Medical Brigade

March 11, 2005

When I got to Honduras in January, I wanted to contact my friend Rick, but I didn’t have his phone number. So I emailed him and asked him to call me. The next day, feeling stir-crazy, I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood. As I came to the end of the street, I heard an American voice calling my name! Lo and behold, there was Rick! I accompanied him to the Internet café (he had yet to receive my email), where we ran into Sister Patricia, wife of Pastor Rafael whom I had heard of but not met on my previous trip.

Pastor Rafael is also a doctor, and a day or two later Rick introduced me to him. We talked about the medical needs in Honduras for a while, and then he said, about the brigades, “We serve much, but help little.” This articulates very well both my frustration and my commitment.

I’ve been on a couple of medical brigades in Honduras before now with the University of Cincinnati, but I had very mixed feelings about them. My Spanish wasn’t good enough to really understand what people were saying, and the translators were young teenagers from a different social class, so although they understood the words, I knew they were missing nuances. I didn’t feel I could really connect with the people, and from the medical standpoint, the needs were so great, and our resources so limited, that it was painful.

Anyway, Pastor Rafael invited me to join a brigade in February. This group was from Health Care Ministries of the Assemblies of God and was run by some very seasoned people. Bob McGurty, fresh from surviving the tsunami while on vacation in Thailand after many years in Bangladesh, was our fearless leader. (Basically, he and his family survived because they were visiting him in the hospital after he had had a motorcycle accident! When I met him, he was still moving slowly because of a fractured rib.)

“We’re field-driven,” he told me. “We only come in by invitation from local churches.”

This time they were invited by American missionaries Sam and Evelyn Klingler, who are part of a world-wide Assemblies of God ministry of evangelistic tent meetings. The medical brigade was planned with the evangelical churches of a poor barrio creatively named Villa Nueva (New Town), in conjunction with a two-evening revival at the host church, Gate of Heaven.

Bob and head nurse Peggy Johnson and the team of about 25 doctors, dentists, nurses and pharmacists from all over the US had been at the crematorio (city dump) for a few days before I hooked up with them. They had quite some stories to tell about ministering to the people who live there – like how the folks were in competition with the vultures for the garbage!

Bob oriented me to the system. Preprinted cards were used for charting. At the bottom of each one was a series of checkboxes:
• Under 5 years,
• Believer,
• Saved today,
• Healed, and
• Other.

After the medical evaluation, everyone was directed to the consejeria (counseling area) to talk with the volunteers from the local churches and to receive prayer if desired. Nobody could get their medicine from the pharmacy without passing through the consejeria! (Kind of a no-sparrow-shall-fall approach…)

It was gratifying to know that the whole team was on the same page in wanting not only to provide medical treatment to the best of our abilities and resources, but more importantly to offer the people the chance to get hooked up with Jesus, the only one who can shine light in our darkness and fill the big empty hole we all have inside.

So it was very easy to share the love of Jesus with the patients in words as well as in our actions. My Spanish is now good enough that I can usually understand what is going on, and I mostly worked without a translator. I asked everyone if they knew Jesus and checked the appropriate box. Most said they were believers, but I did pray with a few who were willing to receive Christ. (I know God will forgive the halting way I pray in Spanish – all those petitions are supposed to be in the subjunctive mode – arrrgh!) Others, who wanted prayer for healing, I prayed for in English - tongues, after all!

Our pharmacy consisted of anti-parasitic medications, various antibiotics, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, topical steroids and anti-fungals, vitamins, cold medications, a small supply of antihypertensive and antidiabetic medication, and not much else.

Most of what we see is either so minor as to not really need much treatment, or so major as to be beyond our resources. Although I passed out a lot of antibiotics, probably less than five of the hundred and fifty patients I saw actually needed them. (A really nasty tonsillitis and an infected jawbone are the ones that come to mind.)

The anti-parasitics were probably more widely needed, although of course we didn’t have any diagnostic testing available.

Then there was the diabetic who hadn’t been able to afford insulin for the past six months… not much to do for her, our supplies of medication would only last her a few weeks at most. That’s not going to make much of a dent in a life-long condition…

These folks buy Tylenols one at a time, so they are eager to have the opportunity to receive medications and vitamins. I was very willing to oblige, under the ‘serve much’ principle, but I was relieved on this brigade to be able to routinely and openly access the unlimited healing available through Jesus Christ. It’s easy to forget him when we see our medical treatment working effectively, but for those who are more worried than sick, and those for whom we can do nothing medically, the need is more evident.