Work at the hospital

Now that we've been in Shell for almost a month, I'm starting to learn the work routine here.  There's quite a variety on a daily basis.  We always start the morning with a short devotional and prayer.  Then we have a sit down meeting with the Ecuadorian residents and medical students who are rotating with us.  Every six to eight weeks we have a new set of residents and students.  It's been a pleasure working with all of them, and we consider our relationships with them to be a huge part of our ministry here.  Many of the residents have a heart to do medical missionary work.  We hope to be able to help them mature in their faith as well as their medical abilities, and by so doing, to get to be a special part of the development of a group of Ecuadorian physicians who are serving the Lord and many sick people in Ecuador and surrounding countries.

After we talk about the hospital patients in our morning rounds, we walk over to the wards and examine the patients with the residents.  When that is finished, each physician heads to the outpatient area to begin seeing patients there.  Each family doctor spends about 1/2 a day every two weeks doing endoscopies instead of clinic.  On the days that we're on-call, we don't see clinic patients.  The on-call physician supervises the admissions and deliveries and answers any questions from the resident who is running the ER on that particular day.

I've had many great times praying with patients and discussing their relationship with Jesus in the hospital.  And, whether a missionary on the field or a faithful Christian back home, our responsibility to represent Jesus doesn't end at work.  During our bus trip to Quito last weekend, I had the opportunity to share Christ with two people on the bus.  Both had come from a Catholic background but did not profess to have a relationship with Jesus.  Like so many folks in any part of the world, many people here are going through the motions of some form of religion without really knowing what it means to know Jesus on a personal level.  We all fall into that category at times.  My deepest desire is to help the people here understand that they don't have to, and cannot, earn a right relationship with God by doing any number of works.  Peace with God can only come through the acceptance of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross.  Without a doubt, it is only God who can speak to people's hearts and help them to have a right relationship with Him.  Please be praying that He'll be speaking to many hearts, and that we'll be sensitive to His guiding during our conversations with those around us.