Smiles

Today was a trip to Hospital Escuela. I am first to admit that things do not always go as planned. That is called...life. As far as I know, that is life not just here, but worldwide. 

Today ended up being a case in point, at least for me.

We were trying out the ambulance style Land Cruiser today taking the group to the hospital, with Jana driving the white Ford, as Oscar was to go to Talanga to try to work on the camera system there. Upon leaving the mission house coming down the hill...smoke started slowly, then not so slowly coming out of the dash in different points. I casually explained to the occupants in the vehicle with me that it was time to disembark. After some confusion...they got out. Oscar turned around, found some wiring issues, electrical tape was applied...and away we went. We dubbed the Land Cruiser from that point on the “Fire Truck.”

 

 

While the group was helping with the milk project, I took off to do some important errands. First up was to check with the department of commerce and industry about an import permit for bringing down more donated corn from Indiana for distribution. I got a very good parking space...a la Clark Griswald at Wally World. I knew that was not a good sign. Turns out, there was some kind of toxin in the building earlier in the day, the fire department came, and everyone was sent home for the day. How did I find this out? Well, one poor guy was left to watch their garage, and he was happy to see anyone. He gave me phone numbers, and even the website for me to try to find out more before returning.

 

 

I went from there to bid on an auction vehicle (unfortunately...still no word on the auction for which we have been much longer waiting.) I found a place to park a block away, and as I turned the corner...found a small protest and lots of riot gear police, which is always a way to make a boring errand more interesting! In Honduras there is nothing like a good protest to unite everyone, and I rapidly found friendly suggestions how to get to where I wanted to go despite the blockades....and was routed through someone’s house/small store to an alley, and right to where I needed to be.   I asked the waiting police if that was where the party was, and proceeded about my errand.

 

 

Back to earlier in the day though found me meeting quite a few kids and getting to share time with them, even making everyone of them laugh quite a bit. That felt good. It did not feel so good to have a few people try to take advantage of us, but that again is life sometimes....it is important to remember not to let that sully our remembrances of the good from what we are doing. Someone called out to me, so I just turned and saw...José. Ah, it was good to see him...but bad to see him. José is one of those kids we get to know in the hospital, and that means bad news for them. He has been in the hospital for over seven months. He lost his leg in a bus accident (lost brakes, hit a dump truck) but is always smiling when I see him. We chatted a bit, he said that if his skin graft takes...he might get to go home next week (pray that actually happens...hope is scarce in the hospital.)

 

 

But the real reason he called me over was that there was another boy in a smaller room (where he was for a few months) that was out in surgery...and he wanted to see if we could leave something for him. He told me his name (Christian) that he was in bed #30 and that he was going through some of the same stuff (skin graft) that José had already done.

 

 

Crap happens. Some people focus on that and sink into it. And some people are like José.

 

 

I’ll remember how fun it was to drive the Fire Truck the rest of the day, how cool it was to get to meet the garage attendant, and chatting with other pedestrians on the street looking for that short cut , and how encouraging José was to me by just wanting to chat and at the same time look out for Christian. The problems are always there, and more often than not I seem to not have answers/solutions...but if you take the time to look, there are greater things around the corner...not always immediately, and sometimes not for us to see...but no matter what we know that....

 

 

I John 4:4 “...He who is in you is greater than He who is in the world”