What are You Missing?

This morning I forwarded an email about an incident at a Metro station in D.C. World famous violinist Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world, played on a violin worth $3.5 million dollars one of the most intricate pieces ever written to an audience of over 2,000 commuters. He played for 45 minutes. A few people stopped for a minute or two, some dropped money in the open violin case but almost everyone kept on walking.

The story ends with the question “If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments, how many other things are we missing?”

That question continued to echo in my mind throughout the morning. I was reminded that it’s not only the things you fail to notice that you miss out on but also the things you fail to do. One by one I was reminded to the things I am missing …..

The sunrise over Bayshore Boulevard –there used to be mornings that I would stop marvel in the beauty of a Florida sunrise and thank God for the blessing of yet another day – haven’t done that in a long time.
Taking the same delight in a fluttering butterfly as my young grandsons do --- (forget experiencing the same squeals of pleasure at finding a garden snake)
Penning a handwritten note to a friend – not an email or text – a handwritten note
And
The joy in receiving and reading a handwritten note
Looking beyond the appearance of the homeless man with his cardboard sign – (note: most times I am very good other times not so much)
Thanking a co-worker for a job well done
Hugs – don’t give or receive enough!
Acknowledging a friend’s words of encouragement and support
Hearing God’s voice (not always audible – but since He is Large and in Charge He speaks to us daily – sometimes we aren’t listening)
Taking the time to do the things I really love

So today, I will take the time to appreciate all that I have been missing and to do what I can to help those around me do the same.

A snapshot of our week---

• 32 bags of medicines packed, unpacked, moved and stowed countless number of times by a willing team
• The message of hope and salvation delivered by our Word of Life partner Kenneth Balootje to over a 1,000 people
• Clinics held in four different areas: Guerra, en Toro, and two areas in San Pedro
• Our good friend David, who was in the Dominican on business, took time to help us in the field for three days
• A Triage partnership of Carlos and Margaret that moved through the endless line of hopeful patients with compassion and patience
• Our very own Colonel -- Jim who orchestrated the flow through clinic with efficiency and love
• 823 patients treated by a stellar medical team of Pat, Sherrie, Dr. Rob, Liliana and Josh: Sight given , wounds drained and dressed, "Gripe" treated, and boo-boos made better, and best of all plenty of hugs given along with medicine and treatment
• An abundance of medicines, love and compassion dispensed by an awesome pharmacy team of Marie, Jenn, Marshall, with Sebastian and other team members pitching in when needed
• Earl prayed and as a result welcomed 105 new Believers in Christ!
• Connie prayed–lost items found and people moved from medical to pharmacy waiting area
• Dozens and dozens of ear irrigation (note: because the people do not have access to running water there are no showers or bathtubs – they wash themselves but since water does not get down in the ears, the wax is not liquefied but builds up becoming a solid mass of wax plugging the ear--Josh became the King of Ears irrigating with water to flush out the wax and in one instance flushed out the end of a q-tip)
• God’s perfect timing
• 2 patients transported to the hospital (one young woman suffered a grand mal seizure – we were packed up and ready to go but did not leave right away– a few more minutes later we would not have been there to stabilize her then transport to the local hospital)
• Note from God (Same note 2 different mission trips--Ask Marie or Ruby for details)
• Sebastian "MacGuyvered" all week to make our jobs easier (spot the photo of the duct tape scissor holder on the side of the water cooler to make cutting the water bags easier for just one example)
• Wounds treated by Sherrie the Queen of the Scalpel – boils, abscesses, an ingrown hair under the arm that had become infected – just to name a few of the problems. One young boy transported to the hospital for a nasty abscess on his neck. His Mom had a medical ticket for him and an eye ticket for her. She had not seen Dr. Rob when we told her that we would take her and her son to the hospital, she shows us her eye ticket, Kiko, one of our translators told her to make a choice as the boy should be taken to the hospital right away – she chose her son
• Bob, our medical partner with SCORE a constant source of medical knowledge and experience
• Our Dominican brothers patiently acting as our ears and our mouths as they translated for us
• Generous donations resulted in thousands of dollars in groceries and toys bought for the Orphanage for HIV positive children. Thankfulness to see their smiling faces and observe how they have grown and thrived since our visit last year.
• 15 hearts changed forever!!!!

