Hundreds of women, small children and older men wait in the
line that forms down the hot, dusty street.
Some have been there for more than an hour. They will remain
in the line for up to six hours as the tropic sun turns hotter and hotter. Infants
cry. Children grow restless and play. No one complains.
Hundreds of women, small children and older men wait in the
line that forms down the hot, dusty street.
Some have been there for more than an hour. They will remain
in the line for up to six hours as the tropic sun turns hotter and hotter. Infants
cry. Children grow restless and play. No one complains.
The small, people-packed bus pulls up and scrubs-clad people
begin filing out at the edge of the line. Looking at the crowd, the medical
personnel know it is going to be a hectic, hot, hard day.
When the workday is over six hours later, they will have diagnosed,
treated and given medicine to 595 patients and given them a chance to accept
Jesus Christ as savior. In addition to countless routine cases, they will deal
with at least two medical emergencies. No one complains.
Doctors, nurses, pharmacists and their assistants have come
to Maracaibo, Venezuela from Louisiana, Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee,
Texas and Cuba.
That is right. For the first time since Fidel Castro took power
in Cuba, a team of Cuban Baptist medical personnel has been allowed to join
a Christian medical crusade outside of that island nation.
At the close of the day, the host Venezuelan church Eglesia
Bautista Fuente De Arom and medical team gather for worship. One of the Cuban
doctors tells the others: “Thank God for the Baptists in the United States
who made this possible. To see the opportunities of serving God as we have today
where the people are. I am filled with joy. This has surpassed our expectations.
I would not trade the 13 years I have been practicing for what I experienced
today.”
What he and other volunteers experienced was working in makeshift
conditions, struggling with the three languages used by patients and medics,
having very little equipment, no x-ray machine, no laboratory, inadequate lighting
and no air conditioning in the metal-roofed, uninsulated buildings.
The medical team that includes four fourth-year medical students
active in the Baptist Collegiate Ministries of Louisiana State University in
Shreveport and their director Charles Walker have gathered in this unlikely
place on the edge of Maracaibo.
Maracaibo is a sprawling city of 2.4 million to 3 million people
on the northern edge of South America. While Venezuela is the fourth-largest
oil exporting nation in the world, the nation and Maracaibo still have significant
poverty.
Other places would have been far more accessible and convenient
for the gathering, but these workers are here because of the needs of the people
– medical and spiritual.
The medical team arrives after a 30-minute trip from the heart
of the city where they are staying. After a “warm-up time” and prayer,
they disperse throughout the church buildings. Some will see medical patients;
others will do dentistry; others will check eyes and issue used eyewear; others
will immunize children and adults.
Before the clinics can get underway, someone brings a man carrying
a tiny infant into the churchs fenced compound. Two physicians made cursory
examinations and do what they can with their limited medicine and facilities.
They know immediately the malnourished, dehydrated baby must be hospitalized
and receive emergency treatment quickly or die. They make arrangements to have
the infant rushed to the public hospital back in the heart of the city.
What follows would look like chaos to one who wandered into
the compound. In fact, it is a well-organized, efficient process.
The process begins when the “next person” in the long line of patients
is brought into the registration table where receptionists put the patients
name and other vital information on an all-important “paper.”
The patient goes into the churchs worship center that
has been converted into a waiting room, triage center, treatment room and doctors
offices.
Next, a triage team hears the patients explain their ailments
and writes them on the form. The patient speaks in Spanish, which a translator
relates in English to the American worker. That is the easy scenario, but the
process is often complicated.
A large number of Guajiro natives or Indians live in this community.
Many of them speak only their native language, so someone who speaks Guajiro
listens to the patients ailments, then translates them in Spanish to another
translator, who then translates that message into English for the person doing
the actual triage.
The patient, along with the ever-important paper and a translator
when necessary, are taken to the physician in a cubicle formed by various kinds
of castoff curtains hung from wires strung across the worship center. The American
physicians, except for one who is proficient in Spanish, work through translators.
The physician determines the patients illness and prescribes medicine.
Next, most patients take the prescription to the pharmacy building
and give it to a receptionist. The patient then sits in an outside waiting room
until the team inside fills the prescription. The wait may be an hour or more.
The medicines either have been donated or purchased at about one-tenth of wholesale
value. They are dispensed in plastic sandwich bags or plastic bottles and given
without charge to the patients.
Under the direction of a pharmacist, most of the medications
dispensed are for infections, diarrhea, colds and coughs, stomach ailments and
worms – pinworms, hookworms and tapeworms.
On those rare occasions when patients need immediate care,
they are taken to a treatment room and helped.
While patients are treated in the worship center, an eye clinic
checks the vision of others. The examinations would not pass muster in the United
States, but among people who need corrective eyewear and have no way to get
any, they are the first steps to being able to see more clearly than the people
have for years – or maybe ever.
If the volunteers determine a patient needs eyewear, they help
the patient find a pair of used, donated glasses among the hundreds of pairs
on hand. Medical students in Louisiana have determined the prescriptions of
the glasses and labeled them accordingly, so the search is greatly narrowed.
Eventually, the patient declares a find and leaves smiling broadly with previously-owned
eyewear perched on his or her nose.
Meanwhile, in a well-equipped “van” sitting in the
middle of the street outside the churchs compound, a Cuban dentist fills
and pulls teeth at an amazing pace. She treats 57 patients on this day.
During the long waiting periods, the people who have come for
the care of their bodies receive counseling on the care of their souls. Under
the compounds trees, a group of chairs has a sign in Spanish above them
– “Spiritual triage.”
After determining the spiritual needs of the patients, counselors
with Bibles and other literature move from person to person, quietly counseling
them on how Jesus Christ can meet their needs.
During the two-day clinic at this church, almost 100 people
make first-time professions of faith. The sponsoring church has only 35 members.
The medical volunteers and their assistants pay their own expenses
to this isolated city. They come for payment that cannot be measured in dollars
and cents. They come for the boundless rewards of helping needy people and hearing,
“Gracias, gracias,” from the humble people as they leave the various
rooms.
Julio C. Paz Paz, a physician who works with the Southern Baptist
International Mission Board sponsored and coordinated Fundabrez Clinica Bautista,
expressed his appreciation to Walker. Walker enlisted the team, located or obtained
most of the medicine and coordinated the trip. He is the Baptist Campus Ministries
director at Louisiana State University Health Center in Shreveport and other
campuses in that city.
After telling Walker how much he appreciates all the work that
was done that day, Paz Paz kisses Walker on the shoulder, hugs him and tearfully
walks to care for his next patient.
Later, during the celebration worship, on the final chorus,
Paz Paz, who was leading the worship, urges, “Everyone join hands and raise
them high.”
Those who do not speak Spanish do not understand the words
of the chorus, but they feel the spirit. As the spirit of love, accomplishment
and Gods presence fill hearts, tears course down the cheeks of Jeanine
Moses of Anniston, Ala.
A small Venezuelan girl stands beside her. When she sees Moses
tears, she releases her hand and tenderly wipes away the tears. Then, she tenderly
takes Moses hand again.
Moses and that young girl likely never will meet again this
side of heaven, but they are even less likely to ever forget one another and
all they represent.
Love never dies.