Mustard Seed & Hog Roast

Wow!  So much to write about!  We had a team of medical students here volunteering for part of the week in the clinics.  We were able to see around 500 patients in 3 days.  So cool to see so many people being treated for so many things in such a short amount of time.  One of the patients was a 3 month old little boy who born 2 months premature.  His urethra is coming out the bottom of his pe-pe.  He will require surgery by an urologist.  The boy’s father did not have the money for the surgery or even a consultation with the specialist, so Chuck is paying for the medical care and gave the father a job working at MJ to pay off part of the cost.  We have a new member of the team!  Enok is a haitan, speaks great English, and seems to fit right in with the rest of the guys!  So awesome to be working for such a caring Man.  Chuck and Candy have been so wonderful to me!  (More on that later!)

One day while the students were here, Candy and I got to go with four of them to Mustard Seed Orphanage.  This is an orphanage that specializes in children with disabilities, mostly Cerebral Palsy.  I don’t even know where to start telling you about this experience.  As most of you know I spent a lot of time when I was growing up at Opportunity Village as both my parents worked there and and then I worked there through much of high school and college.  So I was thrilled to be able to join the team at Mustard Seed.  The Children were absolutely beautiful.  Every one of them were very clean and well taken care of which was great to see!  I was so worried on the way there that a third facility like this in a third world country would be absolutely pitiful!  But it was a wonderful place.  Each child got was evaluated and treated for anything they needed.  We left quite a few antibiotics for the kids, for upper respiratory crud, and a few creams for skin rashes.  One little boy needed the most medical care.  He was a thumb sucker and had sucked his thumb so much that it was raw.  He had rubbed it clear down to the muscle.  He also had a large soar on his leg from a fall and a small amount of skin break down on his back as the poor boy could hardly move from his CP.

Part of the evaluation for the kids included examining their teeth and triaging who needed to be seen by our dental team the following Saturday.  We booked appointments for five of the kids to come see the dentist that next weekend.  Obviously I was sad to leave the kiddos, but looked forward to seeing some of them on Saturday Clinic.

The last day that the doctors were here, Friday, we had a hog roast.  Yes, full blown pig laid out on the BBQ, head and all.  Don’t get me wrong the pork at the end of the day was wonderful, but I sure had a hard time getting the raw, slaughtered pig image out of my head.  Chuck made baked beans and cole slaw.  He mixed up some Rum Punch and bought one drink for every one of us staff.  Sure was aa fun afternoon.