Students for International Mission Service (SIMS)

In July and December of 2001, SIMS sponsored two mission trips to Pan American Health Service (PAHS), a nutrition rehabilitation hospital, and home for children suffering from malnutrition. Hunger and malnutrition remain the most devastating problems worldwide—particularly facing the world’s underprivileged and poor. In Honduras, a land of verdant fields of sugarcane, bananas, plantains, and corn, it is unfathomable to think that malnutrition affects most of the indigenous population under the age of 14. PAHS, a ray of hope, serves as a haven for many of those children.

The following articles are from SIMS volunteers who participated in the Honduras mission trips.

honduras
...........Shelia Hsu
...........sophomore
...........School of Medicine

Honduras is a country of stark contrasts. Lush green fields lie next to dry dusty roads. Rocky mountain paths snake past brightly flowered meadows. The richness of the soil belies the poverty of its anguished inhabitants. Otherwise, it would make for a charming, idyllic existence. Especially at Pan American Health Service, a nutrition hospital clinic—a haven, really, for children who are malnourished or sick. Some are orphans, others are neglected, still others have parents who weep when separated from them and visit every week. The compound itself is an arboreal dream—acres of grass and thriving trees, huge swaths of bright flowers, rows of banana trees intermingle with palm trees, dotting the green landscape. But the most beautiful, vibrant sight of all are the children. The healthy ones are bright and eager with friendliness.

They squirm onto our laps, cling tightly to my neck, insist on being kissed, carried, swung around and around, chortling with giggles. Their little fingers, laced with dirt and food, clutch mine. Their sticky little feet rest on our bare toes. They beam when they are held. So hungry for attention, they hang onto whatever limb they can find. We have to bodily shake them off to finally leave the room. The sicker ones are not so enthusiastic. Barely able to walk or sit up, one little boy stares at me with big, listless brown eyes, before flickering his gaze downward. His name is Luis—he’s three years old and weighs 16 pounds.

There are some newborns in the United States that are bigger than him. Some children are so weak they have to be pulled in a little red wagon to the kitchen for meals, unable to walk the 30 feet by themselves. You can tell the [children] with serious starvation. Either bony or pale from marasmus or edematous with orange-tinged hair from protein deficiency. It’s so sad.

We are a close-knit little group, eight students with a lone brave doctor at the helm, facing the crowds. For the locals know we’re here. There hasn’t been a doctor in town for months, at least one who offers health care for free. And for most, free is all they can afford. The people are tired, but they get to the clinic early and wait for hours. Dark, deeply lined faces and tired eyes greet us, some tentative smiles, mostly curious. We are strange looking, after all, in our sterile scrubs, our lighter skin, and shiny, official looking stethoscopes. They want to tell us their ailments; their words pour out in torrents. They continue speaking in Spanish, gesturing for emphasis, even though they’ve all been told we don’t speak Spanish. So we learn to nod and listen and smile when it seems right. At appropriate breaks in the flow, I run to get a dictionary, a translator, or the doctor, who is fluent. More explaining, more gesturing, their faces alight when he asks the right questions.

Then off to the pharmacy for some relief, mostly donated medicines we lugged from the United States. Lots of aspirin for pain, mebendazole for parasites, vitamins for everyone, yes please—all the mothers and grandmothers insist on them.

The tired, the weary continue to pour in. Some have traveled all day to get here, in hopes of some relief. But it’s already crowded, and we’re exhausted by midmorning. They are rife with edema, cough and malnutrition, worms, and asthma. Kwashiorkor, migraines, even mitral stenosis. And always starvation.

Such is the lot of the wretched and poor in many countries, Honduras is no exception. As is also common, many of the girls get pregnant as teens, accepting children as a gift from God. Sometimes the men stay, mostly they don’t. With them, poverty is as familiar as the alcoholism that helps drive it. Uncomplaining, the women rear the children, usually four, five, and even 10.

Any kind of birth control, especially tubal ligations, isn’t real popular there—vasectomies even less so. So the hunger, the burdens, the hopelessness remains. Except at Pan American Health Service. Here, the children are fed, bathed, kept warm on stormy nights, sung to and played with. On sunny days, they sit outside on a huge tire, merrily dangling their legs into the middle, waving at those passing by. The compound has five puppies, kittens, and even a baby goat for all the children to run around with. They romp in the fields, pick wildflowers, and sing loudly with great abandon. Happily, some of the veterans who came in as skeletal and neglected as Luis, become stronger, energetic, and downright chubby.

Amazing what a few good meals can do.

honduras
..........Chris Burton
..........sophomore
..........School of Medicine

One ear hears the cries of sickness and pain, The other only the laughter of children at play; One morning finds sunken eyes and hollow faces, The other shy smiles and rosy red cheeks; One arm cradles a boy who just lost a sister, The other holds a peacefully sleeping child; One eye sees the newcomer, lonely and scared, The other a large and diverse family bound together; One heart sinks when realizing how little it can do, The other leaps for joy to see what God has done; A paradox, this place, a lesson in contrast— Growth, experience, memories...a calling.

[Outlook 2002]

[SIMS homepage]