Constitucion Clinic

The lady with fluid in her abdomen
Some of the roads we traveled on
The team
clinic site
Working on a patient
Evangelistic meetings
Our feet after a days work
David and I posing for the camera
My Birthday regalia
having fun at my birthday party

Our team just got back from another week of clinic in the city of Contitucion. To get to the city we had to take trucks over dirt roads for about 7 hours. We left from km. 38 Saturday night so that we could be to our destination in time to start clinic Sunday morning. Because we couldn’t fit all the supplies in our project truck we had to hire a driver to take some of the evangelistic supplies as well as medicines and passengers. By the time the other truck arrived and we got everything packed up it was 1 am. Each truck was filled with people and supplies. Our project truck had medicine, luggage, and 7 people in a cab that is supposed to only fit five. The other vehicle contained the evangelistic tent, luggage, and another 7 people. Because the hired truck was going really slow we had to stop and wait for it about every 30 minutes. It was interesting to see as we went though several small towns how many people were up at 3 or 4 in the morning. At around 5 am I started driving to give David a break. The roads were good in some spots but in others it felt like we were off-roading. After a pretty bumpy ride we finally made it to our destination around 8 am. The first place we went to was the Adventist church to talk to the pastor who had worked out our plans for lodging and food. After meeting church members and deciding on some last minute decisions we took all of our stuff to a beautiful house that a lady offered for us to stay in for the week. We set up our tents in her backyard and then went back to the church to figure out were we would be having clinic.
Originally we were supposed to have clinic at the local medical post but the fell through so we decided to have it at the church instead. The rest of Sunday was spent setting up the church, getting tables and chairs, setting up the evangelistic tent, and generally recovering from a sleepless night in the truck. On Monday morning we were ready to start but unlike our past two clinics there was barely anybody waiting in line when we arrived at the church. In fact the first two days of clinic were extremely relaxed compared to the other ones we have had. We were still busy but there wasn’t as much stress because the people were generally patient waiting for their turn in line. In dental we had around 40 patients each day for the first two days. Although we kept busy both days we got done early because we had 4 people working at two chairs. However, on Wednesday the pace really picked up. When we got to the church there was quite a few people waiting in line and dental had about 25 patients signed up for the morning. Also, we seemed to get quite a few more difficult dental patients. Some of the most memorable patients that we had on Wednesday included a lady that needed 14 teeth pulled, a little boy that required three of us to hold him down while Manuel gave him the shot, and a lady that had to have 8 liters of fluid drained from her abdomen which was caused by a large ovarian tumor that she had. On Thursday the pace was pretty much the same except that Laura and I were on our own in dental for the afternoon because Manuel left to go visit people interested in bible studies. For the most part everything ran smoothly except that we had some really difficult kids that we had to coax into getting their teeth pulled. On Friday we had our most difficult patients in the morning which was tough because Manuel wasn’t there to help us out if we got stuck. The first patient we saw was a little girl who was deathly afraid of needles. By the time Laura finally got her two teeth out it had been close to 45 minutes. The very next patient after that was the little kid who had screamed for half an hour earlier in the week. He had another baby tooth that needed to come out but he was even more scared than the time before. His mom and his two sisters were trying to hold him down but he was adamant that he was not going to get it pulled. We eventually had to send him home because he wouldn’t cooperate. Not only did we have difficult patients but also we had to see 30 of them before lunch. It ended up that Richard had to come help us so that we could get through all of them. But through all of the stress of Friday God really helped me especially to stay cheerful and extract some teeth that I didn’t think I was going to be able to get out. Also, we ended up pulling 78 teeth on Friday despite all of the difficulties.
Throughout the whole week our team would do clinic during the day and then go to the evangelistic meetings at night. Although we were usually really tired it was fun to sing songs, listen to the sermons, and see people give their lives to Jesus! Another thing that made this clinic especially restful was the kindness of the people at the church. Not only did they feed us three meals a day they made sure that we had everything we needed. I really saw the love of Jesus through the church members this week. They were always cheerful and had a smile on their face! Please keep the city of Constitucion in your prayers as they have another 5 weeks of evangelism and health programs. It is an especially needy area because the drug trade is extremely active their but with lots of prayer I believe that God can transform the city.