Cambodia Feb 2017 - Takao

Just finished the last 2 medical camps of this trip. And they were wonderful.  Had all new medical students so that's always a source of slight worry especially after the last group had become so well trained, but it was wonderful. This years medical students have been amazing!!! Some of them I know weren't so happy as we started the camp.  They are trained to rush through patients and so it was just such a shift in their way of doing things, but by the end of the day they were happy that they were learning so much. They were learning how to really take a history and physical and how to educate their patients.  I loved them, they were all smart, had a great heart and I feel so blessed we could help them learn.  
The trip was tough and challenging but every challenge God blessed us extra special. The first place took us 5-6 hours to get to. It was sooo far! We got there and found a big crowd waiting and the whole place set up for us already! Rarely is the place set up but anything we needed we had helpers for.  They were so thankful they even had coffee and tea ready for us! We have never been treated so nicely before.  The government officials stayed with the whole time and even guided us out of the place.  We thought we wouldn't be able to see everyone but just when I gave an ok we can stop, I saw only 50 patients were left and so we saw them all! So everyone could leave happy. So despite starting so late we still saw our 150 patients! Also without the eye doctors we could still give glasses! Because we have learned how to do it and we had so many left over glasses! I love how much we are growing and expanding!
That night we got to the hotel at 10:30.  A very very long day only to find that there was no electricity.  It returned for a few minutes and then it was off again till almost 5am.  But everyone was ready by 6:30am and we were off to the next medical camps.  We were all so happy to see the nicest establishment we have been to so far. And if we were happy with tea and coffee we were ecstatic with mango, bread, banana chips, sweet potato chips and coffee! Not only that the toilets were clean!!!! So clean!! with toilet paper and soap!
The place is run by missionaries from america and the sister of the wife visiting is a nurse of U of Wa in Seattle and we live about 20 minutes from each other. She's got plans to send teams of specialists in with me! YAY! I'm so excited!!! She was happy because she felt this was why she came - to connect with me and she wasn't even supposed to be there.  
The students are super eager to learn and we were able to do learning sessions before each camp. I was thinking that is would be great to be able to teach them more and Rithy had the same idea so we might just be able to do that! I love God!!!
We saw some very interesting cases. It's been wonderful to see variety. I was starting to wonder how long we need to continue doing camps because we were seeing so much heartburn and just simple aches and pains, but now we are seeing things, even I have to look up - the rare stuff and so I feel like we can really make a difference.  
For all those interested in coming we need medical and non-medical people, each person makes such a difference! :)