Young Professionals of Wichita visit Clinic In A Can

Jennifer Collins writes about her time volunteering in Wichita and learning about Clinic In A Can. Jennifer came with a group of volunteers from the organization Young Professionals of Wichita.

I visited Hospitals of Hope with a group of Young Professions of Wichita (YPW) volunteers to learn about their Clinic In A Can program, and see what we could do to help. As the first segment in YPW’s Community Relations “Volunteers in Training” program, I was excited to see our program take action. Community Relations formed “Volunteers in Training” (VIT) to increase YPW’s awareness of volunteer opportunities at local nonprofits in the community.

Hospitals of Hope is well known in the international medical community for its passion for providing basic medical care to countries in need. Their latest initiative is an innovative, self-contained medical clinic, which they’ve branded as “Clinic In A Can”. Clinic In A Can was born as a way to provide medical care in a sanitary hospital environment in the most impoverished countries around the world. The clinic has also served as a disaster response mobilized care unit. I had no idea what to expect of this product, but it only took a few minutes for me to see what all the buzz was about.

After a quick introduction of the nonprofit by Tricia Erickson, Communications and Volunteer Coordinator for Hospitals of Hope, she led us into a large warehouse, where four 40-foot shipping containers, in different stages of renovation, were housed. Looking down the line, at one end sat an old rusty shipping container, as you would imagine an old shipping container that has seen years of use in the elements. At the other end of the line sat a very modern looking renovated structure. We could not believe the transformation an old shipping container could make with just 22 days of renovations. Tricia toured us through the Clinic In A Can, showing us two exam rooms, and a laboratory that looked like the inside of my doctor’s office. We learned that two Clinic In A Cans were built in two weeks and shipped to Haiti following the earthquake in January 2010.

Following our tour, Tricia led us to the second part of the VIT experience – where we do some work! Tricia explained that the Clinic In A Can is outfitted with as many donated medical supplies as possible. And sorting, organizing and inventorying those supplies
is quite a challenge. Tricia showed us tables loaded with miscellaneous medical supplies – some labeled, and some not. We sorted, identified and logged as many supplies as we could on an inventory sheet that would later be loaded into an inventory system. In addition to organizing the medical supply inventory, Tricia explained they have many other areas of need in which YPW’s could fulfill, including the day to day operations of the business, marketing consultation and more.

Thank you to the great group from Young Professionals of Wichita who came out to learn more about our Clinic In A Can program and help us on our mission of providing accessible medical care to all!

Bolivia Update: National Water Balloon Fight

Since the New Year, Bolivia has been waiting for the four days of Carnival that fall before Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent). The beginning of this Bolivian celebration is recognized by water balloons being tossed out of cars, children running down the streets with water guns, women once vending fruits are now vending water weapons, and an annual BBQ at Hospitals of Hope in which I was beginning to partake…when all of a sudden I was head-locked by a paramedic with our ER doctor spraying water over my head, while an intern proceeded to dump a bucket of water down my front, encouraged by the head doctor who poured one down my back. Carnival is related to our (New Orleans) Mardis Gras (literally “Fat Tuesday”) in which the people party and partake in all the “bad behavior” they are suppose to give up for the next 40 days (Lent).

The meaning of Carnival and Lent hadn’t sunk in more than the discomfort of a wet t-shirt…until Shelly and I worked 24 hours in the Hospital Tuesday morning through Wednesday 8am. The first 16 hours of our shift were tranquilo, in which we began dreaming of a full night’s sleep. By 11:30pm we laid our heads down excited for the sweet dreams ahead, only to be awoken at 12:10am to a screaming little boy named Jose, being carried into the ER by his intoxicated father who had been driving. His father left to gather his “woman” and other two sons who had suffered the same accident. With three little boys in tears of pain, nothing inside of me wanted to treat and care for the father of this family.

Before we had found beds for this family, another young man came in with a stab wound in need of surgery and more blood. After a financial conversation among the friends of this youth, we had to turn him away due to our inability to begin treating without sufficient blood. Next, an unresponsive man and his intoxicated family come through our doors hoping we could help. He had a 1-inch deep and 4-inch long gash alongside his left eye, in which we were able to witness over an hour of suturing. As the last string was being tied, another man with blood gushing out of his head comes rushing in, then an hour later leaves without wanting the further/necessary treatment of surgery, or to pay…and so the night continues.

