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The Barnabas House: |
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| Six-year-old Miguel Enamorado
was born in the mountains of Honduras with hydrocephalus. His condition
was so severe that he had never been able to walk. A team of neurosurgeons
from the Medical College of Virginia, traveling with the Friends of
Barnabas Foundation in 2002, surgically inserted a shunt to relieve the
excess fluid and reduce the pressure on his brain. Within days, Miguel was
able to walk. When Miguel was well enough, he went home from the hospital.
His mother took with her materials and training that would be needed to
keep her son’s wounds clean. However, the level of cleanliness necessary
was impossible to attain in the family’s home. Miguel lived in poverty
that is all too prevalent in rural Honduras. The family’s home had a dirt
floor, was open to animals, and was unsuitable for a patient recovering
from surgery. Little Miguel succumbed to a secondary infection and passed
away shortly after returning home. The Friends of Barnabas Foundation’s record in Honduras is one of continued learning—we know that there will always be room for improvement. Our field deworming stations quickly evolved into roadside medical clinics offering sick and injured consultations as well as eye exams. In these clinics, children were seen who needed more care than the medicines that were unloaded from the back of our bus, and FOBF’s Extended Care Program was born. |
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| As our Extended Care Program
developed, we saw a need for a postoperative facility for children who
have been released from the hospital. There is such a high demand for the
few medical facilities available in Honduras that patients are released as
soon as they are stable. We soon realized that these children needed to go
to a place where medical professionals could monitor their progress and
help to improve their nutrition level—a place for healing. The doors of the Barnabas House were officially opened during the first days of 2004. It has the capacity to hold eight young patients and their families. Typically, the children are accompanied to the facility by their mothers, as fathers spend the majority of their time working in the coffee fields or sugar cane plantations for wages as mothers tend to the children and home. |
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| The Barnabas House is staffed
by a Honduran doctor and nurse as well as a caretaker and cook. Not only
does the staff help children recover from surgeries, illnesses and
malnourishment, but they also serve as teachers for the parents that stay
at the house with the children. From the doctor and nurse, mothers learn
how to better care for their child’s specific needs and how to provide a
safe and clean home environment. Mothers also receive daily training in
cooking, gardening, and The Gospel of Christ, as they work side-by-side
the caretaker and gardener to complete the chores of the Barnabas House.
Each trained mother leaving the Barnabas House is presented with a
“Barnabas Mother” award and a packet of materials to help teach those in
her community about what she has learned. She will return to her community
as a leader and with a healthy child by her side. The Barnabas House also serves as a training center for fathers. Weekend retreats are held at the facility and fathers are called together to discuss the importance of familial leadership, responsibility, serving as role models, and The Gospel of Christ. Fathers leaving these training sessions are recognized as “Barnabas Fathers” and will share their experiences with those men they work side-by-side with in the fields each day. Youth soccer teams are formed from the poor youth in the area surrounding the Barnabas House and play in the yards around the center as they learn about how to be Christian leaders in their schools and communities. The Barnabas House is a place for recovery, training, and teaching, but above all else it is a place for children—a place where the Friends of Barnabas Foundation can help make the world a little better, one child at a time. |
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