A Day for Encouragement

This morning started with devotions with Meg's clinic staff, after we shared a delicious, hearty breakfast! We loved getting to sit down with them and talk through Psalm 23, which went hand in hand with our team devotion from Job the night prior. Meg then gave us a tour of the medical clinic on her property, which is such a blessing to the surrounding community! The clinic staff were so gracious to sterilize surgical instruments for us while Matt took us to the rescue to work on surgeries and vaccinations for dogs at the rescue.

First thing, we had Angel and Javier there to help us get set up for the day. It took some time to unpack materials from packages we had shipped, the suitcases we had brought, and look through the supplies that they had there. We even had the excitement of a scorpion in some of the supplies that had been waiting for us! Once everything was set up, Katelyn quickly became the master of physical exams as we started to anesthetize patients for surgery. We were so grateful for the local team just one property down who were playing Christian music while they worked on a well project. We were originally a little sad that we had little interaction with people in the community, but we were reminded from our team training from "When Helping Hurts" that one of our most important jobs as a short-term team is to encourage those who will continue the work when we are gone. Today was the perfect day for that! We worked through all the surgeries that Matt needed done at the clinic, with just a handful of dogs left over that needed antibiotics for a few days prior to surgery. As the day went on, we were joined by Tori and Amanda who were fantastic help! Tori has been helping Matt for a while now, and Amanda runs her own animal rescue in the community. They did an amazing job of helping to recover the animals after surgery and helping us clean our instruments! Later in the day, we were joined by Jose who helped with clean-up and finishing up some instruments needing to be cleaned. Today went so smoothly, because of all the hands that helped!

The last surgical patient of the day stumped us a little bit as she was missing an ovary, had a kidney the size of a pea, and a half developed reproductive tract. Even in the difficult surgery, we could see God at work as the whole team worked together, each playing their part to keep the patient safe. She woke up very well and went home with Matt for the night for him to monitor. We then finished cleaning up and headed back to Megs, where we were met with a prepared traditional Nicaraguan dish which hit the spot! The team then laid out surgical instruments to dry and ended the night with a devotion from Katelyn on abiding in Christ. This was an excellent reminder that apart from Him our works mean nothing. Our fruits (joy, love, patience, and kindness) flow naturally when we are abiding in Christ.

Tomorrow morning, we will go back to La Champa to pick up dogs for surgery and give antibiotics to those that need them for the local endemic tick disease. We are excited to go back to this village and help to get their animals taken care of! Please be praying for smooth surgeries and a good day of fellowship with the community!