Thursday - Our last clinic day & Friday - Orphanage

On Thursday, we went to another part of San Pedro, the poorest area we visited on this trip. The church building which was to house the clinic was made of corrugated metal. We opted to set up in the dirt road between the church and the houses. Normally we are in a building, however humble, the structure is generally far enough away from the surrounding houses that while we can see the frailty of the structures, we really can’t see into them. This area broke my heart. One young man’s home was at the end of our row of medical stations. He was in a wheel chair –I counted 7 people living in this very humble structure. I went over to give the children playing at the front doorway tennis balls and could see into the house; it was bare save a lone chair in the corner. The structure was made from scraps of lumber and corrugated metal; it looked as though it a brisk wind would topple it over.

Later as we watched, Mom bathed the children in tubs set up in the yard – keep in mind there is no running water, she walked a long way to the local well in order to haul back buckets of water to bathe her children!

We quickly put up the tarps, set up the stations and pharmacy and opened for patients. This team was up to any challenge! At the end of the day, I walked to the rear of area where we had placed portable screens and started handing out the leftover sandwiches and chips from our lunch to the small group of people gathered there. Even though we had feed the village at Noon (as we did each day), I knew that there would be no food for these children that evening. At the end of the day, as we packed up meds and supplies and loaded them into the truck, my feelings were bittersweet. It was a long, hard day, we were hot and tired but it was the last day of clinic and I wasn’t ready to leave – there was so much more to do.

The next morning we headed for Santo Domingo for some shopping in the local market then to a grocery store to load up $1,800 in groceries and a couple of hundred dollars in toys for the AIDS orphanage. Each year our team and the Men’s softball team which comes down the month before we do, visit this orphanage. We are the only outside group to do so. It is a blessing to be with these children for a few hours on Friday. It is the highlight of our trip to have the privilege of laughing, loving and playing with them. At present there are 32 children at this facility all but a few are HIV positive.

As I spoke with the Director in the courtyard as our team carried bag after bag of groceries to the kitchen, she began to cry. I then asked her to make a list of her most pressing needs as we wanted to raise funds to help them after our return to the states. She told me that no one ever asked them before what they needed. Her gratitude was humbling and their need overwhelming. However, we are not to be daunted or intimated as God will provide just as He did for this trip and the trips before us!

Reflections

In our preparation for our mission trip, we stressed to team members the importance of ridding yourself of all expectations. If you have an expectation of what should happen, you will probably miss what God is doing while you stumble around in your disappointment. I am not sure if members of our team had expectations, or if they did, whether or not they were met, but I do feel each was touched with the experience.

For me, each trip is a life changing journey which manifests itself in a deeper walk with God and a strengthening my spiritual growth. Mission trips also give me the opportunity to see God at work daily. That is not to say God if not working each and every day back here in our ordinarily lives but we often lose sight of this as we go about that life.

For this reason, I have often said that mission trips are a sabbatical from life. We leave the cares of everyday life, the distractions, and the day-to-day tasks, errands, and obligations for a week of focusing on God and His children. We develop Great Commission Eyes. We are shown the needs of people who are in hopeless situations. Watching the nightly news does not give us the same perspective as seeing first hand third world culture and its poverty. Upon returning from mission trips I have a deep appreciation of all the material things I posses. It is almost so overwhelming that many people wish they had less and could give more. Last night I had to go to the store to pick up laundry soap and some other items. Sixty dollars later as I walked out of the store I shook my head in amazement at how easy it was for me to 1) get to a store – quickly and conveniently 2) how absolutely blessed and thankful I am to have sixty dollars to spend, and 3) questioning whether or not everything I bought was an absolutely necessity! Other important aspects of a mission trip are the bonds formed with other team members, new friendships made and even the trials faced while on the trip. All serve to grow me as a Christian.

Unfortunately, unless we continue to serve others in our church or in our community, this life changing sensitivity usually fades over time. That’s why it’s always in the heart of a mission traveler to make repeated trips to keep life in perspective.

God loves to use experiences like mission trips to instill His heart in ours. So if you go with an open mind and prepare your heart before you go you will come back just a little more like Jesus -- I believe our team did just that!

PS My grandson, Sebastian went with us on this trip. What a privilege to see God use this young man and to observe his obedience to God’s call – no task was too great or too small for him – he carried out each with a servant’s heart…..Ruby

Give Sight To The Blind Man

Today was day 3 of our mission. Each day has seen an increase in the level of poverty experienced by our patients and gives us more motivation to provide the best level of help we can muster. I am the Optometrist providing eye care to the patients and it has been the most humbling experience of my life. I did not even know about this mission until about 6 weeks ago and it was a true blessing from God how I came about deciding to go. I had always thought that I would like to participate in going on a mission and helping people but always came up with excuses or reasons not to do it. Who would I even need to call, how would I go about it, could I take that much time out of my practice??? Then I would forget about it and return to my hectic schedule and resume my comfortable life.

