If you know me, you know I love birthdays. Especially mine. :) With this past week being my birthday week I was geared up for all sorts of birthday fun. But Sunday night I get a call that there is a medical mission group here for the week, could I PLEASE come help translate since no one speaks Spanish??
I have been praying for the opportunity to help with a medical team the whole time I've been here and jumped at the chance! I was expecting to learn new words and have a good experience, but as usual I can never prepare myself for the awesomeness that God has in store.
I went into it a little nervous that my Spanish wouldn't be good enough or that I wouldn't be able to understand the patients (and a couple of them were pretty difficult to decipher!). I was put with Shane Palmer, a chiropractor. I think he started out as nervous as I was... But we both did pretty well, even though we were unprepared for the whirlwind week that it turned out to be! They even had to hold some patients back from him, he was so busy!
It was amazing to witness the relief people felt when they realized that someone could help them. Years of harsh living and work conditions, with no chance to hit up the spa once in awhile like we do, or even just have a day of rest, (and in many cases terrible diets) take a serious toll on these peoples bodies. But I can't describe how it felt when we realized there wasn't much we could do.
We saw a 9 year old boy who had an infection in his hip several years ago and had surgery. Now the part of his hip that needs to grow is no longer there, resulting in one leg shorter than the other and not much anyone can do about it. He needs at least one more surgery in a few years and a possible hip replacement in his 20's. I was the one who had to translate that to tell his mother, who is probably struggling to survive week to week, and watched as she broke down. We all cried with her.
We saw a 27-year-old woman who had nearly unbearable pain from rheumatoid arthritis. She could barely hold her 2 month old baby.
There was a woman with pneumonia so bad she could barely breathe and should have been in a hospital long before she came to visit the clinic.
We saw a few people with herniated disks in their back but didn't know what it was and had gone untreated for years, doing irreparable damage to their bodies.
Janie and Renee, the 2 nurses pictured above, did an amazing job with triage and taking symptoms despite the language barrier, and prayed for so many of the patients. It was such a blessing that they were able to help so many people. In 3 1/2 days the doctors saw about 680 patients and gave out I-don't-even-know-how-much free medication, toothbrushes, combs, bible verses, necklaces and bracelets, and candy to the kids. They had church services every night. Another team from the same group helped build a new church building so the congregation wouldn't have to meet outside anymore and got it about 80% finished, and another team went to a daycare and did VBS there every day with the kids. This group from the Florence, Alabama area was amazing. They worked all day without complaining, and were a pleasure to get to know. They even sang me happy birthday and I shared my cake. :)
At the end of the week I was dead tired but completely inspired as well. It was an emotionally, physically, and spiritually exhausting experience but one that left me just a little less self-absorbed and a little closer to the people of Paraguay. And although I still love my birthday, for the first time it took a back seat to the rest of the things going on around me and I was strangely ok with that. :) Dios te bendiga!
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