A Lap Full of Opportunities

During their 18 years in Honduras, Allen, Russell, and Trish have learned to be flexible. Their prayer is for God to use them; so when opportunities to serve arise, they aren’t likely to say, “Sorry, God. That’s not in our mission statement!” Sowers4Pastors is NOT a medical mission, but sometime opportunities to serve people with medical needs fall in their laps. Quite frankly, their laps are getting a little full of opportunities! Oh, they’re not complaining, mind you. They’re excited to be a part of these Medical Mercy Projects, and they’d love for you to be a part of them, too.

The cost for a basic surgery in the U.S. is roughly 52 bazillion dollars, give or take a zillion! In contrast, the cost for medical procedures in Honduras seems ridiculously low to North Americans. But, for Hondurans, who are often trying to support a family on under $1000 year, medical bills in the hundreds might as well be in the zillions. It’s a universal truth that you can’t pay what you don’t have.

Because of relationships built at sponsorship centers and feeding centers, Sowers4Pastors is learning of more and more children with medical needs. They anticipate that those numbers will continue to increase. At the sponsorship centers, in particular, there is a lot of chance to communicate back and forth with people. Each child is photographed. Their files are regularly updated. Visiting teams come down and spend time with the kids. Some of the people in those communities are so poor, and so unused to medical care, that it doesn’t even occur to them that some of the medical issues can be corrected. Sometimes it takes sponsors saying that a condition can be fixed to make people aware of the possibility.

Some of those needs are very basic. Often, it is a child who needs eyeglasses. (As someone who can’t read the big “E” on the eye chart without corrective lenses, I am of the firm belief that eyeglasses should not be considered a luxury item!) Sometimes a child needs surgery to correct a lazy eye. More than a few children already have cataracts, due to young lifetimes spent in the Central American sun, with the dust of dry seasons, and with the smoke of cooking over a fire in a home with no chimney. You may remember the girl who was in need of cataract surgery before it was (to quote the pastors of my youth) “everlasting too late!” There is a window of opportunity with cataract surgery. After that window has closed, sight cannot be restored.

Hector, who serves as a translator for Sowers4Pastors, as well as for other ministries, is a minister in his own right. When money for a procedure is raised, he often takes the family to another part of the country, where a missionary surgeon is coming in for a week. He translates for an eye clinic, and is able to take people for treatment when the right surgeon is there. After the procedure, he accompanies the family back home. Generally, the cost for these medical trips is little more than the travel expenses!

Most recently, Hector accompanied a boy to the hospital, who had a large tumor removed from his forehead. The tumor was actually the result of scar tissue from an old wound. A biopsy revealed it was benign.

At one of the sponsorship centers, there is a little girl who needs to have a foot amputated and then be fitted for a prosthesis. Another child needs surgery for hip dysplasia. She is in tremendous pain and is only able to walk on tiptoe.

Currently Sowers4Pastors is able to help nine or ten cases each year by taking funds from their general operating budget. That’s good, but it’s not ideal. In order to help more people, and on a more timely basis, funds will need to be raised specifically for this purpose. As in the rest of the world, when someone is given an estimated cost for medical care, the actual cost has a tendency to grow. There’s always an extra test, another checkup to see the doctor, etc... Supporters will say, “I heard about this child. You said it would cost $300 to help them. Here’s $300.” But then the cost will climb by a couple of hundred dollars and Sowers4Pastors picks up that extra cost. As Trish said, “We’re not going to leave it half done!” As this happens more often, it will be challenging - if not impossible - for the general funds to cover these expenses.

If you'd like to be a part of helping these children, by resolving some serious - but fixable - medical problems, a donation category has been added to the website, for this purpose. Here's the link to the Sowers4Pastors donation page. Just choose "Medical Mercy Projects" as your donation category, when you give toward this need.

Thanks so much for partnering with Sowers4Pastors, in their work in the mountains of Western Honduras!

 - posted by Christi