The past few weeks have been quite busy and eventful to the Glory of God!!!
Two weeks ago we welcomed Dr. David Moon, an Optician, and his
assistant, Jennifer Rodli to the Eyeglass Clinic at Loma de Luz. Their first morning I joined them at El Camino Bilingual School, a ministry of Loma de Luz, to give visual screening to the entire student population of 120 students. We really enjoyed having just that little bit of involvement with the students. I am happy to say that our student’s eye health is great!
We then headed to the Eye Clinic to get organized, take care of a few patients as well as get Dr. Dave and Jen oriented to the system. As Dave and Jen began to unpack it was like Christmas for me. They had collected over
50 pairs of prescription eyeglass donations, glasses cases, and brand-new reading glasses! They also blessed us with new repair parts and adjusting tools. Throughout the week Dr. Moon took the time to teach me how to adjust and repair donated glasses. This team was able to screen over 60 patients for vision needs, cataracts, pterygiums, diabetic retinopathy, and glaucoma. They placed many patients in donated glasses as well.
They were joined by Dr. Dave’s wife Elaina, who is a nutritionist. She spoke one on one with the diabetic patients that came to both the Eye Clinic and the hospital clinic throughout the week. She also gave classes at the school and children’s center and helped out in the Eyeglass Clinic when needed. I am thankful for all of the help that our patients received through Dr. Moon and Jen. Thanks guys!
But wait – that’s not all! Three weeks ago, a major project that Dave has been working on was installed at Loma de Luz! The Flux Capacitor – no that’s not really what it’s called – the Voltage Protection System for Critical Loads maintains stable voltage to the Oxygen Distribution System allowing uninterrupted O2 delivery to our patients and to the OR as well as stable electricity to the C-Arm during surgery.
Regarding the C-Arm…this piece of equipment has become invaluable to our surgeons. The C-arm provides on the spot images during orthopedic cases, allowing for precise placement of rods, plates, and screws. The C-arm has been seemingly dying a slow death, but fear not! Through some wonderfully God guided connections Dave was able to locate an in-country Bio-tech, Julio, who has vast knowledge of our machine. Just last weekend Julio came from San Pedro Sula to work on the C-arm. He was able to find the problem which was making the C-arm shut down and put a strong band-aid process in effect until he returns in a few weeks with the full repair. We are thanking God for his grace and mercy in directing us to Julio.
Speaking of God guided connections; We have a young man who is an inpatient in the hospital, who, 
after receiving sub-poor (not even sub-standard, but sub-poor) care in the public health system, is severely malnourished. Long story short, he is unable to absorb any nutrition and therefore cannot heal. After weeks of concentrated care, he was still not healing. What this patient needed was a very specialized nutrition supplement called Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN). TPN is available at a high cost in the U.S. and we had never had prior need to investigate if it was available in Honduras. At Dr. Alexander’s request to look into it, Dave called a MaryAnne, a Pharmacist in La Ceiba who has recently started helping us at Loma de Luz and has already blessed us with her knowledge and connections several times. She knew about a group in San Pedro Sula that was creating TPN and got us in touch with them. Within days this seemingly small connection has proven to be a miracle of hope and healing for this young man. In the words of the physician who has been taking care of him, Dr. Alexander, “Another small miracle is that we are able to get him a very complex and advanced form of nutrition called TPN, it is given by a large IV in his jugular vein. It comes from a city 6 hours away and takes a lot of work to get and is costly, but we are able to get it to him 4 days a week, which means four days of complete nutrition, every week. This is helping with his wound healing immensely and he is starting to gain weight! So with the prayers of many and some hard work, let’s rejoice together the he is slowly heading the right direction…Keep Praying!”
One more amazing connection happened recently. Many of you may have read about the premature baby that was delivered at Loma de Luz last week. The mother has been a local patient here at LDL who has been treated for Sickle Cell Anemia since childhood. This condition makes pregnancy very risky for both the mother and the baby. It had come to the point that the baby needed to be delivered via C-section, but it was too risky without specialized blood for the mother. Long story short…through many “God made connections” with the Red Cross in Tegucigalpa, pharmacists, doctors, and the local Red Cross President – overcoming big odds – two units of the specialized blood were found and flown to La Ceiba where Dave met the local Red Cross Rep and received the blood. Within hours the blood was available for the patient to receive the urgent C-section**.
These connections and the ones mentioned above will be invaluable in the months to come as the Lord continues to see fit to expand our patient care at Loma de Luz. One of the benefits that we are seeing as we enter into our 10th year here at Loma de Luz is that the longer we are here, the more the Lord uses the connections that He’s given us to be able to vector in more help here. As we continue to grow and serve more and more patients, we know that this need for additional resources will keep coming up again and again.
**We are saddened to report that the baby born to the mother with Sickle Cell Anemia passed away shortly after birth. We know that this little boy is now safe in the arms of Jesus.
