Christmas time is here....

  Well, lately I feel like I have forgotten that we have a blog! I did not realize until today that I had not even looked at it in over a month. My, where does the time go? It is amazing how fast time flies here in Cusco. I pray that you are all having a wonderful holiday season and are enjoying time with family and friends.

Our only decorations this year. These are the stockings that I made last year when we lived in Costa Rica. 

  We have been doing a bit of Christmas stuff ourselves lately. I think the highlight of this holiday season thus far for me has been a dinner with all of our staff from the Josephine House, the local orphanage where I work/spend a good bit of my time. On Sunday night all of the "mamás," the women who take care of all of the children in the orphanage, dressed in their nice clothes and we all went out to dinner at a restaurant near our house. It was such a fun time to get to hang out with them outside of the orphanage. The director of the orphanage, Ruth and I put together baskets for each of the mamás for Christmas. This is a very typical gift here, and consists of sugar, rice, oil, popcorn, spaghetti noodles, chocolates, canned milk, and a paneton (which is like a fruit cake). Supposedly Christmas dinner is not complete for the Peruvians without a paneton. It was such a wonderful evening, and I continue to be so encouraged and blessed by each and every one of these women and their love for the orphans.

Eating dinner together

All 14 of the mamás who work at the Josephine House

Christmas Celebration at our church

Church congregation 

   Things at the eye clinic are also moving right along. The only things that are lacking now are inside doors and toilets/sinks. We anticipate those things to be done within the next few weeks. Nathan is hard at work fine-tuning last minute details for the container of eye equipment that will be arriving soon. We are so excited to see the eye clinic open up in this new year. I will post recent pictures of the progress of the eye clinic soon.

And you never know when you might go to a wedding and get a plate of baked guinea pig! 

   

Back to work...and board certified

  I will begin with the most exciting news which is that Nathan passed his oral ophthalmology boards. So this means that he is now a board certified ophthalmologist. After 13 1/2 years of studying after high school he is finally done and will not have to take another test until 2021. The Lord was very gracious to Nathan in allowing him to pass all of his boards. To God be the glory!

      In other fun news, Nathan is back in business as an ophthalmologist. A medical group from North America came to Peru last week through an organization called Medical Mission International (MMI). This group of people were from all over the US and Canada. They held medical clinics everyday and the clinics were very busy seeing anywhere from 150-200 patients a day. There was no ophthalmologist on the team, so Nathan stepped in to help. There were two Peruvian optometrist who Nathan enjoyed getting to work with very much. Overall, Nathan had a great week and saw many many future cataract surgery patients. We are not worried that he will not have enough patients to see when his clinic gets started. I also enjoyed working many days in the campaign as well. It was a great time for Nathan and I to work in medicine together.
   

Nathan at work! 

People waiting in line to be seen

My work area to see patients

Waiting to see the doctors or ophthalmologist

My dear peruvian friend Juana giving a patient glasses

    The clinic construction is going very well. The tiling is completed, the lights now work, and we are now parking in the garage. It is really fun to see it coming together. This week and next week they will begin putting in the sinks, toilets, and finishing the plumbing. After that, all that will be left is the furniture and cabinetry work, and doors. The shipment of ophthalmology equipment will probably be leaving the US in the next few weeks, so you can begin now to pray for a very quick process in arriving in Peru and then an even faster process in customs.

Here are a few pictures of the clinic construction:

Emergency lights!  

Exit sign of course in Spanish 

Tiled hallway

Tile and lights in the nurses station 

Power outlets

Tiled waiting room

Building & Playing

    This past month has been full of lots of studying and building for Nathan. He just returned on Sunday from the US after taking his oral ophthalmology boards last week. He is really glad to have them completed and now is back in Peru. Last week was my first full week alone in Peru and I seemed to survive pretty well without Nathan. The only big events of the week were that the starter in our car stopped working and I got a flat tire, but other than that it was a pretty uneventful week. We continue to be so thankful and blessed by our dear friends here, who very graciously helped take care of me.

  

    So the clinic construction continues! We are definitely learning patience and lots about this culture during this process of building this clinic. We have had several peruvian work crews decide to take 2-3 weeks off before returning to finish their job. This has been very frustrating at times and has definitely made the progress of the clinic go a bit more slowly than we had anticipated. It has been a great opportunity for us to trust in the Lord's timing and plan for the clinic and the work that is to be done in the future. 

    Over the past few weeks the ceilings and outdoor bricking have been completed. This week the lights should be hung so that we will now have lights in the clinic. The main things left to finish will be the tiling, cabinetry, and then bathrooms.

