Visitors

Well, this has been a pretty crazy month. Wonderful, but crazy!

First, my family came to visit for some international "Miller time." We had a really great week getting to catch up and spend time together. The Stacy family and I took them to the Mayan ruins, they got to see a lot of Honduras, and all sorts of other things. Only once did I think that I lost them when I left them at a coffee shop while I went to the hospital... For the record, they were not lost.


The next week, Paul and Leah came to stay with us! MiMi came to visit as well and stayed with the Stacy's. It was so great to have to of my best friends here and to be able to show them around. They helped a LOT in organizing my new pharmacy (since we're moving offices), and they also helped a lot with Alejandro since we were taking care of him for most of the week. 

The week Paul and Leah were here was crazy. I was visiting patients in two different hospitals here, and even stayed there one night. Paul put together some shelves, we organized, we made some first aid kits for some schools, etc. 

I was sad to see all of our visitors go, but it was SO great to have them all here! I'm already excited to see them again, and everyone else, in November when I come home for a visit!

I need new heavy-box carriers.

Well, the summer is officially over here. It was busy, fun, and occasionally a tad stressful; full of laughter, new experiences, and not quite enough sleep. God has blessed us tremendously. It seems that the end of the summer was made official yesterday when the interns left with our last group, and we have a couple of other friends that are leaving Santa Rosa today. I'm really going to miss them all, and not just because I won't have the interns to carry around my heavy things anymore.. Although that is one of the reasons..

I hate saying goodbye, and I really don’t like change. I am so glad that I’ve had the chance to get to know everyone. Because of my faith, I believe that I will see these friends again; if not during this lifetime, then after, and that is something to be thankful for. Now, we all have the chance to catch up on sleep, and it's time to get back into more of a routine.

These verses came to mind while saying goodbye to everyone over the last couple of days. It's maybe a little long, but I'm including the whole thing.

“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ-to the glory and praise of God.”
Philippians 1:3-11 

Research

Seeing as this week we have a construction group and I’m staying as uninvolved as possible (mostly joking), this week has begun what I like to call my “research phase.” I’ve known all along that my post-brigade-season role will be different than it has been while we’ve had groups every week. There is so much need in so many different places that I could get lost in doing random task after random task, and I don’t want to do that. After many prayers and discussions, I’ve decided that the best way to understand the ways in which I will be of the most use will be to immerse myself in the medical culture here before my distractions consume me and I feel like I don’t have time. So, I spent the week visiting clinics, meeting nurses, and making plans to return for longer periods of time.

I’m extremely nerdy-nurse excited about the next few months. I’m going to spend 1-2 weeks each working with the clinics in the surrounding villages. I’ll work with the nurses, health promoters in the one clinic that has them, and hopefully learn more about the rural Honduran medical system, and the patients that are seen in each clinic. Then, I’ll visit other organizations that have medical outreach programs and see what they do. After this research phase, we'll be able to make more educated decisions while our medical outreach program develops.

This is the clinic in El Por Venir. The nurse that runs it would basically be an LPN in the U.S. She writes prescriptions or can refer her patients to a doctor that is somewhat nearby. 

This is the clinic in San Manuel, Colohete. It is well organized, has doctors and even health promotors that walk around and do education in other villages. I'll be staying there in September for a couple of weeks to work with them, and I can't wait!

This board shows how long it takes to walk to the clinic from each community, and their populations. Can you imagine walking 12-14 hours to get to a health clinic? They have a great "labor and delivery" area, so people walk here to give birth. (San Manuel, again). 

I'm so excited!! It's going to be a very interesting couple of months.