Our long awaited container of medical equipment for the completion of the O.R./Recovery ward arrived during the first week of March – right in the middle of our medical team from Bay Community Church! The team was such a big help in getting all of the equipment up the mountain, some of it was very sensitive and some of it was extremely HEAVY equipment – like over 2,000 pounds kind of heavy! It took a lot of team work to get it all from the container in La Ceiba into the smaller box trucks and from the trucks up the mountain to Rio Viejo, then to get it all into the hospital. Miracles abounded that day!
At the same time, we also hosted a team of five guys from Atlanta, led by Brian Spencer of Life Church International. These guys came for one thing and one thing only: the installation of the air-conditioning units for the Labor & Delivery ward, the O.R., and the Recovery ward. Three separate a/c units, three big projects, five guys, five days to install and one GIANT problem. The container was stuck at port waiting for the proper paperwork. We prayed and called and emailed, and prayed some more, and finally on the very last day, God moved and the container was released! We canceled the medical brigade scheduled for that day and sat in La Ceiba with all the men from the team waiting and waiting, AND waiting for the container to arrive. Six hours later it finally made it! Brian Spencer quickly got his A/C components and headed up the mountain! He arrived at 4pm with his team of five, and the women from the Bay medical team. They quickly began putting together duct work and installing the A/C units since Brian and his team of five had a plane to catch at 6 a.m. the next morning!
Meanwhile, Dr. Martin and the men from the Bay medical team were in the city loading the remainder of the equipment into two moving trucks and the jungle bus to bring it up the mountain! The Bay team and the “Five Guys” as we began calling them, worked through the night on the installation, and the system was about 90% complete by departure time. Much to their dismay we were not able to crank the units and feel the cool air spilling into the back of the hospital before they had to leave.
Thank God the story doesn’t end there!
The following week, we just so happened to have an A/C guy visiting! Tony & Kelly Austin, who are on the board of directors for Healing Hands Global, were coming to assist a small team of medical equipment installation experts who were to arrive later in the week. But guess what the ever-flexible Tony did? He finished the A/C project, and the guys who came to install the medical equipment were able to work in an air-conditioned hospital! Tony’s wife, Kelly, painted some beautiful murals in the Labor & Delivery Ward, thus completing all of the rooms she had begun as far back as 2010. And the team of medical installation guys, led by Vim X Head (who also gathered all of the medical equipment and shipped the container to Honduras!), was on hand to watch it all come together.
If you read our blogs, you will remember that Vim and Jordan made a trip to the Jungle Hospital in April of 2014 to asses our needs, make a list, and begin gathering the needed equipment to make our O.R./Recovery Ward a reality. And they did just that. We now have O.R. lights, a working scrub sink, an autoclave, a mini C-arm for digital x-rays, a tower for laparoscopic surgeries, anesthesia machines, suction machines, shelving, etc., etc., etc. It’s all here! Soon we will have everything in place, and we will begin the process of government certification. Soon thereafter we will host our very first surgical team, and we will be delivering our very first babies. It’s all coming together. In God’s timing. And we are just standing back amazed, and watching it all happen.
Thank you Vim & Jordon, Tony & Kelly, Brian & the “Five Guys”and the Bay Medical Team. You were awesome. Thank you for allowing God to use you in such a mighty way. We appreciate all of your work and sacrifice so very much!