Beginning of the bricking with the insulation

Side of clinic with finished bricking

Walkway to ophthalmology clinic

Front of clinic

Back of clinic with garage

Finished ceilings in hallway

Exam room finished ceilings

Operating room

  I have been enjoying spending some time at a local orphanage outside of the city. This orphanage has about 13 children from the ages of newborn to 6 years old. Many of the children have special needs and really just want to play and be loved. I have enjoyed getting to know the many "mamás" who work at the orphanage and keep the children. Lately I have been going a few afternoons a week and have been holding babies as well as making cookies and helping the older kids with their homework. I have been incredibly encouraged and blessed by this ministry. What a joy to love on children who don't have parents to love on them. 

Sweet 6 year old girls Hilda and Angelina 

The girls with Angelina's brother Fabrisio

Play time with one of the "mamás" Katy. 

Angelina (she loves the camera) and Fabiola, who is 4 years old

Painting and roofing

   We have continued to be busy with the construction of the ophthalmology clinic. It is so exciting to see progress each and every day! We decided to paint the clinic ourselves in an attempt to save money, so two weeks ago I went and bought 35 gallons of paint. Thanks to the help of many other missionaries from all different organizations we were able to get the whole clinic painted in one day! It is now a very pretty yellow color.
   The roof of the clinic was also completed last week. Once the brick is completed (which should begin next week) the clinic will be completely water proof. Thank goodness because rainy season is going to probably start in about 1 month.
   We had a team from South Carolina come and help us finish the roof last week. We have a peruvian construction team who are putting in the drop ceilings this week and Nathan will finish wiring and hanging the lights! It is amazing how much has been done in such a short period of time. Thank you again for your prayers and encouragement throughout this process.

Here are a few pictures of the progress:

Front door of the clinic

Front stairs that lead to clinic

Garage in the back

Back hallway of the clinic leading to the garage

Main hallway in the middle of the clinic leading from the waiting room/nursing station to the examen rooms

Nurses station

Operating room with door to the scrub room 

Back hallway (the garage is on the left and Nathan's office is straight ahead 

Check-in area for surgery

Finished roof!

Front of the clinic

Hallway into the nurses station/waiting room

Greatness and difficulties in Peru

 I will begin with the greatness of living in Perú, because we do definitely LOVE where we live and are everyday amazed that the Lord has called us to such an amazingly beautiful place with wonderful, kind people.

   The story begins with a 50 year old female patient that I saw in the clinic on Friday. I have seen her several times over the past few months, and she returned on Friday with the results of some lab work that I had ordered the visit before. Unfortunately, her lab values revealed that she was very ill. I talked with her at length about her medical diagnosis, as well as the fact that we were going to immediately have to send her to see several specialists at the hospital. She is a quechua woman, and most of them are very stoic and not very emotional, but suddenly she began to cry and explain to me about the hardships in her family. She was also very concerned that she would not be able to afford the care that was needed for her condition. I briefly and simply (with my still growing spanish) shared about how much God loved her, that he would send his only Son because He loved her so much. We talked about how He had a plan for her, even though it was difficult for her to see and understand. I spoke with her only briefly and then prayed with her and left the room. On of our precious Peruvian nurses Margarita then went to talk with her more about the plans to take her to the hospital, etc. It was during this time that Margarita was able to share the full gospel of the love of Jesus with this woman, and in that moment she prayed to receive Christ. How exciting it was to hear this news. She left our clinic a completely different person than how she arrived! Praise be to the Lord!

    It was so encouraging and faith building for me to hear of what the Lord did in her life! It was also good to be reminded of why God has called us to Perú. He has called us here to share the good news of His love and grace for His people. At times we have been overwhelmed by all the "logistics" of living in this new culture, but none of that even matters in light of lives being changed.

So now to the difficulties...

     Yesterday we had one of the "peru days" that we have had since we moved here. As I posted a month or two ago, we bought a truck in July. We really love it and it has been a great car so far. The only problem with it was that it came with only one key. For those of you who know Nathan well, you know that at times many things in his life get lost very easily. We decided that we probably needed to have a spare key so that we did not get stranded somewhere unable to start our car. So about 1 month ago we took our truck to Toyota here in Cusco so that they could "clone" a new key. Little did we know that this would be a month long process, which would include taking our whole electrical system apart and even sending the computer to two different businesses in Lima before this whole process was completed. Well...the good news is that we do have other spare keys. The bad part is that they damaged our dashboard, paint job on the outside of our car, and the stereo no longer works. According to them, this is our responsibility and they are probably not going to do anything else. So, that was a bit disappointing, but we were so relieved to have our car for the first time in a month!

   Oh, but the story gets better. About 1 hour after getting the car, I was helping a friend move and we loaded up our truck and then stopped by the gas station to fill up. None of the gas stations here are self-service, so there is always a man ready to pump the gas for you. He asked me what kind of gas I wanted, and I "think" I said diesel, but before I knew it he was putting gasoline in our car. I suddenly realized this, and told him to stop, but it was too late. He had already put 3 gallons of gasoline in the car. We called a local mechanic and he told us to not start the car, as this could potentially ruin the engine. After a few hours at the gas station, our car had to be towed (by an old beat up pickup truck with two ropes) to the mechanics shop, where it now sits, and probably will continue to sit for the next few days.

