Day 22

Thursday

Our second day doing the checkups at the CDI here was for adults. James and I work well together and we had Tim (Paul & Linda's son as our translator...which makes up Team Awesome. Johan & Matt worked together with Jonathan (one of the guys from Tomás & Iris's youth group) translating, and Ava has been working with Steve, and her brother Seth translates for them. So we have 3 teams of 2 medical students in order to be as efficient as possible. Many of these people have never seen a physician and especially adults who are in their 40s, 50s, 60s or sometimes even older, they have multiple problems. People seem to age faster because they work so hard and have such challenging lives. Also, they look somewhat older because they are outside in the sun and here they are at a higher altitude which means increased sun exposure.

James, Tim & I had one extremely difficult case. I should have written her name down because my memory is now failing me unfortunately. However, she definitely is a woman who is dire need of prayer. She presented with a UTI & rib pain and was concerned that her ribs were broken. Turns out her husband had kicked her. She said that he did do this frequently. She had gone to theh doctor and gotten medicine previously for the UTI, but it wasn't clearing up and her husband didn't want to pay for her to go to see a doctor or for her medication. It was heartbreaking and as her eyes welled up with tears, I felt mine do the same. We prayed with her, not really knowing what else we could other than encourage her to find someone she talk to about her situation. Like many in similar situations, she didn't want to bother her family members with her problem. Fortunately, we talked to the doctor(a) who has been coming with us and she said that if this lady came to the hospital while she was working, she would make sure her care and medicine didn't cost anything. One of the hardest parts of this is that you don't see them afterwards. Did she get to go to the hospital? I'll never know. All we can do is pray.

As for that evening, I don't remember specifics but it would have been devotion night. We have had more and more people come on this trip who play guitar, so the worship has been that much sweeter. There may be more that I think of later and I'll update at that point but in the mean time... I'll go on to new days.