November News

What's new in November?

In case you missed any of this month's news, get caught up with the monthly update. If you would like to receive the monthly email newsletter you can sign up on our website www.hospitalsofhope.org on the tab to the right that says "E-Mail Updates"

We trust everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoyed time with friends and family. The month of November was yet another eventful month as we are finishing projects for the end of the year and looking forward to the new year! We had our 30 Days of Thanks during the month of November. Each day we took time to express thankfulness for different people, ministries, opportunities, and much more that has had an impact on Hospitals of Hope.

This is a word picture of some of the different things we were thankful for during the month of November.

Baby Isabella arrives!

The most exciting news of the month is the newest addition to the Hospitals of Hope family. We are pleased to announce the birth of Isabella Maria Wawrzewski on Sunday, November 20 to founder Mike and his wife Elizabeth. Isabella weighed 7 lb. 7 oz. Mike reports that mom and baby are healthy and are doing well. We congratulate Mike and Elizabeth, and we are excited for this new member to the Hospitals of Hope family!

HOH travels to Missions Health Conference

Earlier this month, Hospitals of Hope’s Daniel White traveled to Louisville, Kentucky to attend the Global Missions Health Conference. The conference, in its 15th year, is one of the largest medical mission’s conferences in the world with over 2,500 attendees.

The conference is designed to bring medical professionals, those interested in medical missions and many others together to discuss and learn about a wide range of topics including disaster relief, holistic community development, sustainability and empowering indigenous people, clinical health and disease, and much more.

Daniel represented the Hospitals of Hope and Clinic In A Can booth and had opportunities to speak with individuals and organizations about our ministries.

Leaving an eternal impact

Every so often, stories from around the world get back to us of people coming closer to Jesus. It's those stories that remind us why we are a part of Hospitals of Hope and encourage us continue sharing Christ's love. A couple of stories recently came from Bolivia where Leta is teaching English classes at the hospital. She has had several opportunities to touch lives through this ministry. She shares:

I’ve been struck over the last couple of months by how easy it is to share my faith here. Although evangelism is not my gift, just the fact that I am here causes people to ask questions.

The interns who come to do rotations at the hospital are especially curious. We’re reading excerpts from The Purpose-Driven Life in English class, and, on Friday, one of the interns asked me, “What is the purpose of your life?”

Another of the interns, who just completed his 4-month rotation here, is hungry to learn. He has been coming to church with us the last couple of weeks, and, although he is off to work at another hospital now, he has promised to come back to visit. In a note he wrote me before leaving, he said, “I have spent a wonderful 4 months here. I have learned about medicine, and about God and his love.” He doesn’t call himself a Christian yet, but we are praying that God will continue to pursue him as he leaves here.

Thank you for your continued support and encouragement. Without your help, we would not be able to have such great opportunities to share Jesus Christ around the world. Thank you.

A Thanksgiving lesson from Bolivia

Being a nonprofit ministry, Thanksgiving has an even more special meaning than it does for most. For us, Thanksgiving is not just a time of being around family, eating lots of food, or a time of rest, but it’s a humbling time of being reminded how blessed we are.

All month we have been doing 30 Days of Thanks where we reflect on what we at Hospitals of Hope are grateful for. The more we got into it, the more we were reminded that this ministry just isn’t a job, but an opportunity for us and all you who support us to touch lives.

There are two recent stories from Bolivia that beautifully display so many things that Hospitals of Hope is thankful for this Thanksgiving season. Earlier in the summer, a little girl admitted to our hospital in Bolivia after a traffic accident. She was in a car driven by one of her teachers, along with several other students. Unfortunately, the teacher lost control of the car, and it went over a cliff. Most of the students were admitted to our hospital with relatively minor injuries. Lucia, however, was injured more severely and had to stay at the hospital for over 2 weeks, receiving 2 surgeries.

Hospitals of Hope aims to provide affordable care while still being sustainable. Lucia comes from a very poor family and did not have the financial means to pay the unexpected expense. In this case, our hospital administrator went through her bill line by line and removed every fee that he could, but there were still direct costs to the hospital for her care, for things like medications, anesthesia, etc. The remaining amount was over $1000, which her family did not have. We had some volunteers who had raised money over what was needed to cover their trip donate to help pay the bill.

