Thoughts from Honduras

Semana Santa, or “Holy Week” in Honduras, is much different than we are accustomed to in North America for the week before Easter. Semana Santa in Honduras, in one way, is like our Christmas or Thanksgiving. It is the time of year for family to be “home for the holidays” and to travel “over the rivers and through the rain forest”. Hondurans from around the country and the US return home in droves. Although the whole week is festive, Thursday and Friday are national holidays, creating a 4-day weekend. The peak of the festivities occurs on “Good Friday”. Unlike our Christmas, Semana Santa occurs during a hot time of year, so rather than celebrating in warm cozy homes, the beach becomes “the place to be”, adding a 4 th of July -like quality to the holiday. Preparations for the celebration actually begin early in the week. Celebrants cut palm branches and construct crude shelters on the beach to provide shade. More elaborate structures are built by vendors who will sell food and alcohol on...

People often ask, “What is missionary life like? What is a normal day for you?”   There is no such thing as a “normal” day! It is kind of like a television medical drama. People used to ask me if life in the hospital was really like the television program “ER”. I never even once watched “ER”, but from the accounts I heard, one episode may have represented in one hour the events that may have transpired in reality over two or three months, compressed into a short period of time. But who would really want to watch the boring routine of one day’s events? Occasionally a day may contain a cluster of events that produces a “very busy” day So, this is kind of like “ER” giving you a glimpse into missionary life. This just so happens to represent a true, exceptionally busy day in the life of a missionary doctor. The backdrop was a warm day just at the end of rainy season. Several new missionary families had just joined us, but were not yet settled in and oriented enough to enter fully into ...

I am pretty adaptable, never really suffering from homesickness, being content to be wherever I am. But occasionally I have a twinge of momentary melancholy that is usually triggered visually, but sometimes by a sound, a smell, a taste, or a thought. It is at times very powerful, causing a turn of the stomach, a surge of emotions. For example, last fall as we were eating at the mall in La Ceiba, we noticed a Big Ten football game on the TV screen. We live in a land of eternal summer where the climate changes little, and it is easy to forget the time of year. Seeing the football game brought a flood of thoughts that rushed through my mind in a matter of a couple of seconds. It began with thoughts of fall colors, falling leaves, burning leaves, frost, blue sky, Ohio State football and our years in Columbus, our church there, friends, the struggle of surgical residency, then a jump to high school football and marching band, the sounds and smells of a Friday night game, pep rallies, friends...

As visitors and fellow missionaries view our hospital building, surrounding property and structures, they frequently remark, “God is blessing!” Certainly, God is blessing, for He has promised to work all things for the good of those who love Him. But do we measure that blessing by the wrong standard? When my car breaks down, the roof leaks, the bridge washes out, my mother is diagnosed with cancer; is God blessing? Who would respond to these things with “What a blessing!”? Well certainly God is blessing Bill Gates! He blessed Bill Clinton! What a “blessing” (?) it is so be counted among the richest or most powerful in the world. Wouldn’t we say that a religious leader who represents our point of view, has gained world attention, is rallying countless people to his cause, but in the process is also being persecuted, is being blessed of God? How about Osama bin Laden? We measure blessing based on the externals, the visible, and often misconstrue human success as “God’s blessing”. Even as...

      By Abbie Drozek, age 11 y/o   There is a great big problem in our home. There are creatures popping up from places unknown.   Lots of different kinds of critters scurrying around, On the ceilings, and the counters, on the walls, and on the ground. There are cockroaches, centipedes, even a snake! Ants in the sink, for goodness sake!   Yes ,There is a great big problem in our home, For there are creatures popping up from places unknown.   A few weeks ago there was a larger problem. There was an anteater in our tree; all black and golden. It's tail was like a monkey's and it smelled like a skunk. But when we had come back from swimming, away it had slunk.   There are also lots of little crabs that scurry here and there. They are light brown and tan, and haven't any hair.   Yes, there's a great big problem in our home, There are creatures popping up from places unknown.   Last week the exterminator came and sprayed around; In the yard,...

