About the Work

So, I have spent some time talking about reflections, lessons learned and opportunities I have had to grow and change. What I haven't spent so much time talking about is the work we are actually doing. Partly, that's because there is so much to cover that it truly feels like a huge task. But I have an afternoon of down time today, so I want to get it done. We do so many things here, and I want everyone to see exactly how MAMA Project works and what a difference it makes in the lives of Hondurans!

Normally, on a one week trip, our team would be flying right now. Saturdays are comings and goings. Since half of our team is staying through the second week, we two-weekers spent the morning working at the Nutrition Center, then had an afternoon of relative relaxation while the second week team makes their way here to the mission house.

The Nutrition Center is right next to the mission house, just up the hill. It's common for MAMA staff to identify malnourished children in various communities. There are many other humanitarian organizations currently working in Honduras, and sometimes families are referred to MAMA Project by those organizations who cannot meet the needs of a family. For example, there is another group called the Barnabas Project, and they are able to do heart surgeries. However, they do not have the facilities to take care of malnourished children; so when they find one, they might refer the family to MAMA. More often, though, the children in need are identified through medical brigades with missions teams, such as ours. 

These are the ladies and children that are currently at the Nutrition Center receiving care. 

This week, in the four villages we visited this week, 21 children were identified by the doctors as being moderately to severely malnourished. These families are invited to come live at the Nutrition Center, where they will receive healthy food and medical attention, as well as parenting and health education. Some families accept the invitation; for various reasons, others do not. The staff of MAMA do their best to follow up with those who choose not to come, to see if they change their mind or if there is another way they can be helped. Those who do come stay anywhere from a few weeks to several months, depending on their health and the amount of care they require. These services are all free of charge to the families.

This is Maria. She and her younger brother Dennis are currently receiving help at the Nutrition Center.

Sarah and I spent some time reading stories and coloring with the children.

The ladies who live at the Center help with some chores, such as cleaning the buildings and taking care of the grounds. These women are raking up fallen leaves.

The Nutrition Center is also where the medicines and resources are kept. We usually spend half a day there sorting out medicines and organizing the pharmacy to get ready for the medical brigades. We did that a few times this week, actually. Also, I wrote earlier this week about construction of the wall. That has been an ongoing project for several years, and the construction crew (usually the men of the team, but women are welcome to help too) has worked on that several days this week.

The Center is at the top of a steep hill, but the wall itself is down on the other side of the hill. The truck can get the blocks up to the top of the hill, but not down into the construction site, so they all have to be carried down. The men spend a LOT of time moving rocks, moving blocks, hauling water and shoveling sand.

See all these rocks and concrete blocks? They all had to be moved. Guess who moved them? All the guys. I'm not kidding when I say they work their tails off.

The dirt is dumped in a pile and then tossed through a sifter, so that only the sand goes through. Then the sand is wheeled down to the construction area to be used in mixing the concrete. The work teams find it easier to mix the cement in large plastic tubs, but Hondurans are accustomed to mixing it directly on the ground.

I love this sand pile picture, because those holes up the side of the pile are the footprints of one of the little girls who is currently living at the Nutrition Center. She was hanging around playing while my dad was shoveling sand.

This is the same process that is used to pour cement floors in homes at each community we visit. MAMA staff drive ahead to each home and deliver the materials that will be used. The home owners have to supply the water for the project. Sometimes they have a hose or a water faucet right there at the some; sometimes the men have to carry water and sand up or down hills during the entire process. These pictures really don't do justice to the process. Trust me, these men work hard. The finished floors are a major step in helping prevent malnutrition, by preventing parasites that can be contracted through playing and even sleeping on the dirt floors of the homes.

Here are some of the guys from our first week team: Russ, Felix, Kevin, Eddie, Dave, Wilson and Jim.

Mixing the cement in tubs.

I picked up one of these buckets. I could hardly lift it with both hands.

The water also has to be brought in buckets.

The MAMA truck brings the guys and the supplies to the work site.

