Buenas noche!!
It's been another very great day...lots of new experiences and lives touched by our team. BUT FIRST...I have to leave a shout out to our boat captains that will NEVER read this post...I wish that I could get my video to load here...and maybe when I get home it will...But those guys...are AMAZING. We have made 4 trips in the past two days back forth. It's about 40 minutes each trip. The tide was out 3 of the 4 times, which makes it a little trickier for them because the water can be 8-10 feet lower. The waterways can be very wide but also very shallow. There are some blind corners (if that is even a thing in a mangrove waterway), sandbars, and little fingers going different ways and they know just where they are. Last night we left around dusk, and he turned on his party light and Latino music and it was like a fiesta all the way home. This morning, we had a different driver but he was equally as fun. He actually bluetoothed his phone into some speakers adhered under the overhead tarp...and he played Karaoke...American karaoke...and then he serenaded us to several other songs. It was seriously a priceless experience.
This morning people arrived via this transportation system to be seen in the clinic. As usual, we met together as a group, offered introductions of the medical and dental teams, Dr Morataya speaks a bit, and then I have been privileged to speak a few words to them as well. This has been a new experience for me here, and I have enjoyed it. Sometimes I speak some Spanish and English/Spanish mixups (just to keep my interpreter on their toes.) I have been very excited to be able to actually have short and simple conversations with people, and the interpreters are impressed that the patients can understand what I am trying to say to them. I still wish that I were so much better, but I am worlds further than I was 4 years ago!! I LOVE it!
After that, I showed up to my office in the canopy for a sweet day. Today, we were a few short on translators, but it was fun to see how everyone was able to adapt, switching jobs, switching translators, and switching locations all on the fly!
Today, the girls worked together at the "testing station." Molly started out just writing down information that Cami gave her from the tests, but before long, Molly had been taught, out of necessity, to take blood sugars and blood pressures. So if Cami needed to run and do an Hgb A1C test in the cool room that they were being stored in, Molly was pinch hitting and taking vital signs. The adults on our team have been asking them questions and soliciting interactions from them. It has been fun to watch them both become comfortable enough to show their true personalities. And I'd be pretty certain, that by the end of the week, they will have sweet-talked Ronald (or Ronny-boy as they have taken to calling him) into taking them for ice cream somewhere.
We were able to pass out some more dresses, slap bracelets and Cami even did a few ear piercings today...Tomorrow will be the last day that we will see any children, so Molly will help Cami again and the two girls will make sure that the dresses have been distributed as well as story books.
They will also use the earrings, and my guess is that Molly will be doing that by the end of the day as well! Molly will be back to the dental room after that under Oscar's expert supervision.
TRIGGER WARNING…
If you are squeamish you will want to quickly forward past the next two photos…but I believe it important to create an awareness of what people deal with here.
This man cuts trees for a living, and probably picked up a fungal infection last summer during the rainy season. He has no money so he couldn’t go to the doctor….and he tried a topical fungal cream twice with no success.
Without treatment and persistent hot humid conditions….and some intermittently high blood sugars…the condition spread from his feet….
To his hands. These felt like the skin of an elephant. Just like they look. Eventually spreading to his entire body. ITCHY like crazy. We didn’t have the medicine that he needed, but we had two doses in a different stash. Our medicine fund will pay it back later! We were able to get him started and he will see the doctor that comes on Saturdays. Each week he will go to see how it is doing and to get more medicine that Dr M will send to him for free. THIS man…is a direct beneficiary of the extra money that you guys send to help!! We thank you for that!! He thanked me profusely and we reminded him that God was who he needed to thank. He replied with his eyes heavenward….Yes, God sent you to me so you could help to tell me what is wrong and to help me get better. Dios te bendiga…God bless you.
Another unforgettable soul. I imagine that by the time I see him again, we will both have perfect bodies in heaven!
Lunch may have been a favorite for me...a lightly fried white fish, fresh lettuce salad with only lime juice and salsa squeezed over top, and rice. Those of you that know and love me, know that I am pretty particular with my diet as I try to allow my body to heal from years of sugar abuse, too much stress and too little sleep. I do not eat many carbs, and almost no sugars. So far this week I have eaten pupusas, pieces of tortillas, rice, POTATO TWICE, El Salvadoran hot chocolate, and a dark chocolate frozen banana. As well as fresh pineapple, mango, and papaya. It's so hard for me to watch these sweet people who live on diets that are similar, eat all the things that so adversely affect my blood sugar. However, in their defense, sugar addictions are very high here, and often times if they can stop that alone its enough to make a huge difference in their metabolism.
