We had completed treatment for the families represented by our original 160 registrants on Saturday; so our next goal was to attempt to treat the next group of 80 registrants and determine if we would be able to treat any of the unregistered patients. Although we had told the people that we weren’t sure if we would be able to come back on Monday we found quite a few patients waiting for us.

Unregistered patients hoping that we can see them.

By noon we realized that our doctors were able to treat around 40 patients per hour. We needed to leave by 5 pm and and still had around 120 patients to go. When we factored in the time it takes to explain the prescriptions as well as the time to cleanup the clinic we realized that we needed to send the unregistered patients home.

Unregistered patients listening as we explain that we need to turn them away.

Sending patients away is always a sad task. We explained to them that we simply didn’t have enough medical personnel to ensure that everyone received treatment. We told them that God loves them and that we loved them. We held a question and answer session so that they could really understand our reasons for turning them away. Finally we prayed for them and asked the Lord to heal their diseases.

A team member praying with patients as they are sent home.

In the meantime several things were happening inside the clinic. Out doctors really managed to step up the pace at which they were treating patients so everything inside the clinic was going well.

Our marketing exec turned pharmacist.

A team member administers medicine to a child.

One of team members was temporarily “promoted” to being a doctor so that we could treat a patient with an open wound in his leg. We weren’t sure how he had hurt himself but the skin in several areas of the patient’s lower right leg was completely gone and his wound was constantly attracting flies. Our doctor knew that the would needed to be cleaned; so after administering some pain medication and making sure that flies hadn’t managed to lay any eggs in the wound the doctor handed the patient off to a team member.

A team member cleans out an open wound.

The doctor knew the wound needed to be cleaned; but cleaning the wound with special fluid inside the clinic would have been a messy proposition. So he instructed the team member to setup an area outside to clean the wound and clean it thoroughly. Once the wound was clean they applied the appropriate bandages to cover it.  Finally after receiving instructions on how to care for the wound along with some antibiotics we were able to release the patient.

The same patient in a much better condition!

One emergency case that we saw was a child whom had been badly burned on his arm by hot water. A portion of the skin on that part of his arm was missing.

A doctor and team member cleaning a wound.

 His parents didn’t have any bandages to cover the wound; so on the advice of a neighbor they took some Kiwi shoe polish and applied it as a covering for the wound. Needless to say the first thing our doctor did was wash off the shoe polish and apply some real bandages to his arm!

At one point a deaf young man was treatedd and received a prescription for some medicine. One of our team members heads up the deaf ministry at Times Square Church; here she is trying to explain to this young man how to take his medicine.

Our deaf ministry leader explaining a prescription.

Access to clean water is a problem in this community. The nearest well is about 3 miles away from the refugee village. So surprisingly one commonly available item in the West that is extremely cherished here are water bottles. They make it very easy to transport small quantities of water around. Whenever people see someone carrying one around they immediately ask that the bottle be given to them once the water has been used.

Our team has been buying water to drink since we arrived and has been saving all of our empty bottles. So we decided that we would clean them, fill them up with water from the hotel, and then bring them to Bubanza with us. We distributed them to the patients that we treated as well as to the final group if patients that we would be unable to treat.

Team members giving away water.

At 4:30 pm we had to shut down the clinic knowing that we wouldn’t be able to return. By this point we had actually seen a majority of the patients whom we had registered; although as 4:30 approached we only treated the most serious cases from the end if the list.

The notebook we used to figure out how many patients we could see.

So we gathered the remaining people together and shared a simple message about Jesus with them. We prayed for them; passed out our remaining water bottles and went back to our hotel.

Team members turning away the last of the patients.

As we reflected on the trip later that evening; we all agreed that God had really used us to bless the people of Bubanza. We all felt priviledged to have been chosen to be a part of His work in that place.

As a group we all realized that our obedience to what God had asked us to do would have far reaching consequences in our lives as well as in the lives of everyone with whom we came in contact. Many in our group have a strong desire to return to Burundi and are planning to pray about coming back.

We all have given a heartfelt thanks to the Lord Jesus for everything He did for the people of Burundi during our stay. To God be the glory!