Life and Adventures on Mission Trips

Chapter 5 In Brazil My older son, Clyde is a general surgeon. One time he and I were on the same medical mission trip to Brazil, and were at a river town in the Amazon River valley. One evening, after holding clinic all day for the hundreds of people who came to see the different doctors, we were at evangelistic services. A lady came running up to our meeting and said that a woman was trying to have a baby, but she was having trouble and needed help. Where is the doctor? The leader of our group called my son and told him the story, so my son and I followed the woman to the woman’s home. Sure enough, the baby was breached inside the woman and could not come out. Clyde reached in and turned the baby and soon the baby’s head appeared and he was born. The mother was so appreciative of what my son had done for her, that she asked, “what is your first name?” When he said “Clyde”, she smiled. “I’m going to name my son after you” she said, “you saved my life and my son’s life.” So the baby was named Clyde Rodriquez in honor of Clyde. I took several pictures of the baby, the baby and the mother, and of Clyde and the baby. Clyde has often said that he would like to go back to that town and see if his little name sake is still living. In many of these very poor areas, many of the children die before they reach the age of 2 or 3, because of disease, fevers, drinking contaminated water, malnutrition, lack of money to buy medicine, etc. Chapter 3 in Venezuela When we arrived each morning at the church where Spencer would be conducting eye exams in Venezuela, there were MANY people sitting on chairs awaiting our arrival, all smiles when they saw us, anticipating receiving the gift of better vision. Spencer patiently examined each patient, first with an ophthalmoscope for disease, then using the “E” chart to estimate what their correct Rx was , and then trying on different glasses (each marked with the prescription) until the correct lenses were found. Of course Ann was a huge help since she was by his side translating. When the correct glasses were found, Ann handed the glasses to me. I removed the markings, slipped them into an eveglass case, and handed them to the patient.--and I got the “BESCOS” (kisses). What a joy it was to see these people, so loving and so appreciative. I remember the case of a 13-year-old boy whose vision was so bad that none of the glasses we had would help him. Spencer accompanied him into town for a doctors appointment who could provide the help he needed. Spencer personally paid for the cost of this visit. Chapter 14 in India Growing up in the Midwest,, I could never understand the David and Bathsheba story in the Bible, where David looked out across the rooftops. All I was used to in the Midwest, were steep roofs on buildings, that had an angled pitch to drain off the rain and for the snow to slide off of. Then when I went to India, one evening we were invited to a dinner on our host’s rooftop, and that story suddenly came to life before my eyes. Many of the homes are long narrow buildings with a staircase going up to the flat roof above. One day our medical team was invited, after the clinic day, to go to the home of one of the church members and eat the evening meal with his family. When we arrived, we were ushered up the stairs to a nice open air space on the spacious rooftop. From there you could see the surrounding neighbors preparing their meals, see children playing, women weaving, and doing other kinds of work. On the rooftop there was a refreshing cool breeze. Our host’s brother was one of the co-hosts for our dinner. The next building over was his 2-story home with a staircase leading up to that rooftop. Since that was his brothers home, our group was invited to walk over to his home and climb the steps to see better. From the top of this taller building we could see even more rooftops of the surrounding homes. We could see at least a football field’s length away, (three hundred feet) or more. Now it is easy for us to vividly visualize what David could have seen that fateful night in his life when he could not sleep. We can now understand how it could have happened. Looking around later on, we saw that people on his 2-story home next door, were watching us also, probably out of curiosity and wishing that they could eat some of our dinner. We were watching them, and they were watching us. Chapter 7 in Chile All of our team were hosted by different Chilean families. My host family consisted of a husband , wife and their 15 year old son. I only had one problem. I did not speak Spanish, they did not speak English. Their son was smart. He went to a computer store and bought an English-Spanish program. He would type in a question in Spanish, touch a button, and it would translate and print in English. I would read the question, type in my answer and touch a button, and it would translate and print in Spanish for him. We spent a lot of time going back and forth with questions and laughing at some of the answers. One day I was scheduled to speak at a meeting in the seaport city of Valparaiso, some 50-60 miles away. Their son went along. Probably he was sent so that I did not get lost. I was very thankful to have him along. We went over and back with no problems. Their food was excellent and their hospitality was more than I could have expected. **