Mopia Derok :) (Good Morning)

The only bathroom

We woke up Sabbath morning to rain and singing. What better way to wake up? We got up, got dressed and took down our hammocks/bedding, since we were staying in the church and there was soon going to be a church service.

Missionaries hut.

After cleaning everything up we headed to the missionaries hut for breakfast. Eating here, took a little getting used to. First of all, there is no table and chairs. So we sat on the floor while we ate. Also, they made ALOT of rice with every meal. Now, we've been in the Philippines for awhile now and we know that rice is a staple food item upon which these people live. But we've never been served SOO much rice before, it was crazy.

<----Baboo (which means 'Auntie' in Molbog) was the lady that had come to cook for us during the medical mission. She was so free-spirited and funny that we all fell in love with her almost immediately. Baboo and her husband (whom we called Baba, which means 'Uncle' in Molbog) were the only 2 baptized members in the Adventist church here. But with our medical mission and the evangelistic seminars the missionaries were gonna be going on the next 2 weeks, they hoped to change that. So we were very excited to be apart of bringing people to this church.

After breakfast we started Church. One thing you may not know about Balabac, is that most of the population is Muslim. So even though it was an Adventist church service there are alot of Muslim traditions such as sitting on the ground, all the men wearing their prayer caps and praying with our faces down on the ground (representing submission to God). The little things like that made the service different and lively.

During lunch we asked Baboo and the other missionaries if there really were crocodiles around or if that was just one of those tales they tell people traveling through. Baboo replied, "No, there really are crocodiles. My nephew was eaten 2 weeks ago." We were shocked and asked how it had happened. She said, "He was fishing for squid at 4am." (Note to self: Do NOT go fishing at 4 am in Balabac) Arman, another missionary, replied that "Besides malaria, crocodile attacks are the most frequent cause of death in this area" Members of the church even told us that they had seen crocodiles outside their house and they are about 30 ft. long. Aagh! So that scared us a little more to know that there really are crocodiles around where we were staying.

Everyone helps to set up for the clinic, Jam had other ideas. lol.

After Lunch we had some of our first patients. It was nice to have a little beginning rush of patients, because it gave us a good idea of how to set up everything for the medical mission. We had Rannie and Randy (Balabac Missionary) taking information, blood pressure, and temperatures. Then Sam, Jam, and Wendy saw and diagnosed patients. Roy took special cases. Tanya was in charge of the pharmacy and Allison took pictures/video and helped out in the pharmacy if it got too crazy.

Small groups coming in to receive medical care.

Overall our team worked well together. We saw alot of malnutrition, malaria, coughs, and then Roy had to suture up a guys foot. The guy had been walking through a clam bed and got a huge gash in his foot. So Roy stitched him up.

After seeing a couple patients we closed out the Sabbath with a vespers program. Then we continued to take patients until it was dark. We saw about 30 patients Sabbath afternoon. It was a perfect way to spend a Sabbath day.

Resupplying all our medicines after
our first day.

Sunday our work started right away. Three young boys had come to be circumcised. In the Philippines boys are not circumcised right away when they are born, they are circumcised when they are 10-14 years  old. When we first heard this we were shocked, "Why would they put themselves through that at such an old age?" Jam answered us saying, "Circumcision is like a boys' entrance into manhood. If you don't go through with it you're not a man and you will be teased by your friends until you practically die of embarrassment."

Tanya and Sam assisted Roy who conducted the procedure. The first boy was 14, the next was 12, and the last one was 10. They were all really brave; never screamed or squirmed. However, the 10 year old was a little nervous. Before Roy made the first incision, Sam noticed that the boy was sweating....ALOT. So she started dabbing his forehead with a towel. Then he looked down at the procedure, saw the blood and quickly looked up and started sweating more. "You're doing good" Sam said, trying to encourage him. As she said that she noticed his eyes starting to roll into the back of his head. "Uh Oh! Uhhh he's fainting" Suddenly Roy gave him a light slap across the face. He came to and we gave him some water. Right after, he started sweating and again his eyes rolled into the back of his head. So Roy stood up and gave him a real slap across the face. After that he was alright. Poor kid. But after everything was said and done, we had 3 new men walking around the compound. Then after we cleaned up the surgical stuff, we served our breakfast. Yum...

We got ready for the day of patients to begin, but sadly it started to rain. It continued to rain pretty much all day. But people still made to hike to come receive medical help. Since they all came in families of 6 or 8. We just took them by family and would diagnose each member of the family.

Our "Waiting room"

The woman sitting to Wendy's right was a patient that we had air lifted to the hospital in Brookes last year. She had some bad stomach issues then.

We had Jam convinced for awhile that
the last line here was crucial at the end
of the Anthem. lol.

Around noon, the flow of people had slowed down quite a bit. So Jam asked Allison, "Hey, can you teach me the American National Anthem?" So she sang it for him and then ended up writing it down so he could sing it with her. After awhile it was stuck in everyone's head and we were ALL humming the National Anthem.

After Lunch it was still really slow so we all took a little cat nap till patients arrived. We had a couple show up in the afternoon but not too many. In total we had about 70 patients come to see us. Since we had been here 2 days and only seen about 100 patients, Roy decided that we should go to the other side of the island and do a clinic there instead. We would be meeting our boat on that side of the island Tuesday morning anyways, so it wouldn't be out of the way. We all agreed and planned to leave about 9am the next morning. Till then...

~Me and Her