Una mañana de hospicio visitas...

Greetings! I had a chance yesterday to start back into the routine of going out one morning per week with the hospice´s pastoral agent, and I again had a full, sad, moving experience. Our first patient was new to the program, has cirroses (sp?) of the liver, and mispent his considerable earnings as a singer in his younger years. He now lives with his mom and a half brother, who was happy for the chance to speak English with me (has worked on cargo ships going all over the world) but had little compassion for his family and evidently was not sharing any money with them. Their home was rough brick with a hard-packed dirt floor and cardboard/plastic roof. Our second visit was to a similar home, up high on a hill, but the patient, José was in good spirits as the severe swelling of his foot -- due to diabetes -- was going down drastically. Originally counseled to have it amputated, he sees it as a work of God that that didn´t happen and now, four months later, it appears he will walk again soon. Our third stop was to Carmela, who has a brain tumor that manifests itself physically by a large swelling on the left side of her face. Remembering a young physical therapist intern who had visited her last week, she as if ´el jóven´ could give her a massage. A bit surprised, I donned the plastic gloves, poured on the talcum powder, and gave her a leg and foot massage -- first time here. ´Si sabe,´ she commented. Next we visited Jaime, a 20-something young man with a spinal tumor that has gradually worsenend since I last visited -- he used to be able to stand and make shoes out of tires, but now is constricted to lying on the rope-cord couch and fighting the pain that doesn´t really go away. His spirits are down because a recent trip to doctors in Trujillo confirmed the fact that no kind of operation could be done, though they did prescribe a strong painkiller. Unfortunately, he doesn´t have money to pay for it (about $5.50 per day) and the pills are not even sold in Chimbote. Also, his wife and children are wearing out in the caretaking role, and his brothers/sisters/mother, according to him, have mostly forgotten him and rarely visit. His ´house´ is mostly open to the sky, with one covered/walled sleeping area but mostly open area with a dirt floor, a stick roof for shade, and the pigs/chickens/cuy a few yards away. We prayed, gave him communion, and left not knowing what to do to help him. Next, a short walk took us to José, lying as he was for my last two visits on a mattress on the concrete floor. I´m not sure of his illness but with hospice visits his advanced bed sores have cleared up and he for the first time noticed me, and we had a short conversation. Finally, we stopped to visit Amalia, again with one covered area for eating/sleeping and with ducks and a rooster (which previously attacked Emily one day) nearby. Her husband devotes himself to caring for his wife, who entered the program because of a severe hip fracture but now is struggling with diabetes that gives her chronic head and body aches that keep her from sleeping. Justina gave her a head and foot massage, and I read some scripture and prayers out of Justina´s book. Amalia was noticeably less tense and sleepy at our time of leaving, before which her husband poured us glasses of chicha morada (black corn tea with sugar. Sometimes I like chicha, but this batch required perseverance to get it down. Next, I took a car back to near our house and got home about 1:40.

I found myself thinking yesterday about the way ´good news´ is translated in my Spanish Bible, for example in the passage from Luke 4 in which Jesus reads from Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth and talks of being ´good news for the poor.´ Except that in Spanish, ´good news´ is translated as buena nueva, which translates to English as ´the good new thing´. This, I think, is what Jesus offers, especially to those who suffer in whatever way -- hope for a ´good new thing´ in their/our lives. Sometimes the scope of world situations that need something good and new seems overwhelming, but this widening of perspective that the hospice visits give me helps remind me of the ultimate goal behind it all: not to build up the youth group, make the ministry look exciting or entertaining, or receive recognition for our work (though these things can be good fringe benefits)--but what I really hope for is to instill hope, increase the number of people finding fulfillment in following God´s call to serve -- and through this gradually changing things. Not changing things necessarily to be like the US, but changing them for the better. I feel sometimes that though two years can seem like a long time to be away from family, home, and friends -- it is really a short time in the picture of wanting to leave a lasting positive mark. I think the fruits of my work here will largely, I hope, mature after I leave in the form of altered trajectories of a collection of individual lives that I will/have been able to directly or indirectly touch. All this in spite of human weakness, inconsistency, and just plain fatigue that too often remind me that I can´t do everything, mostly can´t even live up to my own expectations of and hopes for myself (which, as those who know me can attest to, are relatively high). Still, the journey is rich and I am thankful for it.

The stream-of-thought sharing above was a bit longer than I expected, so I will post my other planned sharing in a separate entry. Wishing you peace!