From the first 10 minutes of Lent (Wednesday 12:10am) until the last second of shift-change the next morning, I was overwhelmed with a sense of despair for the broken family relationships, beat-up bodies, and endless pain our world seemed to be suffering that night. Lent had truly begun, and the reality of a world without Jesus had now sunk in.

Bolivia Update: Life at the Plaza

For the last month and a half , the volunteers have been going to the Plaza San Sebastian, a plaza that most people avoid, because it is where the glue sniffers live. Somewhere around 30 people, ranging from early teens to early 30s, I would guess, live in this square in Cochabamba, Bolivia, continuously holding a bottle of glue to their noses, occasionally washing car windows to earn money to buy food and alcohol. The reason that the oldest people there are in their late 20s or early 30s isn't that they manage to escape the life by then; it´s that you don't have a very long lifespan in the plaza.

So, once a week, the volunteers have been going to the plaza to bring food, clean wounds, and try to build relationships with the people living there. I don't make it every week, but I did this last Friday.

There are always fresh wounds to treat when we go to San Sebastian. Most of the people who live there have obvious knife scars on their faces, mostly inflicted by each other. Many of them have horizontal scars covering their forearms, almost certainly self-inflicted. We're pretty sure that two of the girls, in their early teens, are pregnant, and there are some small children, age 2 and under, living with their parents in the square. I can only imagine the kind of brain damage glue does to a fetus.

When we went this last week, a young man limped up to us, assisted by another kid. One of the girls started explaining that he had pus in his leg, and that a doctor had taken it out previously using a syringe. When we rolled up his pants leg we saw that his left thigh was horribly swollen. We kept asking questions, and they told us that he'd been in the public hospital for a month in the infectology ward and that he´d just come back earlier that week. The street kids asked us to take out a syringe and drain the pus, like the doctors had before. I wasn't sure that was a good idea. If they hadn't fixed it after a month in the hospital, it didn't seem like something we could do much about, and I was afraid that doing anything might make it worse, introducing even more infection.

I consulted with Faith and Amanda, the volunteers with the most medical experience, and they agreed with me. Even if we didn't make the infection itself worse, he could still lose his leg or even his life simply by not getting further treatment. What he needed was to go back to the hospital. I knelt by the young man and explained to him that he needed to go to the hospital, that we couldn't fix the problem and might make it worse. ¨No, I don´t want to go to the hospital,¨ he told me, his words slurred by the glue and alcohol.

I tried again to explain, telling him, ¨If you don't go to the hospital, you might lose your leg, and you might even die.¨ He wouldn't go. As we discussed what to do next, he staggered to his feet and hobbled away. When I approached him again later, he immediately started repeating, ¨I won't go to the hospital, I won't go to the hospital.¨ There was nothing more we could do.

Since he wouldn't let us help him, we moved on to other patients. The nurses and interns who came along focused on cleaning wounds, while the rest of the volunteers and I talked with the others. One man approached us and introduced himself as Wilians. I started asking Wilians about his family. He told me that his mother had died in 2004 and that he had 7 younger brothers and sisters living in orphanages. I asked about his father, and he said that his father was a drunk. He started telling me what he believed about God, that God watches over us, and that everything happens for a reason.

I agreed with him, and then, in a moment of courage, I told him, ¨Yes, and God wants something better for you. He doesn't want you to be living in this plaza. He doesn't want you to be sniffing this glue,¨ I said, tapping the bottle he held in his hand. ¨It's damaging your body and your soul.¨ To my surprise, he threw his bottle of glue on the ground.

We kept talking, and I asked him if I could pray for him. I put my hand on his shoulder and we bowed our heads as I asked God to protect Wilians and to help him to leave his life in the plaza, to start to live the life that God had planned for him. When we finished, Wilians asked me to continue to pray for him, and to pray for his brothers and sisters. I promised I would pray for them.

¨You have the same heart as my mother,¨ he told me. ¨You will always be in my heart, like a mother.¨ I promised him I´d come back soon.

I don´t know what Wilians did when I left the plaza. He may have picked the glue bottle back up as soon as my back was turned. Even if he held out longer, I suspect that he didn't last long. But perhaps it was a start. Many of those who live in the plaza are there by choice, preferring to forget reality rather than to face it. I'm praying that Wilians will choose to face reality, in all its ugliness, and begin to make something beautiful.

