The Ministry Week in Eloxochitlan (part two)

In yesterday's post, I shared a little bit about where we served during our mission trip: Eloxochitlan, Mexico.  The purpose of the trip was to conduct a four day medical clinic.  The "medical" members of the team were two doctors from Oaxaca city, Dr. Milton and Dr. Ita; a physical therapist, Dr. Sue; a dentist, Dr. Dave; translators in Janet and Gabriel; support staff with medical experience in Connie and another Janet; Joe the photographer (who took the images I'm using in these blog entries); Dave Miller, the head of AIL; and lastly my family.  Nicole and I don't have any medical experience, so we were loosely labeled as support, but were probably more comic relief for the rest of the team and the people of Eloxochitlan who came to the clinic as one of us chased Kimi around while the other manned the pharmacy. Here's a picture from Joe Ramirez of the team.

From left to right: Dave Miller, Dr. Milton, Dr. Ita, Dr. Dave Daughters, Pastor Chable,
Janet, Dr. Sue, Janet the translator, Nicole, Gabriel, Connie - Kimi and I were taking a nap

The work the medical team did were amazing. Doctors Milton and Ita dealt with patients who had never had any viable form of medical care. It must have been tough, dealing with long term issues knowing that with proper treatment many of those issues could be resolved... but not being able to provide such treatment.  Add to that the scarce resources in terms of medicine, it must have been discouraging... but they both didn't show it at all. A small humorous detail... initially, at least while I was manning the pharmacy, the patients would come out with their neatly written prescriptions only to find out that I didn't know what medicine they were prescribed, and no way of telling them that since I don't speak Spanish. Luckily for me, many of them didn't speak Spanish either, as they spoke their native Zapotec or Masotec. After a while, Milton realized that there was something amiss with the communication and ended up coming out himself to look at the available medicine and then explaining it to the patients himself, or with the help of Gabriel, who spoke Zapotec and Masotec.  
One of the sobering aspects of the clinic was the prevalence of malnutrition among the people of Eloxochitlan. In yesterday's entry I noted that many people in Eloxochitlan live in extreme poverty (less than $2 a day). What I failed to mention was that Eloxochitlan is one of the poorest towns in the state of Oaxaca, the second poorest state in Mexico. While manning the pharmacy the first day, I noticed that basic multivitamins, fiber, and medicine for various stomach ailments were being prescribed for almost everyone... so much so that we ran out of multivitamins the first day. Dave Miller commented how those medicines were a sign of malnutrition, and that the incidents of malnutrition were the worst at Eloxochitlan out of all the clinics he's conducted throughout Mexico.  It was disheartening. We made several trips to pharmacies in other towns and bought as much of the medicine as we could, but we still ran out so we had to cut our four day clinic short by a day.
On a lighter note, here are pictures of me trying my best and of Dr. Milton coming out and taking care of business himself!

Dr. Dave was the dentist, and he commented that many of the patients he saw at the clinic had never been to a dentist before... so the work he needed to do were not the cleanings that he is accustomed to in the States, but rather extractions of abscessed teeth, decayed teeth, etc. While working the pharmacy, I had the opportunity to see/ try to communicate with many of the people that saw Dr. Dave as they needed pain medicine post-extraction... and sometimes I wondered how Dr. Dave decided which tooth he decided to pull... like he seriously had his pick of all the teeth in the person's mouth.  It was much the same with Dr. Sue and her physical therapy work. There was so much need and not enough hands/ time/ equipment, but all of the doctors did their best and left a tremendous impact with the people of Eloxochitlan.

So what did Kimi do? She played with the kids from the town.  But she also looked to help out. In the afternoon of the first day, she got hungry and wanted some of her snacks that we brought from home... but then she noticed that there were a lot of kids waiting with their parents without any snacks.  When I asked if she wanted to share, she said yes and actually volunteered to give away all the snacks that we had brought... it ended up being her ministry during the clinic, and she did great. The trip was tough on her, but seeing her give her snacks away was one of those snapshots we get sometimes to remind us that we aren't total failures as parents. For us, maybe all the lessons we've been trying to teach Kimi just might be taking root in her soul... or at least it felt like that!

One last note... I would be remiss if I didn't mention how great it was to be a part of the team that Dave Miller put together. For the entire trip, Kimi didn't just have two parents looking after her, she had a group. Dave, Dentist Dave, Joe, Gabriel, Milton, David,and Chable were all her uncles that week. The Janets, Sue, Connie, Ellisa, and Estella were her Aunties. Their helpfulness in looking after Kimi played a large role in the positive experience the trip was for not only Kimi but for Nicole and I too. Thanks everyone!

In part three which is coming tomorrow, I'll be sharing a bit more of the odds and ends of the trip.  What we did during our free time in Eloxochitlan, as well as delving more into the challenges ahead in doing ministry there.  Thanks for reading!