Return to Triumph

“I could never claim that I know what it’s like to miraculously heal someone with mud and spit,” Dr. Rabins told me, “but when I see their faces when they finally see clearly, maybe for the first time in their lives, I get a glimpse of how Jesus must have felt.”

We returned to El Triunfo (“the Triumph”) with a medical brigade from Colorado Springs. Together, we were two general doctors from El Salvador, a pediatrician, an optometrist, a nurse, an EMT, and an assistant from Colorado springs, and three other ENLACE staff (that’s me). We spent the week in a 5-spider hotel, which was actually a house that someone generously rented to us for the week. There is not electricity or running water in El Triunfo, so we showered outside behind a black plastic barrier with buckets of cold water, and we used a latrine that we could reach by slipping and sliding our way down the muddy hill behind the house.

The week was incredible! Within minutes of our arrival, we were attending a church service in which the congregation prayed over the entire medical team. Then we converted the small one-room church into a clinic and pharmacy by using bamboo and bedsheets to create separate rooms for the doctors. I spent my week helping the optometrist. I learned how to conduct auto-refractions with the doctor’s fancy machine which can scan an eye and spit out data like magic. It was fun to look through the machine at each eye, waiting for the beeps to tell me that it had something useful to say. Dr. Rabins, the optometrist, was generous enough to teach me as we worked. He even helped me to make a list of eyeball vocabulary so I could remember all the new words.

The important part of my job was to translate for the patients and the doctor. It was a joy to listen to each of the patients tell me stories about their eyes or their lives, or why they think they might not be able to see very well. “You see, this one time...” they would tell me. “That has nothing to do with their vision,” the doctor would reply in a dry manner, and I would giggle. “I know.”

Together, we saw over 360 patients in three and a half days! We helped the majority of the eye patients by giving prescription glasses and eyedrops. I watched as face after face lit up when they told me, “Yes, yes, it’s clear now!” I even came to understand what Dr. Rabins had said at the beginning of the week. Seeing their faces was like seeing a miracle. I love thinking of Jesus, reaching out to touch and heal His people, and us, 2000 years later continuing the movement that He started, in His church, touching and healing the people who do not have access to care. 

Unfortunately, apart from the droves of people who received glasses or drops that served as a “healing” of sorts, there were many others. Sometimes we prayed with those we could not help.

For instance, I had to tell two men that they will never see out of their scarred eyes. I had to tell a 16 year old that she has a rare condition called Colobome, which means that one of her eyes never formed properly and she will never be able to use it. I told a pretty teenage girl named Vanessa that we could not help because she didn’t get glasses when she was young enough for her brain to interpret the sensation of light.  I told the same thing to a woman with albino features and to another girl my age who both have Nystagmus, a constant involuntary movement of the eye. I also told several older men and woman that they have cataracts, and we can give them reading glasses, but their vision will always remain cloudy.

In the most extreme cases, I told an 8 year old girl with beautiful curly hair and a wonderfully serene 70 year old man that they will never see anything. They are blind. The girl had been born with dense cataracts that could have been removed shortly after birth, but weren’t. The man lost one eye in the recent civil war, and the other could only recognize changes in light. He came to us to find out if there was a chance that he would ever see again. I looked into his face, although I know he couldn’t see, and I told the dignified older gentleman that with the medicine have on this earth, we cannot help. If it is God’s will that he be miraculously healed, he will. If not, the first thing he will see when he opens his eyes will be heaven, and that we will see each other there. ...I don’t know why I said that. It just escaped from my lips before I had time to think about it. But I have to believe that there is a reason I met this man, there is a role he will play in my life, and that, perhaps, when dust turns back to dust, we will remember that we once met in a small makeshift clinic in El Salvador.

The poor will always be with you, says John 12:8, Matthew 26:11, Mark 14:7, and Deuteronomy 15:11. This is said not to discourage us or tell us that the fight against poverty is useless, but to be realistic, and to encourage us to serve. If you are unable to help one or two or ten thousand, do not be discouraged. Keep trying. Keep serving. Learn from each person you encounter. The poor will always be with you--the poor in resources, the poor in heart, in strength, in love, in joy, in peace... The poor will always be with you. Serve them.

At the end of the week, a middle-age woman came forward to the front of the crowd that was gathered for our despedida (goodbye ceremony). Beaming, she said with tears in her eyes, “Since I was a child, I have always wanted glasses. And now, thanks to you, I have glasses and I can see. Thank you.” I will never forget the faces of the people in El Triunfo-- the faces that fell when we delivered bad news and the faces that lifted when we could make a change. To say goodbye, the community members stood in a line and took turns giving each of us a hug. They gave us small hand-woven bags and a hand-painted souvenir.

This medical brigade was the first of its kind in El Triunfo. I know that greater things have yet to come now that the church is reaching out as an instrument of hope for its people. 

Have I mentioned that I love my job?
  
Visit my PHOTO PAGE to see more pictures of our trip to El Triunfo.