Parish medical mission benefits Honduran
villagers and St. Joseph’s volunteers
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When Pablo
Cruz went to the office last Thursday, October 2, he didn’t feel quite right.
He went in anyway. A couple of hours later, though, he felt bad enough to leave
for his doctor’s office. Shortly after arriving, the doctor summoned an
ambulance to take Cruz to the nearest hospital. He had suffered a near-fatal
heart attack. A few weeks later, recalling the events of that day, Cruz was deeply
grateful for such a quick response by medical experts.
“I was able
to get medical help immediately,” Cruz said. “A team of doctors was able to
treat me quickly, within an hour, and do a procedure to save my life.
Cruz felt
especially fortunate because he has seen first-hand that not everyone has ready
access to such quality medical care. Only eight months earlier, he had joined
about two dozen others on a medical mission to backwoods villages in the
Central American country of Honduras. It is a steamy, oppressive,
poverty-stricken slice of the world where medical care – and just about
everything else – is often secondary to finding enough food to make it through
the day.
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|
St. Joseph’s
parishioner Sue Johnson plays with two
infants at a community center during
February’s medical
mission in Honduras. |
St. Joseph’s
parishioners have been organizing medical missions to Honduras for the past ten years as part of the national “Friends of the Missions” organization. Denise Sink is the team leader for the
next mission. She called conditions there heartbreaking.
“It’s hard
to express,” Sink said. “I’ve seen things on these missions, such poverty where
people have nothing. It’s so humbling.”
Sink will
lead a team of about two dozen people – mostly St. Joseph’s parishioners – to
Honduras next February. Volunteers will include doctors, nurses, a dentist,
translators, a priest, and several other parishioners who feel called to
service. If the next mission is like the last, the team could see as many as 2,500
villagers in a week. The doctors and dentist will provide basic medical and
dental services. Some volunteers will dispense medicines, vitamins, and reading
glasses. Others will translate for villagers who will stand for hours in the
hot sun, waiting their turn to receive treatment. Still others will play ball
and draw pictures with children. All volunteers will give smiles, hugs, and
lots of love.
Challenging Days
The medical
missions are a family affair for Cruz. He and his wife, Genny, made their first
mission last February after hearing all about the experience from their
daughter, Diana, who made her first trip to Honduras the previous year. Genny
Cruz said days start early for the volunteers, but start even earlier for
villagers who often walk for hours to get to one of the centers where the
missionaries set up shop.
“When we get
there at seven o’clock in the morning,” Genny Cruz said, “there are already
huge lines of people waiting to give their health histories so doctors are
ready for them.”
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|
St. Joseph’s
parishioners Mary McCormick, Kathleen
Supple, Dr. Mike Carlson and Mary Williams dispense medicine in Honduras. |
Dr. Vickie
Prince is one of those physicians.
“I
saw a man who was 89 years old,” Prince recalled. “He had worked eight hours in
the field, then walked another three hours to get to us.”
The
man also made an impression on Diana Cruz.
“He
had rheumatoid arthritis and all these other ailments, heart disease,” Diana
Cruz said. “And after seeing Dr. Prince, he had to walk back home another three
hours.” Diana Cruz said they contacted a
local priest to could arrange transportation so he didn’t have to walk all the
way back home.
Not
all stories have happy endings. Caitlin Heffner, a nurse with Brooks
Rehabilitation at Bartram Park, recalled an 18-year-old girl who had a fever of
104 degrees, low blood pressure and a high pulse. “She called a local doctor
who told her to wait for her scheduled appointment,” Heffner remembered. The
girl had a brain tumor that had metastasized to her lungs. All the doctors
could do was ease her pain and fever.
Dr. Prince
said she treated an emaciated infant who was infected with thrush – a common
yeast infection of the mouth – and also had worms from contaminated drinking
water. At four months old, he weighed just seven pounds.
“They
couldn’t get enough calories in him,” Prince said. “He was vomiting
incessantly. He was so weak he could hardly cry.”
Prince said
she was able to treat the thrush with an anti-yeast compound. “The next day the
baby was fine,” Prince said, “and we baptized him. “That meant the world to his
family.”
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|
Volunteer Diana
Cruz (left) assists in a dental
procedure
during last February’s Honduran medical mission. |
Ultimately,
the baby was simply too weak.
“If we were
able to get the baby to the hospital,” Prince said, “he would have been good as
gold in days. For us, when we’re severely ill, we can go right to a hospital,
we’ll be treated and usually everything will be fine. That’s not the case
there.”