How much would you spend to find out if your daughter’s injury was fatal or could be corrected?     $200? How much would you spend for surgery to correct a life-threatening problem? $2000?     How about if you could possibly afford $200, but not $2000?     To spend $200 to find out that your daughter needed surgery that you couldn’t afford, or that she had a fatal injury anyway would just frustrate you and put you in debt.     To put it into perspective for a North American, maybe the figures of a $100,000 and $1,000,000 would be more comparable.   Two Saturdays ago, we had big plans to work around the house.  It was a sunny day, in the 70’s, clear blue sky.  Becky was making bagels to give out as Christmas gifts.  I was emptying the bodega (storage shed) for a much needed cleaning and sorting.  Then our plans changed drastically.  The doorbell rang.   It was a messenger looking for our e...

It is so close that we can taste, touch, smell, see and hear it!     The front half of our hospital is almost complete!     It is hard to be patient!     I want to move in right now!   We “tasted” it on Thanksgiving Day when 45 North American missionaries celebrated a traditional Thanksgiving meal in the lobby.     We can touch the counters, doors, windows etc, and feel the reality of them.    We can smell the newness, the fresh paint, the cut wood, the glue for the flooring and baseboard, the dust from construction, and the wax for the floors.    We can see the walls and rooms, and imagine them completed with shelving and furniture and full of patients and staff.     And we can hear the sounds of the workers running the buffer and the saw, moving things, and their joyful voices as they see the job almost complete, a dream almost fulfilled.  They were here when this was nothing more than an ov...

What does God think about a human clone?     How does He see him?     Is the clone a being that bears the image of God?     Does it have a sin nature and a spirit that requires salvation?    On the answers to these question hinges our response.   What is the purpose of human cloning?  It appears to me that there are no good reasons to do so.  It circumvents the usual means of producing a human being that God has established.  It fulfills the selfish desires of individuals to have “organ banks” of compatible tissue for future use.  It lets scientists feel like they are gods.   Let’s for a moment assume that cloned human beings are not human; they merely represent an off growth of the donor, a cell that has been induced to reproduce into an identical image, an identical twin, removed in time.  How shall we treat this being?  If it is to be saved for organ donation, we certainly do...

As you are probably aware, we are nearing completion of the construction of the hospital, a project that began almost 10 years ago.  We hope to occupy and use the front half of the hospital as a clinic and outpatient surgery facility in the next couple of months.  We plan 2 more teams the beginning of December to complete any construction needs and to help us move!   In January, we will have 5 permanent missionary doctors; 2 family docs, 1 pediatrician, and two surgeons.  We hope to expand our clinic services to 5 days a week, and surgery to 4-5 days.  It will probably be at least another 2 years before we become a "hospital" with regular in-patients.   The week after Thanksgiving, the Cornerstone board will be traveling to Honduras to meet with all the missionaries.  It will be a time to give thanks and to discuss the transition from the construction mode, to increasing focus on patient care.   We have been busy, not only...

I have a new perspective on patients.     This week I have spent hours at the bedside of my mother in Emory Hospital in Atlanta.     She just had surgery for pancreatic cancer. I know too much!  For a general surgeon, there are few diagnosis that are so difficult to treat and have such a dismal prognosis.  When I first received the news of her diagnosis, found during what was supposed to be an operation for a benign process, my heart sank.  My earliest childhood memory, burned forever into my mind at age three, was the image of red and blue tubes protruding from the abdomen of my mom’s father after his operation for pancreatic cancer.  He died shortly thereafter.   When I first heard about Mom’s symptoms in April, my surgeon’s training said, “rule out pancreatic cancer!”  As her workup continued, the tests were negative for pancreatic cancer, but my suspicion was still there, as it was for the doctors involved in...

When a stone is thrown into a pond, it generates a series of ripples that spread out, causing everything in the pond to undulate.     A big stone causes a large change. A pebble only alters its environment a little.     But everything in the pond is changed to some degree. Recently we hosted a team from our hometown in Ohio.  The ripple effect was obvious.  As my family had been caught up into the ripples of Honduras in 1996, so have many of my friends, and many folks I had never met before.  Each of us has magnified the effect of the original ripples, influencing others with our enthusiasm for God’s work in Honduras.  The effect continues on.  None of us will ever be the same again.  Those within our sphere of influence will likewise be affected as we share our experiences with them.  Possibly they will be caught up in the ripples, to make their own ripples, and to change others in the process....