Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Molly's Mission Encounter Week 7

Mission Encounter Summer 2011 Honduras staff
This week Molly and the Helene team hosted a team from the Outerbanks. The team went to work rebuilding the mission directors house which was lost in a Christmas fire and doing medical work on the island. The med team did visitations around the island communities and staffed the clinic with medical and dental care. Molly tagged along on the medical visitations. She got a little more than she bargained for in one visit to a 16 year old boys home. He was recuperating from an appendectomy and they checked and dressed his incision and long story short, a career in medicine is not in her future.
It was an interesting experience for Molly to be part of hosting a large short-term team, that wasn’t from her home church. It was interesting for her to see and process different personalities and how they adjust to life on the island and a different way of doing things. One of the hard things to learn when you visit another place is that the American way of doing things just isn’t the only way to do things. It’s been interesting hearing her learn the wisdom of some of what feels like restriction when you are on a short term team.
“Today it hit me hard that I have only three weeks here. Seeing the Outerbanks team Friday I was really grateful that it wasn’t me leaving and that I wasn’t having to say goodbye.”
She has three more weeks on the island. This week is fairly normal, study, working in the school and at the clinic. Next week a small short term team, and the following week she will be finishing up there.
This week a bit of our communication centered around Molly’s clinic family. She’s been living with the team which range from 3 to 6 people when short term teams are not visiting. This has been a great learning experience for her. She’s had to be open to doing life with strangers and build relationships quickly. I’ve watched her ramp up her natural ability in authentic communication while continuing to develop listening well, responding and pursuing relationship even where there is some conflict. They share a house and a community that wants something from them. They have to depend on one another for a lot. And, there’s no taking a walk or hopping in your car for a drive on a challenging day, they are knee deep in life with one another. In the past it was easy for me to imagine life in the clinic as a sort of haven, but having Molly there I have a greater appreciation for just the basics like living together that missionaries everywhere have to deal with daily. I know she has grown to love and appreciate the clinic family and we are grateful for their care of her.
Prayer requests:
Healing for her eye- even with oral antibiotics and eye drops she still is dealing with what we think is pink eye.
Clinic Family- Praise for the work that was done on rebuilding Larry & Sheila’s home, for their personal relationships and that God would grow each of them into who He wants them to be, as a result of being part of this experience. That Molly would minister to them these next three weeks.

1 comment:

Rose said...

thanks for the update. JF- you're a good writer!!