Hospitals Of Hope

by D.L. Paige, MPAS, PA-C

The frail Bolivian man carried his even frailer Bolivian friend like a big collection of potatoes in a gunnysack over his tiny four-foot tall shoulder into the rural Hospitals of Hope clinic. With a urinary catheter-bag flapping like a flag in a Kansas wind, this Samaritan of Bolivia gently laid his crippled friend on the simple exam table, where pressure against his non-cushioned bed had caused ischemic necrosis over his bony upper thigh. With no pain sensation due to nerve damage, along with a leaky urine bag, the skin, muscle, and bone had responded with an open, fist-sized, infected ulcer—probably pseudomonas arginosis, noted by the foul smell and yellow drainage.

But how did this determined duo get to the perfectly placed Hospitals of Hope village clinic just outside of Cochabamba and the foothills of the beautiful mountains? A wheelbarrow! For several miles, over cobblestone roads and hand plowed farm fields, this happy friend pushed the equally happy patient to our clinic each day during the week, allowing us to treat and dress the wound. Such was my start of a brisk week of Bolivian medicine that was only to be upstaged at the end of the week by a personal visit from none other then the First Lady of Bolivia.

Friday morning, our final work day at the clinic, the door to my exam room flew open and Madame Virginia Gillum de Quiroga, the wife of Bolivia’s President, entered, along with her troupe and body guards. With direct eye contact, this Christian woman and national leader greeted my poor patient, a colorful but tiny Quechua Indian woman. Then, after greeting me and shaking my hand, she disappeared as quickly as she had entered. My patient, unaware of the history and the gravity of what had just happened was told the identity of our visitor by Jose, my interpreter. Unaffected, she turned back toward me, trusting and hoping that I could provide some remedy for the illness which she had come for.

Surely greater stories could be told, but what about Christ in Bolivia? What satisfaction is HE finding there? We found HIM there. We found HIM providing Hope and Health and Salvation without pomp and circumstance.

Hospitals of Hope is the widow’s mite in the hands of Jesus, pouring out mercy and grace in a most practical way, with people, up close and personal. Here, life is not measured by what we take in but by how much we can pour out. Each patient is introduced to Christ as friend and savior and giver of hope by the local Hospitals of Hope evangelist, while worship music is piped all across the clinic complex. The building of our Lord’s Body, the Church in Bolivia, one real, poor person at a time, is happening each day. Doctors, nurses, dentists, teachers, believing volunteers of countless backgrounds and talents take turns weekly and monthly to carry out the Hospitals of Hope vision that God set into motion in 1998. The only smile bigger than the wheelbarrow man’s is the one on God’s face, when He confirms by His presence among us that He is Lord of All.