Local doctors and volunteers
help impoverished Hondurans
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| Rockbridge area residents teach Hondurans about health care on a mission trip last year. (Courtesy of Jane Horton) |
In the remote mountain village of La Boquita, Honduras, Doris Fredericksen realized how much she was needed.
“I saw this woman carrying what I thought was a little boy, but the boy was 16 years old,” she said. “She has carried him around for 16 years, and he had so many things wrong with him that it was just the saddest thing.”
The mother and child were just two of the 2,014 impoverished Hondurans that Fredericksen helped treat during a weeklong medical mission trip in August.
One of the 14 Rockbridge County residents to make the journey, Fredericksen shared her experience in a presentation at the Lexington Presbyterian Church, where she is a member of the congregation, Mar. 19.
Along with fellow travelers and congregation members Dr. Jane Horton and Dr. Walter Kerschl, Fredericksen also detailed plans to continue Rockbridge County’s medical contributions to Latin America.
“All the things you think are important, aren’t down there,” said Fredericksen. “The things that are important to them are survival and eating and having things for their children.”
With the help of the Virginia-based nonprofit Friends of Barnabas Foundation, a Christian organization that arranges medical missions both locally and to Honduras, Fredericksen is planning another team for a return trip in May. After seeing the extreme poverty that exists in Honduras’ small villages, she knew she needed to continue helping the area.
“They don’t have doctors,” she said. “Many of the people we saw had never seen a doctor before.”
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| Hondurans line up for health services from the volunteers. (Courtesy of Jane Horton) |
Horton agreed, citing the enthusiasm that greeted the team at each of the five villages they visited. As one of the team’s doctors, she said that she routinely treated entire extended families.
“People would come and stay the rest of the day,” said Horton. “We were basically staffing a pharmacy to see whole families.”
At least four health-care specialists will accompany Fredericksen and a group of local volunteers on her return trip. Once in Honduras, the team undergoes all of the training necessary for treating the area’s citizens.
During the previous trip, the mission team performed checkups, treated patients for parasites and fitted patients for eyeglasses. Volunteers also gave lectures on basic hygiene.
When the Rockbridge County team returns this spring, it will visit a different section of central Honduras. But Kerschl is also working toward creating a permanent presence in Latin America. Together with fellow team member Josh Harvey, also of Lexington, he founded the Rockbridge-Haiti Medical Alliance. The foundation will provide health services to Haiti in much the same way as he did during his week in Honduras.
“Haiti makes Honduras look like Club Med,” said Kerschl. “Without us providing this help, they do not have any health services at all.”
Harvey, a member of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Lexington, said it was because of the church that he and Kerschl chose to make Fond Pierre in southeast Haiti the base city for their mission. St. Patrick’s has a twin parish in Fond Pierre and routinely sends donations there.
Kerschl’s foundation already has $4,000 of the $10,000 it needs to send the first mission team from Rockbridge County to Fond Pierre in November. Similarly, Fredericksen is in the midst of fund-raising for her trip. Participants must pay approximately $2,000 each, but she said $400 of that goes toward purchasing medicine for the Hondurans.
Lexington Presbyterian is also helping to subsidize the cost for some of its participating members.
Kershl and Fredericksen will visit different countries this year, but both agreed that the original trip inspired them.
“You sort of feel a calling,” said Kerschl. “It’s something that you have to experience to then know that, ‘Hey, this is what I need to do.’”
Fredericksen always returns to the image of the tiny woman carrying her 16-year-old son to see the mission team.
“When they see that white bus coming, they know it’s help,” she said.
Produced by
Washington and Lee
journalism students.
Lead Supervisors:
Prof. Brian
Richardson
Prof. Indira Somani
Editing supervisor:
Prof. Lisa Tracy
Technical supervisor: Michael Todd