Come to Comanbo - Tapir Served Here

This week (left to right) Compassion missionary Jonas and medical residents Alexandra and Andreas, and Jay flew to Comanbo, a unique village because Shwar and Kichua people share it. 

Clinic at the village school:

Great entertainment - watching the medicos.

Th

This lady is taking an eye exam. Notice her hand. She has been working with roots that dye her skin black.

Later, Jay and the medical residents gave steroid injections to an older lady (below) with bad knees and a deformed foot. She had a wheel chair to get around in her hut and small platform outside.

Villagers work together as a team to survive. All food is shared. Cooking is a shared task, too. This lady had the responsibility of mashing manioc root in a huge wooden bowl to make chicha.

Someone had recently shot a female monkey for supper and then found out it had a baby. So this lady was raising it. Jay said she treated it like human baby. 

She also takes care of an orphaned boy.

Jungle supper was baked frogs and tapir. The frog picture made me squeamish but here's the tapir on the chopping block. Notice how the villagers put down fresh leaves as a cutting board.

Tapirs have 5 toes. Weird looking foot if you come from cattle country. 

 Villagers gathered after the lady below was bitten by a Congo ant. If the medical team had not been in the village to giver her medicine, her leg would have swollen and hurt for days.

Jay really appreciated this quote on the school wall: 

Deme con quien andas, te dire quein eres. 
Show me who you walk with and I will tell you who you are.

We all walk with someone. 
We worry about who our children walk with. 
We talk about who others walk with. 

Question: 

Who are we walking with? 

What road are we taking?

We are doing our best to walk where the Lord leads, taking tentative steps as we hold His hand in the jungles of Ecuador.  
We hope you are walking with Him, too.

Join Jay for Morning Rounds

It’s been a busy week for Jay at the hospital. Here are some cases he rounded on this morning. Please pray for:

-An 18-month old baby with a fully collapsed lung who had surgery yesterday to drain the infection. The lung infection pocket had popped and air from the lung was filling the cavity.

-A mother 26 weeks into her pregnancy. Her husband beat her and her water broke. She is on bed rest. The only neonatal intensive care units are in Quito. So far the hospitals there have not accepted her.

-A regional soccer player came to the ER with a stab wound to the abdomen last night after being at a bar. The blade just missed vital areas. Jay said it was weird to put his finger in the little hole in the skin and be able to feel all the way back to the man’s liver. The blade hit some arteries and blood was pooling internally. Obviously, God isn’t finished with this young man yet. Pray for his heart and for the staff to be able to minister to him.

-A mother who lost a lot of blood during a delivery with placenta complications. She was transferred here from another hospital to address the bleeding. Members of the staff have given her three pints of blood.

-An 11-year-old boy who tripped and fell into a very large cooking pot of hot water. (Jungle villages cook as a community and use giant pots.) His mid-section has severe burns. Pray for his pain as the dressings are changed.