"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."  Matthew 25:35-36

Dr. Laura Smelter is a graduate of Saint Joseph's Regional Medical center where she studied Family Medicine.  Dr. Laura has traveled to Hospital Bautista on several occasions through the guidance and help of World Medical Mission, who has helped many doctors come to Hospital Bautista to serve.  On her various trips, Dr. Laura has stayed for extended periods of time (2-3 months at a time) and has really come to embrace and know the culture.  She has befriended many and truly shares the love of Jesus with the Honduran people as she serves with her medical skills. 

Below we have included a short testimony for Dr. Laura about one of her most recent stays.  We hope you will take the time to read and catch a small glimpse of what God is doing here in Guaimaca and its surrounding areas.

From the moment I arrived at Hospital Bautista in Guaimaca, Honduras  after a long day of travel and just in time for Sunday evening church services held in the clinic waiting room - I knew it was "un lugar especial," a special place filled with the Holy Spirit and sharing the love of Christ.  In this foreign place 2000 miles by air plus a 2 hour bumpy bus ride over pothole-laden, steep, winding, "make your own lane" roads away from my family and friends I experienced the trans-cultural, trans-language, transcendent family of God and learned about true giving and receiving.

The staff at the hospital seemed like a large family and graciously welcomed visitors into their family.  They were anxious to share their lives, their culture, and their country with others and often invited me to meals, worship services, shopping, and other activities.  Despite, or perhaps because of, their rough living conditions they truly displayed the peace and joy of the Lord and a burning desire to become closer to Christ and share His love with others.  I was a stranger, and they invited me in.  They taught me much.

The opportunities to serve, learn, and grow were endless.  I saw patients in the clinic which services 80-100 people per day with 3 doctors, 2 nurses, technicians, and volunteers with on-the-job training, a small pharmacy, limited laboratory facilities, and one x-ray machine.  I delivered babies in the one obstetric room with no anesthesia or fetal monitoring in between seeing clinic patients.  I sewed lacerations and set bones on trauma patients.  I rode into the mountains over unpaved steep winding roads to hold rural makeshift clinics in schoolhouses.  I rode in the ambulance to the main city hospital with critical patients.  I volunteered with "El Programa de los Alimentos", which provides food, clothes, and water to the poorest of the poor and allows them the opportunity to develop their God-given skills and resources by working in the garden on the mission grounds from which some of their food comes.  Above all, each opportunity to care for the physical needs of others carried with it the privilege and responsibility of caring for their spiritual health.  Sharing Christ is a way of life at Hospital Bautista.  I could provide only temporary relief from suffering and illness, with a one-time treatment for worms or enough Tylenol for 2 or 3 per day for 1 or 2 weeks, but I could point them to Him who provides the eternal cure.

Amongst all these opportunities, one circumstance remains burned in my memory.  One evening as were sitting down to dinner, a family came to the clinic reporting they had been attacked and their house burned down the night before.  They were from a very rural place and had walked into town to ask for help.  They had only the clothes remaining on their backs.  The mother and 3 year old son had extensive burns over their extremities.  The father and 5 year old son had abrasions and lacerations, the 5 year old with a machete gash in his scalp.  They stated they were not Christians and did not want to believe in a God who could allow or cause this to happen to them.  We attended to their wounds, provided them food and clothes, and made arrangements for them to return daily for wound care.  They had family in town to stay with.  As they came to the clinic for daily dressings changes and wound care and observed our love and concern for them, I noticed countenances softening.  After about 4 or 5 days, the children started smiling again and enjoyed playing with staff members.  After about two weeks, the father accepted the continual invitation to attend Sunday evening church services, where he prayed to accept Christ.  Nothing I had given in caring for this family or the numerous other friends I met in Honduras compared with the gift I received in having a new brother in Christ.