Another story comes not from a patient at the hospital, but from those who work at the hospital. Leta teaches English classes at the hospital. She has had several opportunities to touch lives through this ministry. She shares:

I’ve been struck over the last couple of months by how easy it is to share my faith here. Although evangelism is not my gift, just the fact that I am here causes people to ask questions.

The interns who come to do rotations at the hospital are especially curious. We’re reading excerpts from The Purpose-Driven Life in English class, and, on Friday, one of the interns asked me, “What is the purpose of your life?”

Another of the interns, who just completed his 4-month rotation here, is hungry to learn. He has been coming to church with us the last couple of weeks, and, although he is off to work at another hospital now, he has promised to come back to visit. In a note he wrote me before leaving, he said, “I have spent a wonderful 4 months here. I have learned about medicine, and about God and his love.” He doesn’t call himself a Christian yet, but we are praying that God will continue to pursue him as he leaves here.

These two stories show us why we are so grateful this Thanksgiving season. First we are thankful to God for salvation and a hope that we can share. We are grateful for our founder Mike and his passion to see life change through the power of Christ’s love. We quickly realize, however, that we can’t just do this ministry on our own. With out the support of individuals, churches, family, friends and so many more, we would not have the financial means or encouragement to continue improve healthcare around the world while sharing the Gospel. Both the story of Lucia and the medical interns is a reminder of how grateful we are that we’ve had the opportunity to saves lives and share the saving news of Jesus Christ.

Thank you to all our friends and family for your continued support and helping us in another year of ministry. This Thanksgiving, we are humble and grateful for all everything God has blessed us with.

Baby Isabella Wawrzewski arrives!

We are pleased to announce the birth of Isabella Wawrzewski on Sunday, November 20 to Hospitals of Hope founder Mike and his wife Elizabeth. Isabella weighed 7 lb. 7 oz. Mike reports that mom and baby are healthy and are doing well. We congratulate Mike and Elizabeth, and we are excited for this new addition to the Hospitals of Hope family!

ELWA Building Destroyed by Fire

Last week, our partner hospital in Liberia, ELWA (Eternal Love Winning Africa) reported that one its buildings caught fire and burned down. The building containing the radio station was destroyed by fire late last week. The cause of the fire is yet to be established. ELWA is still able to broadcast its radio station from a satellite site.

“[Praise the Lord] that we are still broadcasting the gospel which we trust will give some hope and courage to our many listeners and sympathizers during this crucial period,” said one of the ELWA administrators.

More discouraging news come from Liberia as the presidential elections took a violent turn last week. This update comes from our missionary friends in Liberia:

Today was a rough day in Liberia. Our runoff election is scheduled for tomorrow but one of the political parties is asking all of their supporters to boycott the elections. They had a protest today and began to march into town. Things became heated when the Liberian police backed by the UN tried to stop them and several people were killed. We had some of our missionaries in town and they had a bit of a harrowing time getting home. Everyone is safe and we are now restricting our movements. Please be praying for peace and righteousness to prevail.

Hospitals of Hope has had a presence in Liberia, Africa since for several years now.

In our first two years of working in Liberia, we primarily focused on JFK Medical Center in Monrovia, Liberia, the main government hospital in this country of 3.5 million people. When we began work there, JFK was in need of basic equipment, but Hospitals of Hope has donated $1.1 million of medical equipment to JFK, greatly increasing its capacity to effectively treat patients.

Since then, we have shifted our focus to ELWA (Eternal Love Winning Africa), a well-respected and established ministry, which has been at work in Liberia since the 1950s and began as a ministry of SIM (then Sudan Interior Mission).
Although ELWA offers quality care and has great plans for the future, the hospital is in dire need. With only 1 doctor for every 28,000 people in Liberia, ELWA is swamped with patients, and their limited resources are stretched thin. In summer 2010 we sent a volunteer team to work at ELWA, and, in early 2011, we partnered with the Brother's Brother Foundation to send necessary equipment to the hospital.

Join with us as we pray for both ELWA as they recover from this fire and for peace in Liberia through the remainder of the elections.

