Day 5 - Matta Clinic

Monday, March 18, 2013
We awoke with the sun around 645 and got ready for our first clinic in Matta.  The air was cooler from the rain that had fallen all night.  Our breakfast always consisted of rolls and eggs.  We also had coffee/tea and some used honey or peanut butter.  Leigh did a devotional on Abraham and reviewed the verses:  Gen 12:1-4, Gal 3:7-14, Matt 28:19-20, Gen 22: 16-18 and Romans 15:22-29.  She talked about belief, obedience and blessing.  We also enjoyed some worship time under the mango tree - which will be the topic of another blog post.
Each day the men would take our clinic bags full of supplies and medicines to the village ahead of us and then come back and get us because otherwise we wouldn't all fit.  It was about 30 minutes to Matta.  Everyone said how friendly of a village they were and that was so true.  They greeted us with smiles and singing!  They are the poorest village we saw, so they only had 1 "building" - which was the church.  We set up triage under the mango trees, vision outside with the eye chart propped on the land cruiser and physician/pharmacy in the church.  Everyday, John (our team evangelist) and Paul (the archbishop of the WHOLE world) would start with a greeting, etc. John would speak several phrases in Moru - which the people always chuckled at.  He would share that we come in Jesus' name, share John 3:16 and open in prayer.  Paul would lead everyone in a few songs that always had many hand motions.  This was especially popular with the kids.  Jefferies would explain the clinic flow and we would get to work.  We saw 140 people in Matta.  They sang and danced all day for us.  We saw many cases of Malaria today.  Sahyna and I had a good system set up in the pharmacy and we worked very well together.  Jessica Giadrosich handled the registration.  Debby, Jack, Leslie and Laura did triage.  Dr. Brobst, Emily and Lauren were the practitioners with Shayna and I in the pharmacy taking their orders.  Leigh and Wendy served as our pharmacy teachers and worked with interpreters to explain to the people how to take the medicine.  Patirck floated around and helped everyone.  He made sure we were all well taken care of by ensuring we were drinking enough water and eating and taking breaks.  Everyone looked out for each other wich was such a blessing and enabled us to serve as a team better. 
After we finished clinic, the people served us food - it was about 430 and we weren't really hungry because we had eaten Clif bars and crackers all day.  But we didn't want to be rude and they were so willing to give it to us, even though they had so little.  We ate the rice, beans and bread, but were told not to eat the hard boiled eggs or fresh honey. Our helpers patiently waited for us to eat and then they ate the leftovers. On our way back to Buagyi, Paul sang songs the whole way - his favorites are "Jesus number one" and " Araboya (thankyou) Jesus.". When we got back to the compound, we sat under the mango tree & reviewed our day & how to make clinic run even better the next day. We also had our rice & beans dinner
Some of us girls did not want to venture into the lovely showers, so we took turns washing each others hair outside- which was quite refreshing. We were all thankful for a great 1st day of clinic. Everyone worked so well together - we have a great team!