While the floors are being poured in the homes, the medical brigades are ministering to the needs of the rest of the community. Everyone has an opportunity to have their blood pressure checked, receive vitamins, receive reading glasses, receive deworming pills, and be checked for anemia. Not all teams do this, but our team also sets up a donations table where we give small gifts to the people in the community – especially family and children's Bibles. At least one doctor and one dentist are also available, although depending on how large the community is and how many doctors are available, it often happens that not everybody is able to have a consultation.

Hector helps a woman find reading glasses that will suit her needs.

Dr. Lindsay and Celeste, her translator, consult with a patient.

One of our nurses, Zenaida, listens to a woman's breathing. Asthma and respiratory problems are very common in the communities.

One of MAMA's leading staff, Mary, conducts introductions in a community. She prays, introduces the team, and tells the people what they can expect and how the brigade will work.

After waiting in line to register, the people wait in one line after another for the brigade. They are so patient and thankful for the care that they receive. This line is for deworming pills and Vitamin A.

The dentist, Dr. Luisa, consults with a young lady about her teeth.

She loves her Pillow Pet! It was the same one my daughter has!

This little girl got a stuffed bunny. The animals were all very popular this year!

Mary and Angel working in the pharmacy, handing out medicines that the doctors prescribe.

This mother and her young son have their fingers poked to have their blood checked for anemia. The little boy was most displeased.

Earlier in the week I helped the dentist. Along with the pharmacy, that was one of my favorite jobs last year. This year it was a young girl named Luisa. (She looks 17 years old but she's actually 27. That's kind of common here!) The blood and drool is a little gross, but the worst part of it is hearing teeth break. I wince every time. I also had the job of holding two children down while the dentist pulled out multiple rotten teeth. That was pretty intense. They needed to come out though, or they would have caused serious, serious problems – especially since these children obviously did not have regular access to dental care. I went home and sent Bella a message saying that she needed to brush her teeth without fussing! I really like the job, however. I haven't totally figured out why yet!

Toward the end of the day, Luisa (very unexpectedly) had me scrub my hands and actually help her with an extraction. She didn't need help, she was just letting me help for the experience. It was a little crazy. She even had me hold the pliers with her while we pulled this poor lady's tooth out! (Yes, they use local anesthetic as well as numbing shots!)

You can't actually see my face in this picture, but I was a little terrified.

I couldn't do anything to help as Luisa administered the shots, but I have seen how terribly painful it is for the patients, so I just rubbed this woman's shoulder and held her hand.

The people we meet here are wonderful. 

I wish I had time and space to say so many more things about them all, but I just don't. They are kind, and thankful, and just like me in so many ways. They want their kids to be healthy. They love their families. They work hard to do their jobs. And at the end of the day, I can relate to them in so very many ways. So could you, if you came here and spent a week with them.

Hey, you know what? You should do that...

The Sum of Love

We think about numbers a lot. Numbers help us keep track of things, they make things orderly, they provide labels, they bring sense to chaos. I cannot even conceive of a time before there were numbers. I don’t know how people survived.

I wonder about Jesus’ numbers sometimes. We, in a sense, are doing what Jesus did. We are traveling from place to place, ministering to the needs of the people there, praying with them and showing the love of God. How tired he must have been. How often he must have longed for time alone, but when he came to a new place, his reaction was always the same. He saw the crowds, and he had compassion. Regardless of how far he had walked, how hungry he was or how much he wanted to be alone, he always had compassion. But when he did, he always knew that he was doing his Father’s work, and it brought him joy.

I like to imagine what his numbers would have looked like. Maybe….

500 miles walked

40 days in the desert

12 close friends

3 years of ministry

5 loaves of bread

2 fish

10,000 people

10 lepers

1 betrayal

39 lashes

3 days walking the pits of Hell

1 victorious resurrection

His numbers were hard, but he knew it was worth it. His numbers were an act of love.

