A Date is Set!!

This week I met wit Mark Berry (my team leader) and Pastor Adrian Fernandez (Peru pastor we work with) in order to set a date for training to begin for our health promoters. FEBRUARY 24th at 4pm the intro/orientation class begins, and from there we will either space the training out for a few weeks, or make a weekend training seminar out of it. I have been and will continue to work on those training materials. I am excited to have this date and get started in the biggest part of my ministry here! All prayers are needed and welcome with much gratitude!!!!

Elizabeth- Part 2..... Health Ministry with a Saw

Last night I had the opportunity to visit Elizabeth once again in her home. The pastors wife Reyna and my friend Lucia accompanied me. I was very pleased with her progress in these past 2 weeks. I had found out too that I was misinformed originally about the vehicle that hit her, it was actually an oil truck that had been parked on an incline, and the brakes went out, with no driver in the driver's seat. And so she was hit.

Anyways, good news is that the driver responsible for the truck is covering her medical bills for another clinic instead of the "sorry" hospital that she was going to. She is getting better care there. Some other semi-good news is that her husband who abandoned her and the kids last year, has shown up a bit, and is assisting a bit, giving her a wheelchair. So she has that to help. (He also played her part in getting her pregnant before the accident, yet continues to claim that the marriage is over and that he does not want to reconcile..... please add this situation to your prayers for her.)

Ok, so last night's visit. Like I said, I was very pleased with her progress in the past few weeks. Last night, I observed how she had been transfering herself from the bed to the chair, and from the chair to the bathroom. I was pleased with how she was doing it. I instructed her on some exercises to do in bed as well as in the chair. She had been in bed these past few weeks, and so I also instructed her to start getting up to the chair at least 3 times a day, and gave her some exercises to do as well. She was quite eager to do them, and had a great attitude about it. She has a partial cast so that her wounds from the accident can heal better. I took a look at those wounds, and they seem to be healing really well too.

What encouraged me most, was her outlook on everything:

- "I may not be able to get to church right now, but I know that God is right here with me, and He encourages me everyday."

- "In the taxi on the way to the hospital, the taxi driver told me that I should convert to catholicism because all these bad things happen to me. I told him that I was not going to, that it is Satan who is doing these things to me, that the Lord is saving me. The Lord didn't take my life from that truck, He saved me from what could have happened."

- "Sure, I'd like to be working, but the Lord has it right now for me to be here healing, and it gives me more time with Him."

It was such a sweet visit. The Peru twist in the story, is giving her crutches. I was able to purchase some aluminum crutches to donate to the Huaycan church for times such as these, but the vender only had one size. (One size fits all doesn't work well for the smaller framed Indian population..... I would estimate that she is maybe 4'8). The vender told us that if we did need to make it smaller, we could measure it and cut it with a saw. So that is what we did. We got her up, measured her with the crutches and the right height (it was already on its lowest setting). Some neighbors let us borrow a saw, and Reyna and I stepped out of the house and sawed her crutches at the marked point. It was definetly the first time I've ever used a saw for anything in health care!

Thank you for your prayers for her. Please keep them coming!

Elizabeth

This blog I am posting most for prayer, for a woman named Elizabeth. She is the mother of 5, 2 of which are in the diaconal feeding project in Huaycan (Marcos and Daniel... if you remember my post on them). As for many impovershed families in Peru, jobs are hard to come by, and after her husband abandoned her and the kids, she has been looking hard for a job to provide for her family. She finally got a job, which she was to start this past Wednesday, however, this past Monday, she was hit by a "combi" or public transportation van, leaving her with a broken leg in several places. She was taken to Bravo Chico hospital (the same hospital that I went to last year with the man who fell off the roof.... in other words a sorry hospital that doesn't care much at all.)

On Wednesday I was in Huaycan for their VBS to do my health charla for the kids at the VBS (toothcare). Pastor Adrian Fernandez (the national pastor we work with) told me of her situation, and asked if I would go visit her with him and his wife after the VBS. And we did.

Upon walking into the humble brick home, she was in the little den, on top of a mattress, with blended wool and alpaca blankets serving as pillows behind her back. (It is summer here, and quite hot.... that will get uncomfortable soon). The only light in that room, where six to eight of us sat around the mattress, was coming from another room. There was no light where she was. We all talked for a bit, and then I started asking her different things regarding her pain, and anything the hospital might have informed her of for care at home.

She was told nothing of her care, other than she had an appointment with the doctor a few days later.

Her leg was unelevated and also uninformed of changing positions in bed to avoid getting bedsores. The educator/nurse in me kicked in, and I explained the importance of that. Her oldest daughter Miriam was there, and so I was able to show her, together with her the proper way to turn her mother (without the luxury of drawsheets). I also explained how to put her on a bed pan (in this case a shallow bowl).

Some of this stuff was so basic for me as a nurse, and I am so glad that I could use something that, on any other day, I might take for granted. It may not be much, but God-willing it will save her from having horrible bedsores, in a very unclean environment, for her lengthy time in bed.

After we all talked for a while, we prayed with Elizabeth and her family, which is always the best thing, and for me a special thing, in a home visit. She did loose her job, but I am so encouraged how the church is coming around her and her family at this time. The churches in Huaycan and Santa Anita are taking up a special collection for her and her family.

Please pray for this sweet sister in Christ and her family in this hard time. Thank you.