Wednesday, June 30, 2010

We were up before sunrise for morning devotion and prayer. This was the best way to start the day! God always provided a word of encouragement or a challenge that stayed in my mind the whole day. After devotional time and exercise we had breakfast and got ready for the day. Erin, Daniel, and I were going to the clinic with Dr. Tim to assist the nurses. There is one doctor for the entire island of Chilubi and he was taking a few days off because he was sick. Two nurses were responsible for keeping the clinic in Muchinshi open and they saw about 50 patients on an average day.

We arrived at the clinic at 9:00am; there were already about thirty patients waiting to be seen. Erin and I triaged and took vital signs on the patients in the waiting area until noon. We saw about fifty people. During the morning a critically ill child was brought to the clinic. She had severe anemia, dehydration, hypothermia, and possibly sepsis. Dr. Tim took over her care since the Island physician was unavailable. He ended up transferring with the child to Santa Maria, the main hospital on Chilubi, in the afternoon. Erin, Daniel, and I stayed at the clinic doing what we could to help the nurses there.

Around 4:00pm we returned to the house for lunch. The group members were making preparation for the health fair to continue and asked me to stand in for Dr. Tim. Nurses in rural Zambia routinely diagnose patients and prescribe medication so the IMPACT team thought that I was prepared to do that as well. I explained my scope of practice and that I was not comfortable acting as a physician so we ended up canceling the health fair scheduled for that afternoon. I wish I had been more prepared to meet the medical needs of the community.

The children were waiting for us, so we hurried to the crusade site to sing, teach Bible verses, and tell stories. I told the children the stories from Daniel chapters 1-2 and Chama translated for me. There were more children than the previous night, I did not count but I would estimate about 50 were there. Chama, Erin, and I were asked to sing a “special song” for the crusade so we sang “What a Friend we have in Jesus.” Erin and I sat with the children on the ground and just before the sermon the children started to scatter and scream. I turned to see what was causing the commotion; a plump toad was hopping towards me. I grabbed it and handed it to Chama before it could cause further disturbance. The children and I enjoyed a hearty laugh and then turned our attention to the sermon about the signs of Christ’s return. After the sermon more children asked me to pray for them. I was exhausted when I crawled into my sleeping bag that night.