His Hands and Feet

Our missions yesterday and today lasted and eternity. We are beat beyond belief, but blogging our adventure anyway. We have only had a few hours of sleep in the past couple of days and I'm surprised our new guest Caitlin hasn't gotten on the first flight home from this crazy place. So, here it goes...

We were eating breakfast yesterday morning when all of a sudden Priscilla saw Octavio in their front yard. Octavio was our night guard/friend and he disappeared one day which made us very sad! We bought him a new pair of Nike's but couldn't give them to him since we had no way of contacting him. When Priscilla saw him outside of the window she screamed and ran out to hug him. He got fired from his job here for some supposed fishy reason. We gave him his shoes and he was very grateful. It was so nice to see his face light up! Our shoe mission is complete.

In the afternoon we headed for the hospitals to take care of the babies for a second time. Priscilla dropped Delanie off at the first hospital to take care of Leoito and Jelka. Caitlin and Priscilla drove to the second hospital (called Mascota) to take care of Ofelia. The three of us had the night shift from 6:30 p.m. (Thursday) to 9:00 a.m. (Friday). It's definitely a rough shift but we all survived.

Delanie was responsible for the primary care of Jelka and Leoito who both have pneumonia. Leoito would scream whenever he saw a doctor and Jelka was fussy, but a bit calmer. Leoito needed to use a nebulizer mask but was very resistant. Charity believes that he didn't like the mask in his face because it brought back memories of his step father drowning him in the river. Leoito is facing post traumatic stress disorder. Please pray for his recovery as well as Jelka's. Delanie ended up sleeping for about and hour on the tile floor of the hospital room. Getting peed on by Leoito did not make things easier but she continued to nurture him throughout the night. She was challenged with her stay at the hospital, but was very happy to be there with Jelka and Leoito. Her motherly instincts definitely kicked in.

Priscilla and Caitlin were in charge of Ofelia. Ofelia is weak, malnourished, closed off, and depressed. She was brutally abused and is now trying to fight pneumonia and has been for the last couple of weeks. She is four years old and weighs an astonishing 12 pounds. She does not make eye contact or interact much. She can't walk, talk, or feed herself. We spent the night taking care of her every need. The other baby sharing the room cried for about 10 out of the 12 hours we were there. Sleeping was not an option, especially when you need to be alert when the doctors come in, and when the other babies in the ward sound like wild animals at the zoo that will not stop crying. We slept for about an hour on the dirty tile floor on top of a sheet. It was tough. The icing on the cake was when Ofelia peed all over Priscilla in the morning when a bath was attempted in a 6 inch wide sink.

Phew, I told you it was intense, and it doesn't even end there! We came home from the hospital around 10:00 a.m. this morning and got ready to take Caitlin to Masatepe to have her interview with the principal at the school she will be teaching at for the next month. Priscilla did the translating and introduced her to the teachers/staff at El Centro De Fe, Esperanza, Y Amor. We talked to the teachers for quite a while and must have sounded so unstable and crazy after the night we went through. Caitlin received materials with the curriculum she will be teaching and plans on studying them this weekend. She is excited for her job opportunity and so are all of the wonderful teachers at the church/school. She will start to teach this Monday. Please pray for her and her calling to be here!

After driving home for 45 minutes from Masatepe (which was probably so foolish on an hour of sleep) we came home feeling drained. But do you think that stopped us? No. We worked out for about 20 minutes, ate, and took showers. It was only after this that we finally fell asleep. This was a very busy week, to say the least, but this is why we are here. Our missions in the last couple of days were a challenge and we saw God stretching and growing us. God is good and provided all the strength and energy needed. We feel honored to have been His hands and feet.

I am today what yesterday has made me; tomorrow I shall be changed by today's experiences.

xoxo

Priscilla and Delanie