Update from 11/16/11

It was announced this week that President Sirleaf was re-elected as Liberia's president. Below is a congratulatory statement from the United States that also describes last week's election protest.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

STATEMENT BY SECRETARY CLINTON

On behalf of President Obama and the people of the United States, I want to congratulate the Liberian people for exercising their right to vote in last week's presidential and legislative elections. These historic elections are important milestones on Liberia's path toward democratic reconciliation. The United States congratulates President Sirleaf on her re-election and we will continue to work with her and all elected officials to advance democracy, and promote peace and prosperity.

The United States commends the National Elections Commission for conducting free, fair, and transparent elections. We applaud the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the African Union and others for sending observers to monitor the elections, as well as the UN Mission in Liberia for promoting security during the electoral process.

The violence on November 7th marred this otherwise peaceful process, so we welcome the creation of a Special Independent Commission of Inquiry to investigate the incident. We are also deeply disappointed by the Congress for Democratic Change’s decision to boycott the run-off election in an attempt to delegitimize the election. We urge all political parties to respect the election results and resolve their differences peacefully.

The United States is a long standing friend of the Liberian people and we are committed to their future. Congratulations on this momentous occasion.

The World Race: Blessings in Bolivia

This month we had a team that was participating World Race work with Hospitals of Hope in Bolivia. The World Race takes teams to 11 countries in 11 months to serve in ministries located in each country. The following post is from Amanda who was part of the team who served with us in Bolivia. Check back for more post from other World Racers describing life in Bolivia.

Never did I ever think I would live at a hospital, but Bolivia proved to be a month of firsts. My team was partnered with an American organization called Hospitals of Hope which runs a Hospital in the Bolivian countryside just outside of Cochabamba.

From the second we arrived we knew God had beyond blessed us. The house we lived in behind the hospital was enormous and beautiful, and our contact for the month, Leta, was American and spoke English! This was huge for us, after struggling with elementary amounts of Spanish and contacts that spoke no English for two months our brains were ready for a rest.

Our first night in the house Leta told us the hospital was going to be in a parade for the festival the next morning and they wanted us to be in it too - wearing scrubs. So that night we went through the hall closet filled with scrubs and each picked out the scrubs that fit us best. They didn't typically match, but that was ok. At the parade, the ambulance went first, followed by the med-students/interns and then us, a rainbow blob of white faces with no idea what to do. So we marched on, and when we finished marching we piled into the ambulance and drove back to the hospital.

The hospital itself is made up of two sections, Emergencias, and general medicine. Doctors take appointments every morning from 8 A.M. to noon in specialties such a pediatrics, internal medicine and cardiology. In the US these same doctors would typically work in their own office, in a building far away from a hospital, but in Bolivia, everything is different, and doctors only work half days.

On of my ministries for the month was working at the hospitals' coffee shop, Xelda, serving coffee to the patients as they waited in the waiting room …. Tea or drip coffee was free and occasionally patients would take advantage of it but we also made drinks such as lattes and cappuccinos, often for the doctors or interns, so many mornings I was able to have good, although choppy conversations with the interns and I found that my ministry was really on both sides of the spectrum, both patients and doctors.

My most interesting moment in the hospital however happened when I became the patient. We were conveniently at the hospital all month, so I figured it was the perfect opportunity to get more medication for my hyperthyroidism. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Leta came to the appointment with me because, well, she is fluent in Spanish and I am not. From the second we walked into the room I knew it was going to be an interesting experience, why? Because of the six med students staring at me. We sat down and Dr. Oquendo, the internal medicine doctor, asked me some questions, then he asked me to get up on the examination table. The sea of med students had to part to let me through. He asked me to lie down and I soon figured out I was the teaching subject. Three med students held my right arm, another was listening to my heart, yet another was taking my blood pressure and the last one was poking at my stomach and the whole time the doctor lectured them on the differences between hyper and hypo thyroidism. It was the most awkward five minutes of my life. Even more awkward because these were people I would see and interact with on a daily basis.

But as awkward as some of the moments were at the hospital, I really enjoyed my time there. I loved riding in the ambulance, walking the long, white, hallway between the waiting room and the ER, and how the ER doctors and nurses all jumped in anticipation every time we would open the door late at night to go in the hospital and use the internet.

Hospitals of Hope is the first ministry I've worked with on the World Race that I could really see myself going back and partnering with again, in fact I plan to, but you know how plans go... there's still 8 months left in the race, so I guess I'll see what God has in store.