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