Each year I attend a convention to obtain continuing education for my specialty and it is always in October. About three months ago I had decided that this year I was not going to go since I had enough hours and was going to go next year when it was in Puerto Rico. I left the time blocked off on my schedule and was debating on whether I would take a vacation or go ahead and book patients. Then about 2 months ago I met a woman who was going on this mission and I thought wow, that is just what I have been wanting to do and here is this RN who is paying her own way and using her vacation and taking this time off to go help these people. I went three days later and applied for my passport just in case and when I spoke with her again I asked what the dates were of the trip and I was amazed that it was the exact week I had blocked off on my schedule. It was like God was saying,”OK, so now what is your excuse”?

I put out the word to my colleagues that I was going and asked them to help me get some glasses and medications donated to take with me. I contacted the pharmaceutical company that supplies medication and was told I needed 6 weeks to get donations and with less than 3 weeks before we left I figured it was useless but I sent the request anyway. The day before I left a box arrived with over 500 bottles of medication and a note from the lady who runs the department saying she felt moved for some reason to put this request through. I received over 250 pair of glasses from various doctors and patients and have already given out most of the to the patients we have seen.

So here we are in the hot, humid, tropical Dominican Republic riding the bus down bumpy dirt roads to the most remote areas you can imagine and unloading the truckload of medical supplies into a small cramped hot school house. I am dripping with sweat before we even get started and the team is working like a well oiled machine getting set up so we can get started with the crowd that has already grown to over 150 people. They stand patiently in the hot sun waiting for their turn to come and see the missionaries that have come to their village. There is no pushing, shoving or disrespect as they move slowly through the process of triage and into the clinic. They have to make a decision to either see the medical staff for health problems or see the eye doctor since there is not enough time to see both unless there is an obvious emergency. The purpose of our mission is primarily to witness to them and spread the word of God and also provide medical care to them in the process. Kenneth preaches to them and our staff witnesses to then while they wait and part of what they receive are a bible and pamphlets that reinforce the message they heard while waiting.

When they get to my station many have waited 4 to 6 hours to see me and the majority of their complaints are that they cannot see to read. I measure their vision and quickly determine their prescription and select the proper glasses to correct their vision. When I gave them something to read so they could see how they worked the look on their face is worth all the discomfort and effort it took to get here. A huge smile appears as the see many for the first time, clear words on the page. Then they would set aside the reading chart and quickly open up the bible they had been given and they get so excited when they know that they will be able to go home and read all bout this amazing God they learned about. They grab my hand and thank me with such joy and walk proudly out the door with their new glasses and their head held high.

The word quickly spread and the afternoon usually has many more patients wanting glasses. I work as fast as I can to help as many of them as we can get to knowing that we will be going to a different village the next day and starting the process all over again. I am honored to be able to be a part of this amazing team and thank God for allowing the pieces to fall in place so I could experience this. My patients in my practice are usually happy with their new glasses but very few are as excited as the villagers I have seen here on this trip. I would encourage anyone who has thought of doing this and never done it to push past the obstacles and excuses and just find a way to do it. It will be a life changing experience.

Dr. Rob

Headaches and Heartbreak

Today was not an easy day. Being that this was only the second day of actual clinical work it sounds kind of wrong to say it was the hardest day so far. But it was, the hardest day of the trip so far.

I’m writing this after spending the entire day in triage. Triage being the entry point in to the clinic, everyone passes by me to get to the doctors. Meaning I am responsible for getting all of their information, brief medical history and whatever ailments they may have. The one thing that keeps popping up, HEADACHES. Everyone has a headache. For some its early in the day, for others its late in the evenings, for some its just a constant thing, for others its just from time to time. Regardless of age, sex or background everyone has a headache to start their list of things that hurt. If it were me, walking into triage right now, my list of things would start with heartbreak.

Today, my heart truly broke for these people. Easily over 200 people were seen by the medics on the trip with us. Poor Rob our eye doctor saw nearly 40 more patients than he is supposed to be able to see in a given day. Every time he tried to get up to take a 5 minute break someone would plop down in front of him and he would just smile and go back to work. Sherrie I learned was trained as a wound technician and helped to clear up a very, very, very gross looking wound in a woman’s arm and leg. Jennifer could best describe what the wound was like because I had to look away or I would be neck deep in a garbage can losing my lunch. As I looked around at all the faces of the people who came, the big, the small, the young and old, my heart just continued to break.

