Monday March 19th 2018
Our first community of the week was El Chaguiton. This was Friends of Barnabas’ first time providing clinics to this community. El Chaguiton is special in that it is one of FOB’s Advanced Learning Communities sponsored by Farmville UMC. An Advanced Learning Community is one that receives additional services and monthly education from Friends of Barnabas.
The Trinity team welcomed two new team members, Dr. Mark Shreve and Bianca Morales, and were also joined by 3 new Honduran staff members: Raul (Bus Driver), Joel (Inventory Manager), and Lilian (Community Nurse). In addition, 10 Functional Therapy students from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras, along with their department chair, Ethel Maldonado, joined the Trinity UMC Mountain Medical team this week. The students are working with community members, doing assessments, simple treatments, education and home visits. They have been incredibly creative; they made crutches for a man having difficulty walking. The students will be with the team the entire week.
Dr. Curry gave out two crosses, one to a 74 year old man who specifically asked to have his blood pressure tested. He passed with 130 over 80…perfect. The patient laughed out loud and was ecstatic and celebrated like he was a new man. He hugged Dr. Curry and acted as if it was the best day of his life.
The second cross was given to a 22 year old mother with a 5 year old and a 15 month old. The baby was severely challenged in all ways, blind, deaf and intellectually disabled. She commended the mother for her loving care she was giving to her children.
94 children were screened in our new pediatric eye clinic. We are using the Plusoptix eye screening device. It was a great start to a new program. Our eye clinics, adult and child, saw 132 patients. It was a great start to our week here in Honduras!
