well he left early this monring. i was sad for a bit, it's always hard to say goodbye. but since being apart for a whole semester last year, i guess i should be good at it. we worked on the living arrangements and megan and i took a new room together with 2 double beds and erin and melissa stayed in the other room. so who did i come here with you ask?
megan and i met at KCUMB (as did all of us) and grew up in KC. she is amazingly athletic and played softball for KU for four years. i had the joy of playing basketball against her and jazmin, unfortunately mike got stuck with me on his team, and it was obvious that she was good at that too =) megan lives in my apartment building in KC and i'm thankful she showed me them! we're having a great time together!
melissa is from chicago and has a large family that she adores. i hope to meet them someday! her sisters sound like a lot of fun. we always sit together in class and keep it interesting. melissa went on a mission trip for a year in Kenya with the presbyterian church and is always sharing interesting stories about it. it's fun to compare different places we've been to where we are now.
erin is from nebraska and is a very talented dancer. my little sister would probably love to talk with her! she danced in Miami, FL and has a nephew and niece that she loves too (beau and bella)! it makes me miss Ethan, my nephew, to hear her talk about them. i'm having alot of fun getting to know her more.
so this is the remaining crew =) we all went to clinic again on today after a run at the deportivo. this time we got erin to come along! melissa worked with dr. steinneman and i worked with dr. yanez again. it was kind of a slow day but we just worked with consults all day. it's been a great experience for us to review medicines because dr. yanez is always asking us questions. we also really enjoy watching the surgeries together and reviewing the anatomy as they work on the caesareans. today i saw a young man come in who received stitches on saturday for cutting his hand at a tortilleria, a tortilla making store. by today, tuesday, one of his fingers was gangrenous so we watched that amputation. i'm sure the procedure would have been a lot different in the states.
we always eat lunch on hospital days in the back kitchen in the hospital. the cooks are so sweet and we've been able to talk with them a little bit. of course at every meal, there are tortillas. they've started to notice what we like and have stopped serving us papaya =) i guess we never ate it. we always have a lot of fresh pears, cantalope, pineapple, and apples. one day it think megan ate like three pears and the other girls ate a lot too. later we noticed that there is now three three pound bags of pears in the kitchen.
it's important at the hospital to be able to speak spanish too. otherwise, you really wouldn't be able to help at all. i think that if we were third or fourth years we could help even more but everything is still so new to us. the hospital is run really well and it's always busy as it has one of the best reputations around. it's been destroyed twice by earthquakes but god has been able to provide and it has been rebuilt. just for an idea, the hospital has one floor with about five different consult offices, three operation rooms with windows to view the palm trees, a patient wing with about 10 different rooms, a lab in the basement, and a large waiting room. patients can stay overnight and its open 24 hrs. hope that gives you an idea of our working conditions!
this mission has been a little different than others i've gone on. they've never sent medical students down to this hospital and are kind of seeing how the medical benevolence foundation can be of service. one thing is for sure, they must speak spanish-english is not helpful! also, most of the missions i've gone on have had an aspect of evangelism as a part of it. i think there is potential there but it needs to be a bigger part of the mission. i feel like i'm just helping out with the physical healing, but there are so many other ways to help too. we could offer to pray with the patients more, work with the local churches in having Bible studies, set up english lessons for students with the Bible. there are many ways but they would just need to be looked into more. of course, you can always show the compassion and love of jesus christ in whatever you do!!!!
all for Him!
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