On a Mission: Why go on a mission trip

It’s February. As I sit here writing this, I can see snow flurries blowing past my window making it seem like summer has quite a ways to go before it gets here. But believe it or not, summer is just four months away. For some of you summer means a break from the dreaded torture called school, for others of you it means a time for a vacation, and yet for others of it may not mean much because you can’t think of what you want to do with your summer.

Well, I have great news for all of you. How about taking a mission trip to Bolivia!
If you have ever thought about going on a mission trip, or said someday you would, or maybe you haven’t even given it much thought, this summer is a great time to do it!

Some really great reasons to go on a mission trip with Hospitals of Hope to Bolivia include

1. You gain a variety of medical experience in a hospital
2. You experience giving medical care in a foreign country
3. You have a part in giving underprivileged children free check ups
4. You get to help heal physical bodies, and also share the Gospel
5. You learn about a different culture
6. You get to put that Spanish to practice!
7. You get to share Christ’s love with the people of Bolivia
8. Your friends and family get to be blessed by partnering with you on this adventure
9. You get to have an awesome summer!
10. You get to take home a life changing experience you will never forget.

I know it may seem crazy to be thinking about summer plans already, but now is a great time to start planning. It will give you time to get your passport and visa paperwork in line, raise support, learn about Bolivia, and time for God to start preparing you to be used by Him. But, I also know that some of you still sure about the whole idea. I get that. That is why next week I am giving you plenty of reason of why not to go on a mission trip as Part 2 of our On a Mission series.

But if you are thinking this is something for you, check out more about our Bolivian missions here!

Bolivia Update: Impacting for Eternity

Our ministry in Bolivia continues to grow! Read this week’s Bolivia update about how our volunteers have made a great impact in the community.

Last week and this week, our Hospitals of Hope volunteers have been doing checkups at a Compassion International Center here in Vinto. They have over 200 kids there. So far, they've been surprisingly healthy.

We also did checkups at "kidwashing" on Saturday. (Kidwashing happens once a week. Poor families bring their kids for a bath and clean clothes in the main square in Cochabamba. Other missionaries bring hot water, clothes, and tents to wash in.) Although we regularly participate in kidwashing, this was the first time we've done checkups there. We would like to keep doing the checkups on a regular basis, because these are some of the poorest of the poor, and they all have issues. We saw kids with parasites, skin infections, and more.

In addition to doing check ups for the children, we are going to the square where the glue sniffers congregate on a weekly basis to provide wound care (as they're always inflicting new injuries on each other), bring food, and try to start building relationships with them. One of them has started to go to church with Shelly and Rachel.

God has also worked in the life of a former intern here at the hospital, who has really been searching over the last several months. He told me the other day that he thinks he's a Christian now. He says he hasn't "signed the papers" yet and been baptized, but he's just about there.

Thank you to our volunteers who are using their talents and abilities to make an impact not only for the community, but for eternity!

Bolivia Update: "Arco iris" God's promise of hope

Read this story from Leta of how she was able to comfort a young girl while Hospitals of Hope Bolivia saved the girl's mother.

As we rode back to the hospital in the ambulance, returning from doing checkups in the community where our paramedics are stationed, I got a call on my cell phone. It was Jose, the paramedic we'd left back at the post, while Pablo drove us home. "We need the ambulance now," he told me. I told Pablo to stop the ambulance, and we all, with the exception of two EMTs who were with us, piled out. The ambulance turned around, sirens blaring, and we took a taxi back to the hospital.

We had barely arrived back at the hospital when we heard the siren announcing the ambulance's return. Soon it appeared, followed by a pickup, its bed full of people. They both pulled up in front of the hospital, and the paramedics and hospital staff started unloading patients. The most severe appeared to be a woman with her arm bandaged, blood covering her clothes.

As hospital staff and volunteers attended patients in the emergency room, I waited outside. A little girl, about six years old, was sitting alone, sobbing, blood stains soaked through her sweater. She only had a few minor scrapes, but her mother was the one with the injured arm.

I sat down next to her and put my arm around her as she sobbed. She pulled up her sleeve to show me her scrapes and told me, "My daddy will fix it. He has band aids!" She told me that their car had overturned, and that her puppy was really scared. She sobbed out her fear when she told me, "My mommy's arm is hurt, and I don't know how to cook!"

We have a children's illustrated Bible story book in the hospital, and I got that out and started to read to her. Listening to the story of the creation and the fall distracted her while we waited. As we read the story of Noah's ark, she pointed to the rainbow -- an "arco iris" in Spanish -- and told me, "My name is Iris -- I'm named for the arco
iris!"

