“Julia come quick!” I heard my teammate scream. I had been sitting on our bamboo porch sipping coffee and quietly reading a book. It was chore time for the kids, so everyone was scattered around the village doing different odd jobs.
I looked over to see my teammate standing by where the villagers kept stacks of bamboo shoots. She was standing over one of the boys, who from a distance appeared to just be sitting down, but her frantic motions signaled that something was wrong.
“What’s wrong?” I shouted, as I began to head over towards her. She said, “He cut his foot!” So I turned and grabbed the first aid kit I had just so happened to pick up from the free table during team changes that month.
I arrived to see blood splattered all over the ground and bamboo shoots, and the boy white as a ghost trying to put dirt and leaves on his wound to stop the bleeding. I quickly put gloves on and had him lay down, and removed the leaf to see a mess of dirt and blood. I poured water over it to find a deep cut down to the bone.
He had been chopping the bamboo with a machete and with a giant swing missed the bamboo and struck the left inner side of his foot.
I quickly applied pressure to it with the few gauze pads from the small kit. At this point there was a small crowd, and people were helpfully running around trying to find the things I was asking for. We needed more gauze and bandage wraps, or anything really, as he was bleeding quickly through the gauze pads. But we had nothing in the middle of the jungle, and every piece of clothing we owned was completely dirty. We needed a stitch kit, but with team changes we had failed to grab the one they provide each team with.
Also there was a language barrier. The boy was completely in shock, and lay quietly. The villagers thought he was fine, that he just needed a bandage, they didn’t understand how deep his wound was. After much back and forth, it was communicated that He needed to be taken to a clinic where they could properly clean and suture the wound, that I didn’t have the materials to do it with.
The issue was that the nearest place was a 40 minute drive by motorcycle, but thankfully one of the village men offered to take him. So I tied a tourniquet with my teammates laundry line, wrapped his foot with what we had, taped it, and put him on the back of the motorcycle.
My fear was that he would pass out and fall off the back of the bike. “God please keep this kid safe.” I told the man to be aware he might faint or pass out, and asked him to ask the doctor to send back supplies to clean the sutures with. Then off he went.
Danielle and I returned to the site and put all the bloody material into our own makeshift biohazard bag. Then we carried water over and cleaned the blood off the ground, bamboo, and machete, silently praying for him.
Several hours later he returned, quite happy from pain killers! Which we took from him to give him the right dose at the right time. The doctor didn’t just send back a few supplies… he sent an entire medical box with everything from alcohol, iodine, sterile water, a sterile suture removal kit, gloves, gauze pads, swabsticks, etc… isn’t the Lord so good!
Every day the boy came to our bamboo hut to have the site cleaned and his bandages changed. He became very popular, as all the kids loved to gather around and watch, admiring his battle wound! Plus he got to have six American ladies fuss over him!
God turned it into an opportunity to connect deeper with the children, as throughout our stay they came to us with minor cuts and issues. I sort of became the town doctor, and as the Lord brought me different revelations throughout the month, He was also reigniting a deeper desire and passion within me. I believe He even used that first initial situation to set us up for the one we would encounter on our last night there…
After a tearful filled day of packing up our things, our last day of school, the kids bringing us flowers and cards while crying because they didn’t want us to go, hugging and holding them, and then dancing with them late into the night… I climbed into my tent completely and utterly exhausted.
About ten minutes later there was some commotion outside and I heard my name being called. I quickly dressed and came outside to see a group of men I didn’t recognize. It was very dark, and I could tell they were hurt but I couldn’t see where and I couldn’t understand them.
We quickly cleared a place on the porch while several people ran to find their flashlights, and then held them so that we could see. Mary stepped in to assist me, and we laid the first guy down as one of the kids ran to grab our translator.
They were from a nearby village, and it was clear he had been in a motorcycle accident, as the translator soon confirmed. He was also intoxicated, and thus bleeding heavier. He had deep scrapes and lacerations all over his hands, legs, arms, and face. We tried to keep the area as sterile as possible while working in very little light to clean and dress his wounds, all the while assessing his level of consciousness and looking for areas of concern. As he was being bandaged up the girls were praying over him, as he was in pain throughout the process.
The next guy had a minor laceration on his leg, and as he sat down our light caught the face of one of the guys who had brought him.
My heart skipped a beat as we quickly sat him down… his entire face… nose, eye lids, cheeks, and chin had several layers of skin scraped off, and his forehead was a full on skin avulsion, meaning all layers had been taken off. That was just his face, he also had scrapes and cuts all over his hands and arms.
As I looked closer, I was confused. “When did this happen?” I asked. The translator told me it happened three days ago. I asked if he had gone to a doctor, and He said yes.My blood boiled at the thought… if this was true than the doctor had neglected to treat him properly.
However, the more I looked the more apparent it became that he had not gone to a doctor to have it taken care of. Almost all his wounds had signs of infection, and on his face he had applied a single gauze pad to the deepest wound, and the skin had been growing over the gauze pad for several days.
It was stuck and becoming infected. We had given him pain killers early on, and after much time cleaning all his other wounds it was well into the night, people had already left, I was profusely sweating, and exhausted. I told the translator he needed to go to a hospital… that it was stuck and had to come off. The translator understood, but he also understood that more than likely this man would not go to the hospital.
We had tried soaking it, and using water, but to no prevail.
I explained to him what I was going to do, and told him I would be as gentle as possible, but no matter what I did it was going to hurt very badly. Mary held his head and stroked his hair and began praying for him. I looked into his eyes… silently praying for God to give him peace and give me strength.
Someone patted the sweat off my forehead, and little by little I chipped away at it with a swabstick soaked in alcohol. I think anyone who has even had alcohol on a tiny cut knows how painful it is, so just imagine all layers of your forehead missing.
He was in so much pain, to the point that when I was nearly finished I had to steady him by holding him down with a part of my leg. Finally, my shaking hands got the last piece off. I cleaned and dressed the wound and I told him he must change it often or he would experience this pain again, and gave him supplies.
I told him he must go see a doctor, and he took my hand, did a thank you bow, and left. Its never fun to be the cause of pain even if it is beneficial. I washed myself the best I could, changed my clothes, and just sat on the porch in the dark, praying for God to heal them, praying for Him to send someone after we left. Thanking him for guiding us through the night, because it was by his strength alone that I got through it.
Something in me changed that night… I realized I had tried the medical route before in a time of my life where I chose to dismiss God from life, and boy how I struggled. I struggled with the stress, becoming numb, motivation, and trying to rely on my own human abilities. Now, I am at a point in my life where God is my center, my strength, my rock. Where I seek to glorify Him, where I acknowledge the things I cannot do on my own.
My heart has always been in the medical field… but my heart has not always been in the right place to do the medical field.
I felt Him telling me that I needed to get to this point before He would lead me down the next path, that He wanted me to try again, that He put this passion in me for a purpose… this time choosing Him throughout it all.. that He will be my strength.
There are many obstacles to overcome from past mistakes and many feelings of regret and time wasted… but I am giving all that to the Lord, and stepping out in faith to where I feel He is leading me next, and while the road there may be long, hard, and even feel impossible… I know that I have a God going before me, and that all I can do is put my faith into action and see how His will unfolds.. and that with Him, nothing is impossible.
