Day 2 and 3 at the AIDS clinic were awesome, but the team was definitely feeling the affects of being in India for 8 or 9 days....whatever it was at that point. We were able to help so many people and help people who are rejected by so many just because of the illnesses they suffer, but I think our team was just worn out...but we made it through the 3 days and when we departed the AIDS clinic it was not easy. We were leaving behind special people who are doing special work!
Over the couple of days, we served about 150 patients and about 45 of them were suffering from HIV/AIDS. The incredible thing about this service to all of these people is so special....this ministry was started because many of them go to a hospital to be treated and are turned away....just because they have HIV or AIDS. The leader, or project manager, of the AIDS clinic, Mr. T, told us a story of how he started this clinic. It was pretty incredible. In 2000, he met a 16 year old boy who was deathly ill....Mr. T took this young man to the hospital to be treated at a government hospital and the doctor took him into the room, checked him over, and said "Nope, can't treat him." Mr. T says..."What, why." Doctor..."He has AIDS." So, Mr. T took him back to the boy's house, spent the rest of the day with him, and the young man died 6 or 7 hours later. Since that day, Mr. T has had a passion in his heart for those suffering from HIV/AIDS since that day....he has studied HIV/AIDS, he has started a ministry, started a clinic....first doctors saw patients under a tent and now, you can see the building that exists as the clinic on the last blog. He has incredible drive, dedication, and such a HUGE heart for these people who no one will touch.
The heart wrenching part of the days were seeing the little kids who were infected with HIV….so sad and devastating…it was written all over their faces that they did not feel good…they didn’t feel right! These kids did nothing wrong, yet, from the day they are born, they are rejected from this world.....they don't feel good, they suffer each day in a home that isn't really a home, they are forced to live a normal life without normal things....impossible.
All of the medical folks were really excited about the medical camps because they finally got to do some good medical work....or so I am told. I had a really hard time understanding what they felt was so awesome about in between the times of trying not to throw up!!!
They worked with a blind man (which was on-set from diabetes) who had been in a vehicle accident and it had severed three of his toes. There was an open wound on the bottom of his foot....open wound doesn't really describe what it looked like and the assumed pain we thought he would feel....but when they touched the bottom of his foot he hardly even flinched. Then, they discovered he had a large abscess on his bottom, a huge abscess on his groin and another under his arm. Dr. John said he thought the abscesses had been there for weeks, maybe even months. That is not so normal....you could hear the pain from the screams throughout the clinic....it pulled at the heart strings a bit!
Another woman had a burn wound from a car accident and another man with an abscess under his arm....these people have not had treatment for so long....some of the things so simple in America to be treated and these people suffer for weeks, maybe months, sometimes years....without relief.
Each one of these precious people had been to different doctors and hospitals for treatment....each had been rejected.
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