Hey y'all! Greetings from Peña Blanca! Team #1 had yet another amazing day in Honduras. We were blessed with the opportunity to serve the community of San José de la Cuesta. Of course, getting there was the kind of adventure that can only occur here in Honduras! Today was the first day we've seen the sun for more than a moment, so the last few days have made the kind of mud unique to this environment. San José de la Cuesta is at 3,930ft above sea level, but to get up the mountain we had to first get up the muddy roads. At 3,750ft above sea level, we started to burn rubber. And not just a few wisps of smoke...literally the kind of stuck that you see in movies. By the grace of God, we were able to use the winch on the front of the bus to hook to a well-rooted stump and pull ourselves free.

God needed us to serve this community today because He needed us to help these people, especially a sweet little girl named Fatima. Fatima is only 6 years old and today our team probably saved not only her thumb, but her life. She walked into the clinic with a towel wrapped around her little hand and took a seat at Virginia's station with her Grandmother and little sister. We came to find out that Fatima got her finger caught in a coffee grinder yesterday afternoon and had a downright horrible laceration on her thumb. The grandmother had done her best and wrapped the thumb in a bit of plastic before wrapping it in a towel and taking her to the clinic this morning. Virginia and Donaldo cleaned the wound with hydrogen peroxide and re-wrapped it as best they could.

 Bottom line this little girl needed stiches and x-rays and things that we just weren't able to provide in our clinic. Bottom line she needed a hospital. We asked the grandmother and she explained she didn't have the money to take her to San Pedro Sula (the city) and to the hospital. She needed about 500 limpiras, which is approximate to about $25 US. We were able to help this little girl and her grandmother by not only getting her the 500 limpiras but also by giving her a ride from the village to the paved roads where they could catch the bus to the city.

This little girl and her sister are orphans being raised by their grandmother. I can speak for everyone on the team when I say that we are so humbled and grateful that God got us to this community today to save this little girl. Without our clinic, the risk of infection would be astronomical which could potentially cause the thumb to become gangrenous, and then cause Fatima to become septic and die. Today our team broke the cycle. Today our team was able to put our faith and our skills into action and save this little girl.

The first patient that Dr. Bill Curry saw today was an eight year old boy with a machete wound to the forearm. He explained that he was going out with his dad to cut wood when he fell on his machete causing a deep cut in his forearm. This wound was 2 inches long, and without our clinic, probably would have resulted in serious infection. We got to break the cycle again. We got to save this little boy.

We also met a man today who spoke English! He suffered from a dog bite on his forearm and we were able to clean and dress that wound. Dr. Curry noticed he was walking with a limp and the man explained that as a child he suffered from polio. It's so eye opening to realize that people still suffer from polio when it is almost complete eradicated from the US!

Overall, we were able to help 233 people in our clinic today; 129 children and adults received deworming, 24 young children received vitamin A, and 14 children got fluoride treatments.

This community, unfortunately, has very poor dental hygiene. Our dentist pulled a total of 65 teeth from 43 patients today. A combination of poor diet and nutrition and lack of any dental hygiene means that our dentist's work was critical in this community and opens the door for more education about dental health.

We also learned that many in this community are illiterate and have a complete lack of reading ability. That didn't stop us from handing out bibles today...we were able to hand out bibles to over 10 families! Yay God.

The last member of our family arrived today! Roger arrived at Casa de Alfredo right after we got back from the clinic this afternoon and now that he's here we finally feel complete. The last piece of the puzzle of here and we are so excited to see where God leads us the rest of this week. Thursday we will have the opportunity to work with a completely new community and we are so full of anticipation. Love to everyone!

Hannah Lambert and the rest of team #1

Thomas Lott

Virginia Rhines

Art Utley

Bert Norfleet

Larry Girvin

Roger Hart

Ellen Bruny

Bill Curry

Don Pierce

Lynn Castle

Jamie Eubank

Dick Burch

Joe Toler

Jim Eckert