The Big Move

A week and a half ago I officially moved to Honduras, and it has been anything but boring! I am incredibly excited to be here for good and to get to work. I arrived with all of my luggage (eventually) and our first intern for this summer, Ben Brinkerhoff! Obviously, I’m ecstatic to have another Auburn soul down here. I had to do something to catch up with the Harding love! (We’re still way outnumbered).

We have been busily working to prepare for our first medical brigade group which arrives today!  There are 3 lovely ladies visiting from Colorado that have been very helpful to me, and everyone else has been busy with preparing as well. On top of the preparations, though, there have been a few mini-adventures packed into the week.

I’ll start with my least favorite: The tamale incident. (Cue scary music). The women at our church sold tamales to raise funds for the ladies ministry. Not my favorite food to begin with, but I ate them. Worst decision. I will leave out the gory details (you are welcome), but it was a rough night, then day.. Needless to say, I will never touch another tamale.

Just looking at this makes me nauseas again, but this is a tamale!

Probably the biggest adventure for me so far was my first visit to the Honduran Emergency Department. I got a phone call one night around 10:00 from our visiting Coloradoans saying one of our Honduran members was having trouble breathing and was in a great deal of pain, and they felt that I needed to come see her. Richard, Laura and I picked up our friend and headed to the hospital. She and I sat back in the ER for quite a while waiting for her to be treated. Meanwhile, I made friends with some other family members that were back there waiting as well. Privacy isn't a huge concern there, so other waiters and I got to see a LOT happen that you wouldn't have been able to watch at good ole Baptist's ER. I watched them run a code, saw a gunshot wound, and many, many more things. For my medical friends: I watched a rhythm for a while in SVT, which made me miss 5-kidd! My sweet friend ended up having quite a serious reaction to a medication and we ended up staying at the hospital until about 4:30 in the morning. Richard and Laura had great attitudes from the waiting room, my sweet friend got some rest, and I have about 100 stories from the Honduran ER.
((I am such a nurse-nerd, but I was so intrigued by their ER. I called Laura (in the waiting room) to ask things like “Where do they keep the medications,” “What are those buckets of water,” “Why are there no sharps containers,” etc.)) I loved it. That is not sarcastic. Made me miss my night shift friends!

Now all other adventures don’t sound like adventures at all, in comparison! I went with Jon and the ladies from CO to deliver 500 vitamins to a couple of schools, and I went to another school to check back on a little girl who had fallen at upward basketball and hurt her arm. We walked in and were immediately swarmed by kids who were waiting for me to come look at Vanessa’s arm! It was great. Now we have a group coming today and will be busy for the next week with the medical brigade and mission trip madness! I love it, and still can’t believe that I get to live here. I feel so blessed to have this opportunity. I’m learning everyday, and feel God’s hand in pretty much everything that is happening. Pray for us and for this brigade, and I will update again when they leave!

Celebrating Colorado Connie's birthday at Weekend's Pizza!

With sweet Laura Waldron at Weekend's.