journal entry #4~a rough start

laurie & shannon organizing medical supplies in blantyre

The Jesus Film is playing now and I snuck away to write about today. I can hear the film's soundtrack and everytime it comes to Jesus doing a miracle or something the people cheer wildly...This morning I awoke in my little cocoon of sleeping bag and mosquito net. We got up and had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast. A little while later the women brought us a gigantic plastic bin full of white rice. We ate it with our hands and it was delicious. Just after breakfast Kurt appeared in front of me clutching his hand with blood everywhere--he had been trying to cut open a box and stabbed himself through a finger with a serrated knife. The knife went all the way through his finger! I dug out the medical supplies and fixed him up. Kurt was a little pale and sweaty looking but once it was bandaged up he was fine. My first patient! Afterwards we had our first water well dedication. The whole village walked about 15 minutes to the well. I was walking in the middle of a group of African women as they sang and laughed. It was a surreal moment when I couldn't see anyone else from my group and I was surrounded by just the women and their incredible voices, walking through the African fields.

water well celebration, photo by travis white

After that, Kelly, Laurie, Paul and I returned to the village and set up for our first medical clinic. People lined up with their children and waited for hours to be seen in the clinic, and afterwards the prayer team laid hands and prayed for each person. We had a fantastic team of translators; Laurie and Paul did an amazing job cleaning and dressing wounds, and Stanley, Kelly and Carol T. were invaluable as the prayer team.
The rest is sort of a blur--I was so busy and overwhelmed at the number of people who needed care. We were somewhat disorganized and everyone kept interrupting me with questions. I felt a lot of pressure to know everything--which of course I don't! I cleaned a lot of wounds, gave some meds, and tried to teach people about keeping their wounds clean. The first little girl I saw had fallen off a bike and had a huge gouge in her heel. As I worked on it I had to keep swatting flies off of it; what a change from working in a hospital. Another patient had me follow him to the bathroom (a hut with a hole in the dirt floor) to show me a terrible rash on his genitals, which I think was gonorrhea. I gave him 1/3 of my supply of antibiotics and did some STD teaching. A few people complained of asthma and were wheezing terribly--I gave them Combivent inhalers and taught them how to use them. I saw lots of kids with rashes, tons of conjunctivitis, and lots of stomach pain, headache, and back pain. When we were finished I felt pretty low; if I had been able to take a minute alone I would have cried. I feel so helpless, as if what I have to offer makes no difference. I know that every little bit helps but it's so frustrating and depressing to see these beautiful people so sick....Now we're in a neighboring village and in the morning we'll do another clinic. I get a stomach ache thinking about it. It's much more draining that I expected it to be. But now that I know what to expect I have some ideas about how to make tomorrow's clinic a little more organized.

me looking a bit worried...

medical clinic

a very ugly leg

prayer team

I'm praying that God will take what little I can do and multiply it. It's one thing to motor into the village and talk about the love of God, but it's another to actually touch people's wounds, listen to them talk of their pain, and lay hands on them to pray. I have to remember that the real value in what I'm doing is the hope that the people will feel the love of God in it, not that I'm going to heal all of Africa. I guess I was a little idealistic without realizing it. I'm very thankful for Kelly, who was really supportive today. It's so nice to have a friend on this trip. Without her I think I would be a mess, but now that I've had a chance to pray, vent and to write down my thoughts I feel a little bit excited again about what tomorrow's clinic will bring...