WE FINISHED!

The Barefoot Dr students. In the front row from left to right is Dr. Vegas Coleman, Dr. Lauren Hansen-Welches, Dr. Elise O’Connell, Dr. Bjorn Nilson, Rick Astone MPT, Timothy and Abraham our translators and Barefoot Drs themselves.

We finished! Somehow we got everything done by the end of the medical program. It was only possible by the grace of God. The program came to a very successful close Friday night and ended with a dinner and celebration after class. There were a few speeches, a lot of singing, gift-giving, and of course PICTURES. We concluded the celebration with everyone forming a circle and praying out loud in their native language for the guidance and safety of the Barefoot Dr students as well as the teaching Doctors. It was a powerful and special evening.
One of the Barefoot Dr students, Thin Bey, shared a testimony of an event in his village when some fully trained Barefoot Drs saved a man's life after the man was sent home from the local medical clinic to die. The villagers had already dug his grave and made the coffin for this guy! They had filled out the head stone and just left the end date blank to be completed at his actual death. This dying man was unconscious when a team of Barefoot Drs went to see him. Thin Bey does not know exactly what they did but he told us they drained a lot of fluid from his abdomen. In two days the man was on his feet and now he is back to work in the fields and doing just fine. Thin Bey had lunch with him a few months ago before he came down to the Barefoot Drs training. I should also mention there was a lot of praying going on for this sick man as well. Whole villages and churches were praying for him as well as the Barefoot Drs themselves. So who knows exactly how he was healed but he was healed. The credit goes to God either way but most believe that God healed this man through the Barefoot Drs medical treatment.




The last day of class was jammed full of last minute things we had to complete. Dr. Nilson went through scenarios, diseases, and drugs. We gave them a final exam that was compiled by the three visiting Doctors, Elise O’Connell, Lauren Hansen-Welches, Vegas Coleman.
We also had the students get familiar with their new field books they will use to document all their patient treatments. The book also has some medical coding and drug formularies in it for easy reference and documentation. Dr. Bjorn Nilson did an outstanding job compiling this field charting booklet for the students. We also need to thank our friends in the local medical community for their help and ideas for making this field booklet.
In addition to all that, we handed out their new waterproof medical bags and all the equipment we had. They are still short on many items and almost all the medicine they will need but this is a good start. They can get everything else fairly easily in Thailand or Burma once the money comes in. Of course there was more gift-giving and pictures even before we headed across the lawn to the celebration dinner. We gave them each a signed class photo collage Bjorn had put together on his computer and some dried fruit and nuts grown in California. Of course they gave each of us teachers gifts at the celebration as well. They had hand carried very special bamboo tea cups from their homes in northern Burma. These cups are handmade and cannot be bought in Thailand. It is humbling to be given gifts and prayed for by the students who have overcome greater obstacles to get here than we have. We Are Not Done With The Blog Yet! I will continue to post over the next few days to catch up on some other pictures and stories I did not have time to update you all on as they were happening. So stay tuned.