Medical Mission Work in San Luis, Honduras

Hola! ¿Cómo estás?

I recently returned from a 7 day medical mission trip to San Luis, Honduras where I had the amazing opportunity to join with Christ Health Clinic and HeartFire Missions to bring medical care to multiple villages. Our group served over 551 patients with 175 individuals saved in Christ! 

Our first day in the country we drove 3 hours on a bumpy dirt road to our new home for the week, a compound built by our host family who has served as missionaries in the country for 20+ years. They help run the local clinic which serves the city of San Luis and all the surrounding villages. The clinic was under renovations so we didn’t get to see it in operation, but we got a tour of the building and it was impressive to see the level of care they were going to be able to offer the people.

The next day we enjoyed service at the local church where we sang and praised the Lord in Spanish! I was able to help with the translation of the sermon for some people in the group. It was so rewarding to see how much the congregation loved God. They were all so kind and helped find us some hymnals so we could join them in praising God! Later, we compiled “care packages” to give to the patients that we would be seeing. Each person received a 30 day supply of Tylenol, multivitamins, Tums, two doses of an antiparasitic and a hygiene kit. I helped count and package the Tylenol into Ziploc bags – I have never seen so many bottles of Tylenol in my life! That evening we enjoyed another sermon on the story of Jonah and got to bed early to prepare for our first clinic day!

We spent the next 5 days providing medical care for the surrounding villages. Every day we converted a local school into a medical clinic by setting up tables and chairs for a provider area and the pharmacy as well. We had one attending physician, one sports medicine physician, three residents, one med student and two Physician Assistant (PA) students. As a PA student I was able to volunteer with the other providers and operate in the same way I would on any other rotation! I would gather the history on the patient’s complaints, perform a problem-focused physical exam and present my assessment and plan to the attending physician. This was the first time I felt like I was truly operating as my own provider and it really served as a great confidence boost for me. I also was able to communicate directly with the patients in Spanish and I could tell that it made such a difference for them to get medical care in their own language. 

The most meaningful experience I had was with a stone mason who came in with a history of intense neck pain. Every day he would carry heavy loads of rocks from the quarry into the trucks that would ship them out the next day. When I assessed the muscles in his neck they were so tight and painful. It was restricing his range of motion and ability to sleep at night. Thankfully I had multiple providers with me that could give this man exactly what he needed to improve his pain. The sports medicine doctor performed dry needling and one of the residents, who was training to be an OMD, gave him a massage as well. He was so gracious for our help and thanked us a dozen times for our service. As we were cleaning up clinic he found me again and pressed a small bag of green seeds into my hand. He grabbed both of my hands and with moist eyes told me how grateful he was for the gift we had given him today. He said that there was no way he would be able to repay us but he wanted to give us a gift in return. He had gathered up some cardamom seeds that his family grew and insisted that I take them home. Then he prayed with me asking God to bless our hands and watch over us as we continued to serve in his community. I felt the love of God so strongly in that moment it moved me to tears. I will never forget the tender humility of that man and the words he spoke to me that day. 

I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to go on this medical mission trip. It truly was life changing and deepened my love for God and medicine so much. Thank you SWMCF for supporting me and making it possible for me to participate in this incredible experience!!

¡Que Dios le bendiga!

Cacia Billings