Thursday March 19th

Today was another fun day for both teams. The medical team departed to the village of Santiago, Pimienta. It was our first time to the community, and we could sense the need for our presence immediately. In all, we cared for 170 patients. Once again, we were saddened to see the trouble the community was having with high blood pressure, but the team has faith in their ability to overcome since there is a nurse living in their community and the teachers were all very supportive. We treated many cases of scabies in the community, as well as serious wounds. Colleen and Sandy helped a 50 year old woman with 8 children that had walked an hour to reach the clinic to seek help for a severely infected burn to her lower leg and later Tanya and Colleen helped an older lady that had an infected wound on her arm. Then, before departing home, Karen, Rolando, and Colleen made a "house call" to a young man in his 20´s that lived three "blocks" from the clinic. He had sustained a serious injury to his leg 10 years ago after being struck by a vehicle and thrown off the road. He never was able to seek proper medical care since then, and as a result had lost circulation to the front of his leg. Of course, we would not have made it through the day with out the determined work of our ¨Pharmacia¨ of Brittany and Kathy. On a brighter side, Carmen annointed the community´s church and school; the people were incredibly gracious. Her incredible strength brought light and hope the community. Jake and Tanya had lots of fun taking pictures of all of the children and their families, and provided them with a lifelong keepsake of the day by printing out pictures for them to take home. Jake was also asked for his number and email (oo-la-la!)
The building team continued their work today on Don Alejandro´s home in Colonia Gracias a Dios for our pen pal Paola and her mother and father. They were able to put up a second front wall facing the valley giving the family an absolutely beautiful view! They had an easy morning framing the walls of the home, and then had some heavier work carrying additional building materials up 95 uneven, GIANT steps up the mountain (Bob counted!) 7 times in the evening. Pastor Juan beat them all with the amount of materials he carried, and made it look easy. Steve is now speaking fluent Spanish with Pastor Juan, Mauricio, and Josue´ as well as the children they play with as they take breaks (while they left the planning to the experts). They no longer have a translator really with them, but are all able to understand one another quite well. The team is working hard, while still taking some time out for fun. They plan on finishing the last two walls tomorrow, but will not be able to see the roof go up before we depart for Copan.

Submitted by: Colleen, Tanya, and Sandy