My heart snapped open when I saw the shear numbers of people who began to walk up. You could clearly see the need in their eyes and the hope they held for being seen by the medics. For some the hope was simple, a headache to clear up. For others it was more serious. My heart snapped again when the rains came and the people continued to wait, in anticipation of having a medical need met. My heart literally shattered open when I saw a woman walk up with only one ticket to be seen. The way the clinics work, its one ticket per person. She was clearly sick. She needed the medical attention. But her 7 year old son, was the one she wanted to be seen. I reached over and filled out a form for her as well and they were both seen at clinic today.

The medics we have on this trip are absolutely amazing. Going above and beyond the call of duty and being flexible enough to adjust based on the needs. Gods hand is easily evident in each member. We have natural born leaders, great listeners, hard workers, big picture thinkers and detail people. A few Type “A” people and a few people who just want to serve. Where I am weak, my triage partner Margaret is strong. It’s like we were all different pieces of a puzzle God finally placed together on this trip. Not only to fix these people’s temporary ailments, like the 200 plus headaches we saw, but also their eternal ailment by getting to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. The only one who can cure the heart, from the inside out.

Looking back on the day, it seemed like for every headache that walked in, my heart would break a little more. Not in pity for these people, but in hope. A hope that tomorrow when they wake up and feel no pain in their heads, or neck or wherever the pain was, they would remember the group of medics giving them the meds to make them feel well for today and telling them about the love of Jesus who can make them feel well for eternity.

Carlos

Dia Clinica -Guerra

We began our day with devotions and praise and worship. It mattered not a whit that only 4 people in the group had good singing voices and the rest of us couldn’t carry a tune -- we were loud and joyous. I think God was pleased.

Then we received a pleasant surprise, a co-worker and friend who I have not seen in years, came with us on our first day of clinic. He had mentioned prior to our arrival in the Dominican that he was joining us as business had him in the DR the same week we were to be here. However, I had not heard from him in the days leading up to our trip so did not think he was coming.

This surprise turned out to be blessing as we were a man down, his joining the team meant that we could utilize one of our team members in another area --God’s perfect timing!

We traveled over an hour and a half to a small one -room school house in a village that was in the middle of fields, in the region of Guerra. The one room meant that the care giver stations, eye clinic and pharmacy were in very tight quarters. Fortunately, triage could be set up outside under a small grove of shade trees. In spite of the small space, the flow from triage to pharmacy went amazingly well. The Dominican people we treated, the children we hugged and loved on, and the medicines given were as much a blessing for us as it was for them. To watch the joy on a young girl‘s face when she was fitted with glasses and could read from Dr. Rob‘s chart for the first time or to see Earl with five kids hanging from his every limb, laughing as though they were on a ride at Disney, and the quiet dignity of the old man who humbly told the doctor he was just a little dizzy (a blood pressure of 220/140) --all these vignettes of God‘s goodness were provided throughout the day. However the best part of the day was seeing how God took a group of mostly strangers and knit them in a cord of not fifteen individual strands but one cord bound together for one purpose in Christ Jesus.

And so it begins

Our journey began at 5:30 this morning when we all met at TIA, 15 members and 33 bags of meds and supplies. God was at work sending a angel in the guise of an American airlines employee, Youseff who looked the small mountain of duffel bags and asked with a twinkle in his eye, “how many in our party and where are you going?” I told him and he grinned and said bring me the tickets and everyone’s passport. He then proceeded to expedite our check in simply asking if the bags weighed 50 pounds each. I replied quite honestly we weighed them but some might be over-- he didn’t weigh any of them and only charged us for two of the three bags that we over our 2 bags per person limit! He told me his mother is Dominican and he goes twice a year with bags of clothing and supplies. He then gave me his email address and told us he would love to join our next mission team to the DR. What a great way to begin our trip -- seeing God at work at TIA.

After an uneventful flight to San Juan, a two hour lay-over then short fly to Santo Domingo we arrive at SCORE in Juan Dolio at 3:00. We spent a leisurely afternoon at evening at SCORE although many were eager to get started sorting and packing meds. However a much needed rest was needed by everyone so the team reluctantly agreed that the meds could wait until Sunday after church.

We will update again on Monday evening after our first day of clinic. Continue to pray for us!

Packing our bags and Preparing Our Hearts

We are counting down – in 4 days, six members of our small group embark on a medical mission trip to the Dominican Republic. We met last Saturday to pack 30 bags with medicines and supplies. God had his hand on us as we worked together for the first time as a team -- coming together for Him. Hopefully by Friday our personal bags will be packed and our hearts prepared!

Please pray for our team – pray that we will be supportive of each other and know that God is leading us as individuals and as a team. Pray for the hearts of the Dominican people to be open and receptive to Kenneth’s teaching and that God will open doors of opportunity for each of us to share the love of Christ and the message of salvation!