  As frustrating as yesterday was, it was so good to have the reminders of the Lord's goodness and faithfulness from the day before with my sweet patient coming to know Him. It really helps to put the annoying things that don't work very well into perspective. We are thankful for what the Lord is continuing to teach us about our priorities in living in this new culture.

New job, new friends, new address!

    I realized the other day that I have spent a lot more time writing about clinic construction (which is a huge part of our lives here right now) and not a lot of time writing about my work in the clinic.  I have really so enjoyed getting back into practicing medicine. As you have seen in the pictures, there is a family medicine/pediatric clinic in front of the new ophthalmology clinic. Right now I am currently working with a wonderful family practice physician from the UK named Anjanette. She has been such a blessing to me these past few months, not only in medicine, but she has quickly become a very dear friend. It has been very comfortable "to settle" back into practicing medicine with her by my side ready to help me and answer any questions that I might have. I have also been greatly blessed and encouraged by Abby, a nurse working in the clinic from the US and our 3 Peruvian nurses as well. Right now there are only women working in the clinic, but we will quickly be joined by many other physicians, as the rest of the Mission to the World Cusco team will be arriving in a few weeks.

Anjanette and I working in the clinic in our matching vests

   I have really enjoyed offering most of the women's health services at our clinic, La Fuente. Anjanette has been kind enough to allow me do most of the women exams, which I love. It has been really amazing to get to serve and love these women, and to be able to answer many of their very simple questions, which have never been answered before. Unfortunately, I have also seen many hard, sad cases in my short time working in Peru. It is not uncommon to see young girls who have been raped, sexually and physically abused. Pray with me that the Lord would allow these circumstances in their lives to draw them unto Himself, and that if I might be a small part of that, He would allow me to share His love with them. I am so thankful that the Lord is allowing me to be a part of His work at La Fuente.

   On a different note, life in Cusco changed forever yesterday as a new store called Maestro opened here. This is a store very similar to Home Depot or a large Ace hardware and literally has EVERYTHING that you could ever want to buy for your home or for construction. This the first "mega store" of its kind in Cusco. The inauguration was yesterday and there were people from everywhere in the mountains that came down to take a look at the new store. This is probably the beginning of many large stores and malls to come to Cusco. For us, this is a bittersweet moment, because of course a store of this magnitude makes our lives so much easier, but at the same time is really going to hurt the business of the local hardware stores. It is also a bit different to be in such a non-industriliized city and then to be in a large store such as this one. When we were there yesterday (with every other person in Cusco) I felt like I was in the US. But then I looked around and saw the quechua mamas in their dresses and top-hats, and saw that all the words on the aisle signs were in quechua, and I was quickly reminded where I was!

  A huge thank you to those of you who have written and asked for our address. For those of you who have asked about sending packages, please do not send anything of great value, as someone in customs might decide that they would like to keep it. We cannot receive any boxes, only envelope mailers, and they must not weigh over 5 pounds. 

Here is the address: 

Nathan and Kristen Henson

Casilla 985

Cusco, Perú

Here are a few other random pictures of our "daily life" in Cusco.

A day in the market. This is where we buy all of our fruits and vegetables

There are over 300 different types of potatoes in Peru. These are just some of them in the market

This is the quechua "mami" selling potatoes 

We live in such an incredibly beautiful place

The view of the city from our living room window

The Building Continues

  Last week we were blessed to have a team of electricians and plumbers from First Presbyterian Church in Augusta, GA come to Cusco to work on the clinic. They were able to accomplish so much in one week. They finished the framing, started the sheetrocking, and completed the rough plumbing and electrical work. Not only did they greatly bless us with their work, but they were a real joy to be around. We greatly enjoyed having them here.

  Nathan continues to spend most of his time at the clinic helping with the construction. He even ran his own sheetrocking crew on Monday. Now I am not only married to an ophthalmologist, but a builder as well. I think that he has decided that he is a bit better at ophthalmology, and will be happy to do this job when the clinic is finished. There are constantly patients in the clinic who are asking what the new construction is going to be, and they are very excited when they hear that it will be ophthalmology. It seems that everyone has a problem with their eyes!

Here are a few pictures of the progress:

Framing of the pre-operative/post-operative area. The existing family medicine clinic is in the background

We now have electricity!

Wiring going in

Sheetrocked hallway

Sheetrocking crew working on the waiting room

Plumbing being installed

Break time at the entrance of the clinic 

The roof is almost completed

Sidewalk and retaining wall in front of the clinic