It has been over a year since I wrote on this blog. I was in Honduras then, and I'm back in Honduras now. I'll be here for three weeks this time and for the final week I am going to accompany a medical missions group to a place called the Moskito coast. It is on the eastern coast of Honduras and is home to an isolated native group. While there we will be boating and walking between villages each day to set up medical clinics. Families come from hours and days away to visit these clinics; many times to receive medications which can only put a hold on the problems they are facing. In a place like Honduras it is increasingly difficult to find yourself in a situation where you can actually maintain a treatment plan for someone with a chronic disease. Just one more frustrating thing about medicine in a poor country. 

I arrived down here two days ago with Kyle Josephson, a recent graduate from Hope College with a pre-med focus. He is helping/observing while I am in the clinic here at Escalon. Much of the school is the same as last year, with a few additions. The clinic now has a permanent nurse on staff who can help clean wounds and enter histories/symptoms/etc into our database. Last year we had no official way of keeping track of what we gave to whom and who had an allergy to what medication. I would substitute my notes as a way to keep track of the students who visited, but it was hardly sufficient. The addition of a database has been a huge help. 

Thus far Kyle and I have had two intense mornings. Yesterday morning we went to a new village and set up a medical and dental clinic. We treated the villagers for 3 hours-seeing everything from diabetes to infections to your common cold. Going into the experience we were woefully unprepared: not enough medications, didn't have the right medications, etc. But in the end we did what we could and helped as many as possible. Yet as I said earlier, the time we spent helping was tainted by the fact that these infections and diseases we were treating would only come back. We were using a band-aide to try and fix a problem which requires surgery. Ill explain that analogy in a later post, for now I need to get back to work. Thank you all for your support. It means an incredible amount. If you are a praying person please continue to pray for Kyle and I and our work down here. If you are not a praying person then a few thoughts now and again would be appreciated. 

En el creador, 

Eric