We received yet another surprise Thursday morning. Nury, our Honduran Director, had planned breakfast at a local Honduran restaurant. It was called Restaurante Campestre Villa Verde and one of their specialty items is a strawberry smoothie! What a treat!

We visited the community of Santa Fe Abajo, which is actually one of the largest communities that The Friends of Barnabas Foundation's Medical Mission serves. This community has few resources including no electricity. There are 75 houses with latrines outside of their homes. The community is also advanced in that it has grade school and high school, with a total of 150 students. The nearest health center is about 4 kilometers away where pregnant women can go to receive prenatal care. The majority of the births occur at hospitals - this is unusual as there are few hospitals serving the country of Honduras with a population of about 8 million. Hospitals are located in major cities such as San Pedro Sula.

Remote health centers often have no doctor, sometimes no nurse, and very frequently no medicines or equipment. Funds from the government are limited or non-existent for rural health centers:  The Friends of Barnabas Foundation works in partnership and support of these centro de saluds. Hospitals fpr the poor in larger towns are also severely lacking in resources. The population served by The Foundation are not able to access care at the more expensive private hospitals in cities. 

Our numbers Thursday were as follows:

Total seen in the Clinic - 199

Eye- 34

Deworming - 142

Fluoride - 54

Dental - 39

Extractions - 65

The men of this community were instrumental in guiding the bus into the area we pulled into, for unloading the bus and again in the afternoon loading the bus. Just like all other communities we have visited this week, the Honduran people greeted us with open arms and hospitality!

An interesting family that the Foundation has followed for the last several years live in Santa Fe Abajo and they have a special little girl who was born with Hirsutism (excessive hairiness on women in those parts of the body where terminal hair does not normally occur or is minimal) and other medical anomalies. She has touched the hearts of the team members and today Nury presented her with a special doll!

The community was a little farther away than normal so we had limited time to be there and were told we may have to eat in shifts to keep the flow going due to it being a large community. There were many to serve. We all pulled together working extra hard to make keep the lines of families steadily moving and were successful enough to be able to eat lunch together as a group. We even had some extra time in the afternoon to jump rope, play ball, blow bubbles, paint fingernails, and play games with the children.

Our slogan this week as we remember that we are here to serve the families in these communities and puts everything in perspective is:

PRAY because you love

LISTEN because He loves

SERVE to share love

Julie

Brooke

Hannah M.

Hannah B.

Tonia

Khadijah

Tina

Robin

Johanna

Teresa

Remmie

Janet

Ben

Mark