Hello everyone! It has been an exciting several days since my last blog post. The Lord has been giving me his favor in many areas so I will try to summarize it briefly while still giving you a taste of my experiences.
On Sunday, I had the opportunity to attend a local church called “R Church” that many of the American staff of the clinic attend on a regular basis. Their services are in English and there are actually many missionaries that go to this church as well. They had great worship and the preacher taught about knowing your purpose and pursuing it in the grace of God which I could really relate to. This whole trip has been about finding my life assignment from the Lord and seeking the Lord’s grace to walk it out. By the Lord’s favor, I was able to meet several important people at the church which are going to help me do more ministry while I am here in Roatan.
This is R church
The first person I met was a Pediatric Emergency Medicine doctor from the United States named Eric who started a pediatric clinic on the island years ago and has been coming to the island regularly ever since to work as a doctor. He works at the public hospital on the island which is similar to the county hospitals in the states – it has fewer resources and the people who don’t have the means to go the private hospital go there to get their medical care. Eric quickly figured out I was interested in Emergency Medicine and he said he would try to make a way for me to rotate in the public hospital ER so I can understand emergency care in a low-resource third world country. He has now connected me with one of the attending physicians in the ER and I will likely be able to rotate there in the next few days Lord willing. Please keep up the prayers for this. I really think this would be a great opportunity to experience ER care in a low-resource environment with the poor of Roatan.
The second person I met was the pastor of the church who coordinates regular outreaches to the poorest neighborhoods on the Island using food and sports to minister to the children and share the love of Christ. He told me I could come with him to these neighborhoods this Friday to give food to the kids and witness to them. I am really excited about this opportunity to share Jesus with the poorest people of the Island.
Next I spoke with a missionary couple who has been working as missionaries for over 20 years in Latin America. They are now working at the clinic I am working at and they are living right across the street from me – only God can arrange things like that. They have a heart for ministering to the clinic staff and the patients we see with the love of Christ. They have raised their own support for years similar to the model in YWAM. We talked for over an hour about our own God stories and all that Jesus has done in our lives as we have obeyed Him. It was encouraging to talk with like-minded believers who were willing to give up everything for the sake of the gospel and who followed Jesus with faith and obedience. I am going to have dinner with them later this week so we can pray and dream with God about how to minister to the clinic staff and patients.
On Sunday night, I moved into the house of a Spanish-speaking Honduran family who regularly hosts clinic volunteers. I wanted to stay with them from day one but they only had a room available starting on Sunday. They have a beautiful family and they have been helping me practice my Spanish every day. It is such a blessing to feel like I am living with a family again after several days staying alone in the backpackers hostel. The mother of the family is named Doris and she is an amazing cook! I am trying not to gain weight but she always fixes me tons of food and it seems rude to not eat it all. She makes me a big breakfast, a lunch to take to the clinic, and a big dinner each day. She also has been washing my clothes every day. Being hosted by such a kind family has been a great blessing. Doris is also a strong Christian and it has been a blessing to be a house where I can play worship music.
This week I have been working in the clinic with a Honduras doctor named Dr. Suzanna who sees all the diabetic patients in the clinic. Diabetes is a chronic disease that is hard enough to manage in the United States, much less in Honduras with fewer resources. Dr. Suzanna is passionate about diabetes because she wants to be trained to be an endocrinologist in the future. She does a great job coaching the patients to change their lifestyle while taking medications so that they can improve their overall health. Dr. Suzanna only speaks Spanish and she talks fast so that means I have been growing a lot in my Spanish comprehension and communication this week. Between the 8 hours in the clinic I spend hearing and speaking Spanish as well as the time I spend communicating in Spanish when I come back to the Honduran family’s house, my Spanish skills have really been improving. I now am starting to think in Spanish whenever I want to talk and it is sometimes a struggle to talk only in English. Even as I am writing this blog, I am thinking about words in Spanish while I am trying to write in English so pardon any mistakes in my grammar or sentence structure lol. This has been a huge blessing because becoming more proficient in Spanish is one of the main reasons I chose a country in Latin America for my mission trip. I pray the Lord will use my language skills to minister to the Hispanic population in the United States and the whole Spanish-speaking world.
I have much more to write but I will leave it at this for now because it is getting late and I am very cansado (tired). My next blog will be mostly about my trip to “la colonia” today where I saw extreme poverty as well as how those who love Jesus can make a difference in seemingly hopeless places. So please stay tuned! Here are few pictures from that trip to keep you interested…
