Learning from world suffering, sorrow Two women on a healing misson travel abroad to Guatemala

Dozens of barefoot children ran down the trash-lined dirt road to greet the converted bus at the end of its three-hour journey from Guatemala City.

The children’s tattered clothes and the mountains of garbage reflected the poverty-stricken community of San Raymundo.

University nursing students Caitlin Butler and Danielle Shriver looked out the bus window with anticipation, realizing they were about to embark on a mission unlike anything they had ever experienced in the United States.

For the next eight days, they would work with a medical team providing care to people who couldn’t even afford shoes.

Infectious disease, high infant mortality, and lack of clean water plague this Central American country. Even if the residents could afford medical treatment, health care resources in the region are scarce.

Residents depend upon volunteers like Butler and Shriver.

Nursing students Caitlin Butler (right) and Danielle Shriver (left) pose with a group of patients during their visit to Guatemala on a healing misson. The young patients come from a very poor neighborhood that is located behind the medical health clinic. Courtesy Photo

From Feb. 28 to March 8, the 21-year-old students worked at Hospital Cristiano de Llano along with a team consisting of two classmates and doctors, nurses and nursing students from across the United States.

The trip was Butler’s first medical mission and the first mission trip for Shriver.

“I really don’t know what to expect,” Shriver said before leaving. “I just want God to use us in whatever way he wants.”

The women — the youngest members of the team — said the trip challenged them as nurses and as individuals.

“That was one of the most challenging parts of the trip. We still have so much to learn and don’t have nearly as much as experience as the other people we went with,” Butler said.

Butler and Shriver said they learned more in Guatemala than a semester of nursing school.

“We got to experience so many things that we would never get to experience in the U.S. as students,” Butler explained.

The students assisted in 50 surgeries and helped assess more than 1,000 clinic patients.

“It was like we were real nurses and not just students,” Shriver said. “The doctors were really patient and willing to teach us,” she added.

Butler and Shriver said Guatemalans considered the clinic advanced because it had running water, but they still found the conditions much different from the U.S.

“There was no heating or air conditioning, and it was cold while we were there. The windows didn’t close - there were just screens over them - so that made it pretty cold, especially at night,” Shriver said.

The language barrier also challenged the women and their team members, Butler said. Translators assisted the team, but they weren’t always available to help.

“Sometimes we just had to make do with the few Spanish words we know,” Butler said, laughing.

Exhaustion proved to be another factor, the students said.

“Working 15-hour days exhausted us. We were so tired, but we were still excited to get up and do it all over again the next day,” Butler said.

Butler and Shriver said the perseverance of the people for whom they cared impressed them. Some patients reportedly walked for two or three days to reach the clinic and receive treatment for a disease or condition they had suffered with for years, they said.

“We don’t know the definition of suffering,” Shriver said.

“Those people didn’t complain, no matter what,” Butler added.

She said one of her patients was a man whose infected leg prevented him from working and providing for his family.

“He had surgery to amputate his leg below the knee and when he came out of surgery he was smiling and kept telling us, ‘Thank you, thank you. God bless you.’ “ Butler said. “I’ve taken care of patients [in Tyler] who have had that surgery and they’re usually not thrilled about losing one of their legs. But he was just so happy and grateful that he wasn’t in pain anymore.”

The students said they realize some people in the U.S. cannot afford medical care, but they said the need in Guatemala is extreme.

“These people have no money and no resources. They have nowhere to go for medical care except when the clinic is running. Parasites and infectious disease are rampant here. It’s a huge problem,” Shriver said.

The women said the trip had a profound effect on their lives and future careers.

“We thought that this was where God wanted us to be, in the mission field. But this trip just confirmed that to us,” Shriver said.

Both said they hope to return to Guatemala in July to work in another, more primitive clinic and they said they plan to work periodically in Guatemala after graduating from nursing school.

“By the end of the trip, I didn’t want to leave Guatemala and now I can’t wait to get back there. That’s where I’m supposed to be,” Butler said.

Samantha Swain Contributing writer