Lisa Comeaux
is a security compliance officer for Verizon. But in Honduras, she does
whatever is needed. She has managed and distributed medications from the mobile
pharmacy, dispensed reading glasses, and even assisted a dentist in extracting
teeth – getting gauze dressings and handling dental instruments during
procedures. She said the villagers know little about oral hygiene, so it’s not
uncommon for people to have several teeth pulled.
“One woman
had 13 teeth pulled,” Comeaux recalled. “You’re thinking ‘Why would anyone want
to lose that many teeth?’ But they are so horribly abscessed, they’re thankful
just to get rid of the pain.”
Answering God’s Call
Volunteers
come from various backgrounds. Some are medical professionals. Others are
bi-lingual and serve as translators. Still others bring organizational skills
while many simply have big hearts. All volunteers have one thing in common –
they are all called to serve. Comeaux volunteered even though she has no
medical training and cannot speak Spanish. She simply felt a calling.
“I realized
God has a plan for me, so I decided that’s what I’m going to do. I’ve never
regretted it.”
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|
St. Joseph’s
parishioner Dr. Timothy McCormick consults
with a family at the medical mission in Honduras. Many villagers walk for miles for medical and dental care from the volunteers. |
Sink, the
team leader for the upcoming mission, said the seeds for her calling go back to
her childhood in Virginia, and were planted by her mother.
“My mom was
a single parent,” she said. “It was hard for her, but I’ve always seen her show
such compassion to those who are less fortunate. She set the example.”
Heffner
received her calling during Mass one Sunday at St. Joseph’s. She recalled
turning down a mission opportunity while in nursing school because she didn’t
have a passport and, as a student, couldn’t afford it. Early in her career, she
was a pediatric oncology nurse, but facing the heartbreaking demands of
treating young cancer patients every day overwhelmed her.
“I felt I
failed as a nurse,” Heffner said. “The one day at Mass, Fr. Bernie said in the
homily that God gives second chances. There was a bulletin announcement saying
that nurses were needed for a medical mission. I just knew right then that God
was telling me to do it.”
“God has
given me such marvelous gifts,” said Prince. “It’s a way for me to give back,
to give to people who have next to nothing, at least to do what I can.”
Pablo Cruz, whose
family roots are in Puerto Rico, echoes Prince’s gratitude but can also
appreciate their gifts from an international perspective.
“I love the
United States,” said Pablo Cruz, “but we take so much for granted. In a Third
World country like Honduras, it’s very difficult to find a job to simply
provide a daily meal. Going there are seeing their needs makes a tremendous
impression.”
Diana Cruz,
a recent college graduate, said the experience draws a sharp contrast between
values in both countries.
“People here
pay so much attention to how we look and present ourselves,” she said.
“Over there,
I’m hot and sweaty, there’s no air conditioning, I probably stink and sure
don’t look the best, but they don’t care what we look like. They’re just so
grateful that we care.”
Heffner said
that gratitude is a profound reality check.
“When I go
there,” she said, “it brings me down to earth. I call it my reality check. Instead
of materialism, it’s Christ’s love in action.”
Two-Way Blessings
When
first-time medical missionaries arrive in a Third World country, they tend to
think in terms of serving others who are less fortunate than themselves.
Invariably, they return wondering who served whom.
“I’m doing
them a service but they’re really doing me a service,” Comeaux mused. She was
especially impressed by the Honduran’s willingness to share what little food
they had with the mission team. That generosity made a deep impression on Pablo
Cruz.
“So often,
they have absolutely nothing, but they will offer you a meal,” he said with
amazement. “They don’t have money, they live day to day, but they’ll share what
little they have with you.”
“As much as
I try to do for them,” Sink added, “they do so much more for me. On every single mission – I’ve been on 10 –
there are one or two people, a child or a teenager, I connect with. And because
of those connections, I carry them with me every day in my daily prayers. To
know I might have put a smile on their face and put a little joy in their heart
gives me so much fulfillment.”
That sense
of fulfillment is not limited to members of the traveling mission team. Any and
all St. Joseph’s parishioners can become involved. As Heffner notes, “If it
wasn’t for the team behind the team, there wouldn’t be a team.” Donations are
critical to the success of the mission – supplies, money, and most especially
prayers.
“As
important as the traveling team is,” Heffner continues, “none of this would be
possible if it wasn’t for the support from home, especially prayer support.”
Sink
believes prayer allows everyone to claim a stake in the joy of the mission.
“We all seek
peace and love and joy in our lives,” Sink notes. “But some people who have
everything never experience these gifts. I pray that everyone will experience
this joy.”
The next medical mission to Honduras is
scheduled for February 1-8, 2015. Needed items are toothbrushes, toothpaste,
snack-sized plastic bags, acetaminophen for adults and children, contributions
to buy medication, and especially prayers. Items may be dropped off in the
church gathering area.
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