“How are you guys doing down there?” It is a question we get asked about 5 times a day right now via email, FB, or Whatsapp. We are so grateful for all of the concern that has been lovingly expressed. The operative word for us has been “prepare!” and now the operative word is “wait!” ….. and so, we wait. We’ve prepared as wisely as we felt we could for an outbreak that may or may not come to visit us here at Loma de Luz. We hadn’t really thought that much about outbreaks heretofore and so we had to think hard and fast about how we could reconfigure some outdoor areas and outlying rooms (rooms that are physically separate from the hospital) to utilize for a Covid-19 triage and treatment patient flow. We are fortunate to work with the most amazing team here at Loma de Luz and this was truly the body being the body and working together despite different perspectives on how to interpret sparse and often misleading data and trying to extrapolate some kind of meaningful scenario for how a Covid-19 outbreak might show up here and how we might best be able to treat patients with our very limited resources. Please read this blog for more on how the hospital triage and treatment plan for Covid-19 patient came together. My role was to help implement the various areas that are now designated for Covid triage and treatment and to help think and work through staging equipment and resources in those newly designated area. I have also been working to secure supplies both here in country as well as in the US and arrange for a medical supply flight through Harvest Aviation. Now, like a military unit that has prepared for an attack of unknown size and strength, we wait. Please join us in praying that the patients that need to get to the hospital can do so under the current government-imposed curfew.
March was a blur! Like most of us, I am sitting here looking at the date (April 3rd) and just shaking my head. Marinajo and I thought everything was normal the first week in March. We were celebrating having survived a very difficult season and we were celebrating answered prayers and now, three weeks later, very little seems normal. We were looking forward to an April 15th trip to the US to visit a few churches and see Mariah and Nate and Ben in Nashville and now those plans (like all of yours, I’m sure) are on hold. OK, we will rest in the uncertainty of it all. We know that God is in control. We are trusting Christ and knowing that his plan is always for our best (eternally speaking) and yet we really identify with this quote from CS Lewis: “We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.” No matter how painful, we join with Paul in saying, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). So will you join us in trusting Christ for our country, both the USA and for Honduras? Let us trust him for our families, and let us trust him for the finances of so many who have been impacted financially. Will you also join us in trusting Christ for the health and care of those we serve here at Loma de Luz? We have yet to see very many cases here in this area and we are praying that perhaps the worst of this pandemic will “pass by” during this passover season. We pray that it will be so.
April is always a month of beautiful sunsets here due to the agricultural burning done here during this season. So, we will share some pictures with you below of our work and preparation, but also of our beautiful sunsets so that you may rest with us in the knowledge that all will be well in God’s perfect timing.
Official Government Communicado relating to Covid-19. 
Preparing isolation rooms 
Mr Mike installs hand washing stations all over the hospital. Notice the soap on a rope! 
Portable x-ray in the isolation area for chest x-rays 
Protective equipment before entering isolation area 
Training employees on new protocols. Notice the spacing. 
500 gallons of bleach! 
Separate screening area for those who arrive with symptoms 
Donations from the USA 
Loading out the Harvest Aviation supply flight! 
Shopping for air movers to create negative pressure treatment spaces 
Meeting with local health officials outside and at a distance 
Isolation triage area, bleach, hand gel, and a radio 
Casa Santuario kids getting in on packing food bags for local needy families 
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
For I am sure that neither death nor life….will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