We waited for what seemed like hours, while the doctors worked on stopping her mother's bleeding and re-bandaging her arm. "Don't worry," I told her. "The doctors are doing everything they can to help your mom."

"Will they give her a new ear?" she asked. I hadn't realized it, but her mother also had a head wound.

"We'll see," I said. "They're going to do the best they can."

Finally, the emergency room doors opened, and interns began rolling her mother's gurney toward the operating room. The doctor came out and spoke to the other family members who had arrived, telling them that she needed surgery, but that she would be fine. Iris's aunt came to get her, but before they left, Iris and I prayed together for her mother and for her family.

This morning, I saw the doctor who was on call last night and asked him how the woman was. He said that the surgery had gone well. I asked him about her head injury, and he said that, while the gash was near her ear, her ear itself was fine.

As I walked outside of the hospital doors, Iris greeted me, a big smile on her face, and ran over to give me a hug.

Bolivia Update: Felicidades!

Leta writes us from Bolivia with an update about last month's volunteers, the holidays, and life in Bolivia.

I traveled back to the States for a quick visit to family and friends in November. I came back [to Bolivia] three days before a group of PA students arrived. They wanted to get out of the city and do a bit more rural work, so we took them to the town of Entre Rios, in the Chapare (the jungle region of Cochabamba, where mosquitoes swarm and coca grows). Our driver forgot to tell me before leaving that his bus was in bad repair, so our 4-5 hour trip ended up taking 12 hours, but we got there. We treated around 50 patients in one morning but had to cancel our clinic for the second day, since we knew the return trip would probably take just as long. On the way back, at least, we got to stop at Parque Machia, a refuge for monkeys that had been taken from the forest and raised as pets.

We celebrated Christmas in half-Bolivian, half-American style. We went to my church on Christmas Eve (Noche Buena), where we got roped into taking part in the youth Christmas play. I got to play the part of a girl gathering firewood. Then we stayed up till midnight, like good Bolivians, and ate Christmas Eve dinner with the firemen who live on the hospital compound. We would have shot off fireworks, if it hadn’t been pouring. Christmas morning, we opened the alpaca stockings I bought at la Cancha and filled with various Bolivian foods (passion fruits and quinoa granola bars!), plus a couple of things I brought back from the States that you can’t get here (Hershey’s kisses and apple cider mix!). We all skyped home in the afternoon and relaxed. [Pictured is Leta when she came back for a visit in November and got to meet Isabella Wawrzewski]

In between celebrations, I’ve been filling in for Rudy, the hospital administrator, as he takes his first vacation in 3 years. He can’t ever really go on vacation, so he’s come in about 50% of the days, but at least he’s not at the hospital all the time. So far, I’ve mostly dealt with financial and personnel issues. I will be VERY glad when he’s back for good and I can turn over his key. (Update: Rudy is back from his vacation and Leta is happy to be back to her regular duties)

I got to go to Rudy’s twin daughters’ 2nd birthday party on Friday night, and, on Saturday, his mother-in-law, who also goes to my church, invited me over to learn to cook a Bolivian almuerzo (lunch). We made Sopa de Mani (peanut soup), which I actually already know how to make, but her version was different enough that it was basically a different dish. She has plans to teach me to make Picante de Pollo (spicy chicken), aji de fideo (noodles with chili pepper), and a number of other things. It was fun getting to go over and hang out with their family, which has kind of adopted me in the last few months.

We had a pretty laid-back New Year’s Eve. We had dinner with the paramedics and a former intern (Juan), and then we tried to keep our eyes open till midnight, when we shot off the fireworks that we didn’t get to set off at Christmas. A couple of the volunteers went with the paramedics, in case of accidents, since there are often a lot on New Year’s. They just went out on one call, but it was a bad one. A car went over a cliff in the mountains west of the city and fell about 90 feet. Surprisingly, only one of the passengers died. Two of the others had minor cuts and bruises, and the other had to be carefully lifted out of the car and then pulled up the cliff on a stretcher. She’s in our hospital now and will probably have surgery in the morning, but she should be okay. [Pictured is Leta, far right, with some volunteers from this month]

If you all were here right now, I would air-kiss all of your cheeks and tell you “Felicidades!” in honor of the new year, but, since you’re not, I will content myself with just sending “felicidades” (happiness) in your direction. Prospero año nuevo y muchas bendiciones a todos! (Prosperous new year and many blessings to all!)