Tuesday, February 11th 2020
Today was an extra special day in Honduras for so many reasons. We begin this morning with a lovely outdoor breakfast including all of the Honduran staff and volunteers. A beautiful letter was read from Virginia, a past member of the Hampton Roads team, who has volunteered with FOBF for 18 years until illness kept her from traveling this year. Many tears were shed by staff and volunteers for this beautiful friend.
While in the village of La Masica, San Antonio, the big news was the arrival of the new portable dental unit which Jesse Williams has been working so hard to acquire and Steve, Ryland and Whitney Gwaltney so generously donated. With this machine, Dr. Arita and Dr. Bo were able to do fillings on patients for the first time instead of strictly extracting teeth. The very first patient who received a filling was a beautiful 14 year old girl with 1 decaying tooth in an otherwise healthy mouth. It was exciting for us all to watch as Dr. Arita was able to save that tooth instead of pulling it!!
There were so many touching stories from our work today. Carlos gave his cross to a woman with a cyst who has no means for treatment, and he vowed to find her help. Cathy gave her own necklace with words from Joshua 1:9 to a mother struggling with her children’s illnesses.
Bessie was touched by a little boy in the village who, in spite of a speech impediment, just wanted to talk to her. Then she enjoyed some playtime with a group of silly boys who loved hearing her yell “woo woo”!
Our chiropractor, Charlie, felt blessed to be able to help many of the people who labor daily with muscle/ skeletal issues, and Charnell helped a 100 year old in the vision clinic who had near perfect vision!
At devotion time, it was a unanimous feeling that we as volunteers are so blessed by our time with these beautiful people. We were also very grateful and excited that our teammate Maggie was able to join us in Honduras today.
~Jodi Browne
