A line of people stretched along the seafoam green concrete walls and around the corner, past the coconut palm trees and out of sight. Moms, babies, kids, teens, older men, grandmothers: they all arrived early outside the Buckner Las Brisas Family Hope Center in Honduras to get a good spot in line. Many had been wilting in the heat and humidity for hours when the medical mission team arrived and began to arrange their classrooms-turned-clinics to receive patients.
The courtyard of the center became the waiting room. A hallway became a physical therapy office. A desk became a pharmacy. The gate opened and the first patients were ushered toward the triage desk where two nurses took down their informa- tion – name, age, weight, blood pressure, primary concern. Amid a backdrop of brightly- painted classroom walls and bulletin boards covered in colorful craft paper, Nicole Brenner, a nurse practitio- ner from Pittsburgh, Penn., gently examined
Carla
Reyes’ 3-year-old daughter Sara who sat quietly in a school desk. Nicole listened to Sara’s heart and lungs, took a look at her tonsils and checked her eyes. Through a translator, she asked about
Sara’s eating habits and watched the concerned look melt away from the young mother’s face when she told her, “Sara is very healthy. She looks great.” From Oct. 18-24, a Wexford, Penn., mission team from North
Way Community Church brought good news and bad, diagnoses and referrals, prayers and treatment plans to about 765 patients at the Las Brisas Family Hope Center and two orphanages. But one of the most important gifts they gave patients was the ability to be heard.
“I saw an elderly woman
who needed treatment, but we didn’t have the specific medications that she needed,” said Ali Goss, a physician’s as- sistant. “I tried to explain to her that we could give her prescriptions so she could go out in the vil- lage or the town to the local pharmacy to get it. She said she didn’t have the money for it, but she told me she was so blessed we were there helping her. She came up to me, hugged me and gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, ‘Thank you so much for everything that you’re doing.’ “I felt compelled to pray with her, and she was so grateful for
everything that I did, even though we couldn’t help her with what she needed medication-wise,” Ali said. “It was just really touching to know that we’re still having an impact in some way.” On Saturday, Oct. 18 and Sunday, Oct. 19 the medical team exclusively saw patients who were part of the Family Hope Center’s {continued on page 53}
WINTER 2015 ISSUE • Buckner Today 49
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60