and his sister Johanna, but we are happy that they will get some quality time with their mother.

Some boys just "hanging out" with us :-)


Walter helping with intake

Mom and baby waiting to be seen

Genesis has come to see me about her cough...

Talking with one of my patients

Today seems like just another day. Nothing exciting, nothing unusual - just the normal kind of day. But funny, when looking and reflecting back on your "normal" day - how not so normal, just 2 years ago it really would have been. Started the day with a splitting headache - I know - what's unusual about that? Nothing - but just feeling cruddy! Headache, achy bones, lethargic (NOT the flu), but I had to get up to take Madison to school. Mike is still gone until next week. On the way back I had to pause for 10 minutes while the herd of cows were paraded across the street in front of me on their way to new pastures. Then I went off to pick up a laundry line. But as you can't purchase laundry lines here (not the actual line, but the poles to hook your lines up to), I had to find a welder, and then pay him to have it constructed. My friend Sarah held on to the back of the truck with the pole while I drove back home. Then, as we don't have a shovel, we commenced to dig the hole with a machete. We then made our cement, poured it in said hole - and hopefully by tomorrow it will be good to go! In the meantime - washed clothes, and hung them around the house and over furniture hoping they will dry. Then I prepared all my dozens of boxes for med clinic tomorrow (this consists of re-stocking the medications, making sure I have all the supplies I need - purchase or replace as needed). Then, I input all the patient data from the previous week. I have a database on my computer, but as we have been so short staffed on med clinic days, just the extra time to find the patient and put the data in during clinic is too time consuming. So, I just write everything out and transfer it to my database at a later date. Now I'm off to go pick up Madison from school - as I avoid cows, horses, kids playing on the street, street cart vendors, go to the farmers market for things for dinner, sweat (yes, it's November, but it's still 90 degrees outside), and overall - finish out my day in what has become quite typical for me. Once the cement dries and I have laundry hanging, I'll be sure to post some pics of my new laundry line :-) Ah the little things in life that make me happy.

Today we had our weekly English Class. Learning more about verbs and how to use them in a sentence. I have some advanced students who have been attending - unfortunately, because of our "low staffing" (Mike is still in The States), and the McCann's have another ministry on Monday's, it's just me. So, my advanced students are a little neglected, but they are having fun, and learning none-the-less. Tomorrow is our weekly Kids Club, Wednesday I prep for clinic, Thursday is clinic all day, and Friday I recover :-) Been a little rough handling a lot of things here on my own, but God is good and gives me just what I need each day.

Madison, Oneida, Kaydi, Carolina, me, Kasandra and Nolvia


Today was our third group of girls we have taken out for a special day. Today we took them to a beach side restaurant where they enjoyed fish and chicken to eat. We then hung out - a great thing that girls love to do! We made necklaces, colored, did some origami. We were there for almost 2 1/2 hours! Then we took them out for ice cream, then back to Armenia Bonito. It's such a blessing to us to be able to have some special time with the girls! Lindsey and I are now in a place to start deciding which of all of these girls we are going to start a discipleship group with. We want to meet weekly with the girls and really get into heart matters. Please pray for Lindsey and I, that God would bring the right girls to us, and that we get something started. We are looking to start early after the holidays

Car ride back to Armenia - enjoying ice cream and cookies :-)


Madison and Oneida

So, this morning while I was quietly sipping my hot coffee (gotta love the rain), doing my bible study, listening to Christmas music (shhhh...don't tell my husband) :-) I was startled out of study to the sound of water being dumped onto some hard surface. Now my first thought was - wow - the storm has come back full-force. However, when I glanced behind my back I noticed there was no rain pouring on our back porch. So off I went to investigate to find that the tank on the downstairs toilet was overflowing and had managed to flood the bathroom floor, the hallway, and started creeping into my kitchen! Are you kidding me?! Now, instead of yelling out any number of beautiful bad words in English OR in Spanish I managed to turn the water off at the tank and asses the situation. Now, my husband is gone, Madison is at school, I'm leaving to go to clinic in 1 hour, not having showered or gotten ready. Hmm...what to do? Leave it as is was my first inclination. However, being the independent, gun shooting, paratrooper, motorcycle riding, patriot missile launcher, mother, wife, nurse, missionary - I was NOT going to let this stupid toilet get the best of me! So, after throwing down 20 towels (okay - only 5), getting the wrench, spare parts, etc. I managed to repair the toilet so you wouldn't have even known there had been a problem (other than the tons of water still on the floor). Ah well - nothing the rest of the day couldn't solve. I was off to clinic afterall, and wouldn't be back until 5pm - plenty of time for nature to take care of itself :-)

Work in progress:

Clinic was a little crazy. LOTS of people - change of weather means lots of cold related issues. Along with that are the increasing amounts of foot fungus, nail fungus and skin fungus that I see on people. Ah the joys of nursing :-) Fortunately, with Mike being gone, we aren't short for helpers. We have had our "regulars" helping us every week - Eduardo on pharmacy, Alicia and Walter on intake. What a blessing indeed!

Deciding on treatment...

Walter and Alicia at intake:

Sean and Eduardo at pharmacy:

People waiting to be seen:

Mike is once again off! Off to The States for a couple of meetings, conference, speaking engagements, etc. Madison and I will be the lone women in our house once again. It's all good, but we sure miss him when he's gone. Luckily I have my 110 pound dog to protect us :-) : I know...I know...he sure looks fierce :-)





Taught an English class yesterday solo - Mike has TONS of things to do before he leaves, and Madison had a boat load of homework. So - managed to teach 15 beginners and 2 advanced learners. Had a lot of fun worksheets for them to do with bribes (oh - did I say that?!) - uh...positive reinforcement treats for each sheet the finished. They ALL managed to finish ALL of them - go figure :-)

Tomorrow is prep day for clinic, then Sean and I will be solo for the medical clinic on Thursday. It's always a challenge when we are "short staffed", but we have it down to a science, so prayerfully things will go well.

Last night brought in some much needed rain and a relief to the weather! Can't believe it's November and I continue to sweat, and have to sit in front of the fan...this rain has been a nice relief! I pray it stays through the holidays!