I’ve been back in San Pedro now for almost a month, so I figured I should give a little update! Despite the inevitable bumps along the road that life always brings, the year is off to a great start for CURE Honduras.

A visit home

I got back on January 4th from the being in the US for Christmas and New Years. The break was just beautiful and relaxing in almost every way. I got to ride my horse (and my sister’s), and I got my fill of nieces and nephews (Well I’m not sure if it’s possible to ever get my fill, but at least I got to spend time with them and see all of them growing so big and preciously as they are). I could go into so much detail about a fun-filled two weeks at home with family and dear friends, but I will just say it’s just what I needed — to spend time with some of the people closest to me.

CURE

The first couple of days back at the hospital were exciting, for one, just to see everyone again, and two, because we had a lot of new patients coming in. We love seeing returning patients and seeing their progress, and it’s great to also see our numbers growing and more new kids coming in!

It is super exciting to see the CUREkids program continue to grow and to see more and more kids’ surgeries being funded. Seeing people really desiring to reach out and help others with what God has given them is very inspiring.

Translating in clinic for Dr. Jay continues to be fun, and there is normally always something to laugh about afterwards. There are the occasional stressful moments when I can’t for the life of me communicate a word. Recently it was “MRI,” and Jozzeth (x-ray technician who speaks a lot of English) wasn’t understanding me either. Finally, Dr. Jay just wrote the prescription for it and told the patient’s parents which hospital and doctor they needed to see for this. After clinic, Jozzeth asked me to explain it to him again, and when I wrote it out and said, “See, M-R-I,” the light bulb lit up! He thought I was saying MRI as one word, like “emarreye.” Ok… finally got that one figured out. Learning new things every day!

Last week we had one of our clubfoot patients come back, walking almost completely normally! It’s been a long and sometimes very painful journey for Gerardo, making many trips here, but he is nearly DONE, and it’s awesome to see the change in his life and how going through all that treatment was SO worth it!!!

Gerardo, day 1

Gerardo, day 134

One of our missionary friends here, Tara, and her husband, Jorge, have a ministry called Reach Out Orphanage Ministries. Dr. Pauline (a pediatrician who is also Dr. Jay’s wife) went with Tara last week to one of the orphanages that they work with which has special needs children. We hope to be able to bring some of the kids who need treatment to CURE, and this new prospect of working with more orphanages in our area to help the poorest of Hondurans is very exciting. We appreciate your prayers as this unfolds! This weekend, possibly after church, we hope to visit the orphanage again (and bring a pediatric neurologist who is visiting) and make some progress determining which children we will be able to help. It’s very exciting for me personally to see CURE connecting more and more with orphan care!