Right before we ate lunch, I took a walk down the street with Eddie, one of the interpreters, to deliver some medication that had been prescribed by Dr Steve when they made a home visit. I'm telling you, the flowers in this place are like nothing I have ever seen before. They are everywhere, there are so many different varieties, and they are absolutely stunning. Eddie knew the names of some of them, which satisfied my nerdy side.
He was also the first person that could explain the cashew trees to me. In the past, I have only seen them like the above pictures...small and cashew like.
This week, I have seen that they are actually hooked to these big yellow fruits. Most people here eat the fruit and throw the cashew part away...but Eddie admitted that some people will collect the dried cashew shells, split them and roast and salt them, the way most of are used to eating them.
I was dying for the girls to see a banana flower...and wasn't disappointed. If you will look, the red flower at the bottom is HUGE...then it is connected to a very long stem of sorts, and all the way above it, you see a GINORMOUS cluster of bananas.
A couple of other interesting things I saw on our walk...were the chickens running around inside their house.
And these thatched roofs that were made out of dead fronds from a coconut tree. I had seen them previously on the island, but didn't know how they were made.
I also wanted to show a few pictures of the new reverse osmosis water system that was funded by donations. Up until the Millers orchestrated this project, there was ZERO clean water on this island for anyone. They have very shallow wells that bring up some water, but it is contaminated and made them sick often. It's also a huge reason that coke is such a popular choice. Previously, when I have been here, the same boats that carry us over, also brought over crates of little sandwich bag sized baggies filled with water. They (and we) bit off the corners and sucked the water out of the baggie. This new system has been a huge asset to the people, though some are slow to adopt its use. They can now have water delivered to them in 5 gallon plastic jugs, or they can bring their own to fill. It's free. There is a still a PVC pipe that is about 4 inches wide that is wired up across about a 50 feet section of the waterway that carries in water from the mainland that is used in their homes if they don't have a well.
This has been installed only within the last couple of years. Can you imagine, 2026---still people don't have access to the basics of life...clean drinking water??? It's seriously a crime against humanity that the rest of the world should live large like these things don't exist around us. But that's another sermon for another day.
Speaking of basic necessities, when the clinics were finished up, Monica decided to run to the Island market (and the word market is used very loosely in accordance to anything we would associate with the word) 7 of us opted into the rough truck ride. It was a good excuse to shout HOLA at everyone single person we saw on the way and to continue to marvel at the skinny cows (and many scrawny little calves), the trillion chickens in all the places, plenty of stray dogs, all the different types of houses, as well as to see the market.
The lady was actually at the church service that starts at 4 every day, but Monica was able to locate her daughter that had just gotten out of school. She came and let us in. The room was maybe 30 by 50 feet, dark, with a ton of dusty items for sale, a lot like a garage sale, thrift store, corner snack store, and vegetable stand all combined into a very grimy scenario. She spent $2.25 on 10 avocados and 50 cents on the papaya.
The avocados were stuffed with an egg salad and served to us for dinner. Delicious! We left a bit earlier tonight and got back to the dock as the sun set. We enjoyed a bit of time in the pool and as I type from a hammock, the girls are reading in their own hammocks before we hit the hay.
Tomorrow is another early day. We will leave around 7:00 am for a 2ish hour drive through the mountains to get to another mission site. I have no idea whether we will have Wifi access after we leave in the morning. I will continue to process my thoughts and document our trip details...but may have to wait until later to post them.
I have enjoyed a lot of relational one on one time with various staff members of the El Salvadoran team, and I have no doubt that God is using me in their lives as much as He is using them in mine. Continue to lift our team up in prayer for safety and for sickness to remain at bay, but also that we might have the eyes of Christ as we work. That our words, our glances, our touches, our work...would all be glorifying to the Lord that led each of here...Ask that He would help us to release our own expectations and terms of service, and fully embrace the plan that He has for each of us. I think it works better that way....the hard part is actually surrendering our own plan.
Hasta luego amigos!
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