Our team went through a lot to get here. We were weary, and wondered if things would work out. We persevered and hoped and prayed in spite of everything. Sometimes, in the back of my mind, I wondered if it would be worth it. Sometimes, I thought it would be easier not to come to Honduras. My numbers look more like this:

115 take home meals made

300 hours cooking food and making cookbooks

1,000 dollars donated to me by family and friends

2 donations from people I have never met

1 missing passport

11 missed days of work

20 stuffed animals

4 hours in flight

10 much-anticipated Honduran friends

2 bouts with motion sickness

14 days without my family

6 Spanish children’s books

1 joke about an ant and an elephant

And like Jesus, when we get to the place where we are going, we see the crowds and we always have the same reaction. Compassion. We realize that every hardship is worth it. Every moment of stress and frustration and fatigue is worth it. Jesus had his moments, I am positive, where joy overtook every other emotion, because he knew he was walking the road that God had told him to walk. We can say the same thing. And we too have those moments, where joy overtakes us.

The number add up, and the result is beautiful. The sum of all my numbers is love.

Life With Limitations: A Day of “Not Enough”

Today was our first day working in communities, and for those of us who have been here before, we always know that it will be a day full of conflicting emotions. The community we visited was large – well over 200 people. I worked in the pharmacy, which is one of my favorite jobs, and throughout the day I found myself thinking with sadness about how limited I am.

People come from all over the community – i.e., all over the mountain side – to visit the medical brigade. Sometimes they wait all day to catch a ride with someone, and sometimes they walk for an hour to get there. Sometimes they come alone, and sometimes they bring an entourage of children and family members. They all come with a specific purpose: they want to see a doctor and get medicine.

We had three doctors available today to see patients, and yet that wasn’t enough. Maybe half of the people that came through the brigade got to see a physician. The brigade itself is beneficial, because the people receive anti-parasite medicine, get vitamins, receive reading glasses if they need them, and have their blood checked for anemia. But really, the people want to see the doctor. There was a nurse helping out at the beginning of the stations, trying to identify which of the people truly needed to be examined, but of course, many people were disappointed. And we thought, “We just don’t have enough doctors.”

The doctors themselves had disappointments. They identified people with pneumonia, and knew that these people needed more serious, long term care at a hospital, but they also knew that in spite of the referral, most people would not be willing or able to go. Sometimes they don’t have the money, sometimes they don’t have transportation, sometimes they have a family who is unsupportive or a spouse unwilling to allow them to be gone from the home. In spite of the mobile pharmacy, there are conditions and medications and tests that are simply not available to the physicians during the brigade, and they have to watch as people walk away, knowing they will not receive the care and attention they need. And we think, “We just don’t have enough help available.”

Before the trip this year, we all knew that we would be short on gifts and donations. Because of so many people coming for two weeks and the way the available suitcases worked out, we had far less space for bringing donations and far less money to buy them. During the brigade, the donations table ran out of Bibles and ran out of gifts, and still there was a line of people waiting to come through. And we thought, “We just don’t have enough resources.”

And there was a dog. There was this dog that broke my heart, and it was kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back. Most of the animals here are too thin and look unhealthy, but this one was especially mangy and had a broken leg. It kept coming in to the room where we were eating lunch, hoping for a crumb or a scrap. I wasn’t hungry (even before I saw the dog), so I was just picking here and there at my baleada. (Tortilla with beans, eggs and cheese.) With the people in the community, I see and know how much some of them need, but I have the power to help them. It might be temporary and it might be just a little bit, but I can do something for them. I cannot do anything for that poor, malnourished, crippled, nursing dog. I couldn’t even toss it the crust of my tortilla. We were in an open area, and there were children and adults gathered around waiting to see the doctor; they could see everything we did. And I knew that I couldn’t feed that dog my crust when there were children watching who were hungry themselves. And I almost cried.

So it’s easy, when we consider all of these things bombarding us in a day, to get frustrated and feel like our efforts are futile. We don’t have enough. We can’t do enough. We are not enough.

And then I stop, and I remember.

We are not enough. But God is enough.

When we agree to be his hands and his feet, his voice and his heart, we allow his power to work through us. We see only a portion of the picture. We only do one bit of the work. We pray that the people of the Lord will respond to his call for workers, those who are willing to be both hearers and doers of the word, and that others will come to continue the work which we have started. We ourselves have come to continue the work that others before us have started.

And then, suddenly…we are enough, because God is enough.

