This trip will be a team going to Comayagua Honduras to provide surgical care to those who have no access or cannot afford surgery. I am part of a surgical brigade that will travel there for one week and estimate doing 80-100 surgeries. General, OBGYN and orthopedic specialties. Many of the patients have been suffering for months or years waiting for a mission surgical brigade to arrive so they can be treated. Cholecystitis, hernias, uterine fibroids, uterine prolapse and torn ligaments and meniscus are among the most common issues seen and operated on. These brigades are truly life changing for these patients.
This service is open to people in Honduras who are in extreme poverty. They are all low income, widowed, orphaned or disabled. The people we serve have no access to care or ability to afford care. We partner with a mission hospital that is established in Honduras who screens and helps refer patients for surgery.
As a team, we hope to be able to serve 80-100 patients in the week. Some of these patients will have been suffering for years with no access to treatment or relief. Along with the hospital in Honduras, we use the patient information/ statistics to better serve the population in the future. We also will use the experience to better serve patients in the future.
I am just returning from Honduras for the 5th year (6th time). Our team did 89 surgeries this week in gynecology and general surgery specialties. These surgeries are free of cost to the patients, and all the patients are the poorest of the poor in the country. Just to start with some perspective, 10.6% of Americans are below the poverty line. In 2025 in Honduras, just over 60% of the country lives below the poverty line with over 38% in extreme poverty. The UN defines extreme poverty as making less than $1.90 a day. Those are the people who we are serving.
We partner with a mission hospital that was built and established by the Catholic Church San Benito José Medical Center (SBJ). There is a criteria to be seen and treated at SBJ that includes proof of that financial need. Patients travel from all over the country to receive care. We met many this week who drove 6-8 hours to have surgery at SBJ, because they would never receive it otherwise. It is a need that we struggle to understand in America
The gratitude and joy of the people of Honduras never ceases to amaze me. The people that we care for are some of the least affluent in the world, and yet they are full of joy and thankfulness to us, to the hospital but greatest, of thankfulness to God. They feel blessed beyond words. It is humbling and resets my perspective in a way that I have learned that I desperately need.
It leaves me with an overwhelming desire to thank each and every person who supports this work and mission. I get the great privilege of getting a front row seat to the impact, but none of it would be possible without the support from people here at home who are so generous.
As I always do, I thank you. Thank you from me, the team, the staff at the hospital but more importantly, thank you from the patients who have the hope of a better life.
