Bolivia Update: Growing in Opportunities

Leta updates us from Bolivia about volunteers doing the World Race and about news from the hospital.

The volunteers we have right now are with the World Race, which means that they’re traveling around to 11 different countries in 11 months, volunteering in each country. Since they’re not medical, like most of our volunteers, I’m having them help out at a variety of different organizations. Several of them are helping out at a school for deaf kids, a few of them are painting the school down the road from the hospital, several are helping at orphanages, and a couple are working at an organization that provides support for kids who work (selling things, shining shoes, etc).

With help from them, Shelly, and Rachel (two nurses who are here long-term), I’ve been teaching an English class in the hospital for staff and interns. It’s been a lot of fun. I’ve always loved teaching but hated grading, and, in this class, I get to teach but not grade anything! It’s a lot of fun seeing them being able to start fitting sentences together and starting to understand the way a new language works.

Shelly and Leta in Bolivia

After going back home for a couple of weeks, Shelly is back here, working again as a surgical nurse. She and Rachel are also training to be intensive care nurses. Since we live right behind the hospital, they will be able to go to the hospital with just a couple of minutes notice. Most of the nurses here who are able to do intensive care live 30 minutes to an hour away from the hospital, so having Shelly and Rachel able to just show up and start work will be a huge help.

We have a volunteer coming in a couple of weeks who is studying for her Masters in Public Health. I’m really excited about the work she’ll be doing here – she is going to be working on developing materials so that future volunteers can give more presentations on basic health topics. It’s always sad to me to see how many people are sick with things that could have been easily prevented, or to see kids with their teeth rotting out because they don’t know how important it is to brush their teeth.

Thanks to all of you who are praying us!