I am His

I am broken

I am broken

I am broken for Him

He saw me as I am

And yet He was broken for me

In all my sin

In all my frailties

In all my weakness

He was strong

He lived

He died

He gave it ALL for me

He suffered

He was beaten

He lived for me to be free

He died that I may be free

He lived so I would forever be free

He was the King of Kings

And yet His body broke for me

He was, He is, and He forever shall be

For me…

He is the way

and the truth

and the life

NO one goes to the Father except through Him...

He was pierced

And I was not

He was beaten

I was set free

He was condemned

and I was forgiven

they don't know...

they don't know...

and yet they are forgiven

He is condemned

and we are set free...

The King of Kings

the Lord of Lord

the bread of Life

The eternal life

The resurrection

The Forever

Christ

Frustration...

People disappoint...government disappoints...circumstances disappoint...why oh why does this surprise me every time it happens?!  Why?  Because I always hope/pray for the best, get excited about opportunities, want everything to be "perfect" in the end and when none of the above happens I'm crushed!  My sweet husband has had to tell me over and over to guard my heart because guess what?  People WILL disappoint...government WILL disappoint...circumstances WILL disappoint.

Case in point...
 I'm going to tell you the story first - and then show you the photo.  We had a sweet elderly gentleman come into the clinic this week with multiple complaints, but his primary complaint was stomach pain.  Dr. Roger did the appropriate doctorly thing and started with an abdominal exam - only to find this...

An old bullet wound gone wrong.  Nine surgeries later, this is what this gentleman had to live with.  Botched work, bad surgery, clearly no skin grafts, and a mound of infections.  He has so much scar tissue internally that it is most likely adhering to his intestins which is causing the severe stomach pain.  What can we do?  Treat the symptoms...nothing more...that and pray with him and for him.

The other big frustration was a young (VERY young) new mother with a 3 week old infant.  She had not given her baby the medication prescribed to her earlier in the week and the baby was now so sick, Dr. Roger advised immediate hospitalization.  However, the young mother was more interested in the visit of the babies father to be interested in caring for her own child. Over an hour and a half after our clinic was closed, we were still working with this young mother to understand the gravity of her lack of decision and the immediate illness of her child.  Ultimately, I do not know what the outcome of this situation was...but I felt a sense of helplessness.  Levels of frustration that just tears at the heart of what it is to be a nurse and a pediatric nurse at that.  Babies this sick, in the States, are often times in the ICU and sometimes even on a ventilator.  If this mother doesn't make the right decision, and soon, it will be too late for her baby.  There is no means of intubation at the public hospital, and her baby could die.

I realize that things won't always work out "right" or how I want them.  I need to rest in the fact that we do the best we can, give the best medicine we can, share the best education to our patients as we can, but ultimately most of what we do is out of our hands.  I'm just praying the mom ultimately made the right decision...

Laboratory

Imagine, if you will, going to your doctors office and your doctor telling you that you need to have some labs done.  Okay, you say...I'll go to the local lab, have the blood drawn, and the labs will be almost immediately available to your local doctor.  Now, imagine you are in Honduras, and your doctor asks the same thing of you.  This will require a 3-hour round-trip to the center of town, pay for your labs out of pocket, only to have to return in 2-3 days (same 3-hour round-trip) to retrieve said labs, to finally get your results which now may be worthless because the problem you had was days ago...  That's what we are up against.  Needless to say, we do not have a laboratory easily available for our little clinic.  How to remedy this?!  I have a laboratory company in the States that will not only provide us with everything we need, but will fly down and teach us how to use all the equipment and process the labs!  How COOL is that?!  We could have labs instantly available to our patients...but...like everything else - NOTHING comes free.  I am looking at about an $8200 expense.  Having just finished the clinic, and support raised for Dr. Roger, I am, quite frankly, about $8100 away from being able to do this.  So here I am, beseeching you, my fine readers, to wonder if this is how God would have you use that spare $20 you have, or from restraining from a Starbucks coffee once a week to save the money for something like this.  Think about it, and let me know what you think.  It's an EASY process...just follow this little link here to make an EASY one-time tax deductible donation toward this incredibly necessary and much needed fund.  Thanks in advance!

Chismes - gossip/rumors

Chismes - this is a new Spanish word I learned this week.  It's a difficult word.  I don't like it.  I don't like it in English, and it's just as ugly in Spanish.

The clinic is up and running.  Things are going really well.  We are seeing about the same amount of people in one week that we would see in one day - but as you can imagine, seeing 45 people over 4 days is MUCH better than cramming the same amount of people into one 6 hour day.  It's heavenly.  I have had to learn to pace myself differently.  Before, I was 100% exhausted by the end of the day - now, it's kind of a constant flow throughout the day.  It's GREAT.

But with all good things, especially in Him whom we work for, comes ugliness as well.  Rumors are abounding about who we are treating, who we "aren't treating" (we've not refused ANYONE, we just have our limitations with diagnosis, etc.).  Many other things, not worthy of repeating.  Along with the rumors comes a sense of discouragement.  It can be discouraging having people repeat things that are untrue.  However, the bible clearly states that Christians will be persecuted.  We should not let persecution discourage us from doing what we are doing, and serving whom we serve.

Remember the world that I said to you, the servant is not greater than his lord.  If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.  John 15:20

Light is sweet, and it pleases the eyes to see the sun.  However many years a man may live, let him enjoy them all.  But let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many.  Ecclesiastes 11:7-8

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.  James 1:12

Two weeks in

We are finished with 2 full weeks of the clinic being open.  People are coming from all over and we are getting some VERY interesting and complex cases.  Word is getting out that we have a lot to offer! It's great, it's tiring, LONG hours, it's wonderful!  I'm out the door at 6:30 and on some days don't return until 6pm. But I am thrilled!  I know this pace won't be the same in a month or so - things will have calmed down, ALL the medications and supplies will be out there and inventoried, so normalcy will come.

My masters program starts in a few weeks, and I'm excited about this as well!  I realize I have no time to be doing this, and I think I'm crazy, but the huge benefits of getting this masters program will be immediate!  So - I'll plug away at it.

Madison is in her final few months of her high school career.  She's excited, and majorly stressed!  She had a major oral / written Spanish exam to complete her year, but the director decided that she was able to do something totally different - so that took a lot of stress off of her.  Madison is involved in the Model UN, representing China this year, and has her big competition with many of the major schools in Honduras next month.

Mike is currently at a mens retreat - all of the guys are there - including Seth who is currently support raising in the States and Adam who is finishing up language school in Costa Rica.  It's a great time of enrichment and getting to know each other.