Extended Care
   
When Friends of Barnabas Medical Teams leave Honduras, our work there is not finished.  Traveling high into the remote mountains, the teams often find children in need who have never had the opportunity to receive medical attention.  The network of care that has been developed - volunteer nurses and doctors, hospitals willing to donate services, and those who help families travel to appointments - is FOBF's Extended Care Program.
   
The growth of our Extended Care ministry is in debt to the hard work of Lori Cordova, and the friends she met at a special place in Siguatepeque, Honduras.  The Hospital Evangelico, a private Christian medical center is our main partner in caring for children with special needs.

Flor & Ivis at Hospital Evangelico
FOBF has arranged surgeries to correct orthopedic disorders such as clubfeet, congenital deformities like cleft-lips, cleft-palates and hydrocephalus.  Many of these surgeries are performed by Honduran doctors donating their services while others were performed by surgical teams from the US arranged through FOBF.

Dr. Matthew Cooke with a patient after palate-reconstruction surgery at Hospital Evangelico.

Not all children enrolled in our Extended Care Program need extensive surgeries - sadly some cannot be helped through medicine - but their life can be changed through the gift of a wheelchair or specially made shoes.  Many infants with feeding disorders are put into a program to supply them with formula until they can regain their health.

Melvin Flores and Rafael Rico with Wendy to deliver her wheelchair.
In 2003, The Friends of Barnabas Foundation began publicizing our Extended Care work in Honduras through a series of "Public Awareness" posters - the first of this series, a poster detailing our work correcting clubfeet has been posted throughout Central Honduras.  It tells about the disorder, and tells families how to contact FOBF so that we can help.


left: Jose Daniel before corrective casting.
above: Jose Daniel with his casts.  His therapy is now complete and he can run and play like any child his age.
To date, over 200 children have been through FOBF's Extended Care Program.  These lives will forever be different because our mission does not end when teams board a plane, for that time is just the beginning for this most special part of our ministry.

Lori Cordova with Deysi and Angi.  Our decision to manage Angi's difficult case was the birth of FOBF's Extended Care Program.  The five short years that we managed her care were full of miracles.
   
   

"When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another."
- Helen Keller