So before I leave for the night, I do want to post some pictures and share some highlights of our day. It was full, and challenging, and wonderful at the same time. (Also, disclaimer: I did not take a SINGLE picture today. I was too busy. These pictures were all taken by our team leader, Angel.)

The drive there was more than an hour and a half, literally up and down a mountain on a washed out gravel path with hairpins turns. But the view was amazing.

We passed a couple of boys on horseback and stopped to ask them if they would let us take their picture. They agreed, then one of our team gave them a couple suckers, which they accepted. And I thought, “I wonder if their parents taught them not to take candy from strangers.”

When we got there, we prayed with the community before we began the brigade. For the first time, the community joined in! MAMA Project has worked in this community before, but this was the first time for our team. When Mary, our fearless leader, said the prayer in Spanish, nearly everyone in the crowd began praying with her. The team members all looked at each other in wonder. It was an amazing experience!

The stations portion of the brigade consists of blood pressure, hemoglobin test (to check for anemia), vitamins and deworming medications, reading glasses and donations.

Working in the pharmacy, I gave out a lot of medication. There are many, many people who receive pain relievers like aspirin and ibuprofen.  There are also other over the counter medicines available, and a lot of prescriptions medications as well. Some people come through and need only one or two basic items – things we normally stock in our medicine cabinets at home, but it may be the only time they have access to it for weeks or even months. Other people come through and have five or six or even more medicines that they need.

And the highlight of my day: there was one paper, a paper that made me so happy. It was for an infant girl asleep in her mother’s arms. The medicine checklist was blank, and the note said, “Healthy 5 month old baby.”

The Nutrition Center, Pulhapanzak Falls and Lago de Yojoa

Today was a fairly easy day as far as work goes. Honduras days start at 6:30 or earlier; partly because we’re all so tired that we go to bed before 10:00, and partly because the roosters outside your windows make sleeping any later a futile effort.

Isabel, our amazing MAMA cook, made us a breakfast of baleadas – homemade tortillas with refried beans, eggs and cheese. The rest of the morning was spent working at the Nutrition Center, just up the hill. When I say, “Just up the hill,” I don’t want to give you the idea that it’s this gentle little slope. It’s only 100 yards away, but walking up the driveway to get up the thing will take down anyone less than an athlete.

There are currently several mothers and their children staying at the Center. Most of the children are very young – four years old or younger – and one little girl is ten years old. They are there because they were all found to have moderate to severe cases of malnutrition. We introduced ourselves to the ladies and children living there, then spent some time coloring and interacting with the kids.

When it was time to work, the men of our group headed down to work on construction of the wall that will eventually encase the Nutrition Center. There are two buildings currently empty, but waiting for use – a rabbit hutch, and a chicken coop. In the past, the center has kept both types of animals, both for food for the families while they are receiving care at the center, as well as to give to them when they leave to help them breed more animals for in the future. Because of some theft of the animals in the past, they had to stop keeping them temporarily. Eventually, the completion of the wall will provide some security and allow MAMA project to continue raising animals for the center.

While the men worked on the wall, some of the ladies counted out and packaged medicines. The medical brigades that go to each community keep a mobile pharmacy stocked with all kinds of medications that the doctors may prescribe; the morning was spent stocking that mobile pharmacy. The rest of the ladies worked on sorting out the many donations, including toys, gifts and Bibles, that will be given out at the communities. Work on stocking the pharmacy continued this evening.

After lunch, we spent an afternoon seeing some of the beauty of the Honduran landscape. We went to Pulhapanzak Falls first, then made a quick trip over to Lake Yojoa. We came home in time for dinner and devotions, and got our assignments for tomorrow, when we will go into our first community.

Every year, I force my father into an unwelcome self portrait with me. This year, he did not hide his exasperation. HA!

I will be working in the pharmacy tomorrow. I did it for two days last year and I really enjoyed it. Thank you all for your prayers, and if you are wondering how to pray for me and for my team, here is what I suggest:

1)      Pray that the people in each community will be served well and will be provided with what they need.

2)      Pray for physical health for the team, to be able to do our jobs, and for safety as we travel.

3)      Pray that the people that we serve will see the love of Christ in our words, our expressions and our actions.