Loma de Luz

I'd heard of this hospital on the northern coast of Honduras a few years ago and had kind of tucked the connection into the back of my mind, so when I started planning a trip to Central America again, the memory surfaced and thus I found myself cramming into a 3-wheeled moto-taxi on a dirt road to the middle of nowhere.  I had woken up that morning on the island of Roatan, taken the ferry to La Ceiba and the bus to Jutiapa before finding transportation for my final leg.

I arrived at the hospital and after the initial deliberations and niceties met a middle-aged guy in jeans and a T shirt who introduced himself as Dr. McKenney.  He and his wife, a family practice doc, were in the middle of their persistent work of organizing, planning, arranging and coordinating the work that is Loma de Luz and its many offshoots.  Graciously, he took some time to show me around in the midst of all that and incidentally set and casted a patient's arm. 

They have a pretty incredible story of which I only heard a small part, but essentially they were stymied in their efforts to become longterm missionary doctors for any organization so spent 10 years developing contacts and organizations both in the U.S. and Honduras to build a new hospital.  The Honduran government steered them to a location where the mountains meet the ocean that years prior, Dr. McKenney had seen on a map and dreamed of going.  His dream coincided with the need in Honduras and Loma de Luz was born.

The actual facility defies the conventional model of a Latin American hospital in that it provides a multitude of services in the same place, but extends to provide a foster home for children, educational facilities, a hub for communications, housing for visiting missionaries and many other services.  Additionally, a majority of patients are able to hear the Gospel, not in a compulsory fashion, but in a "this is who we are and why we do what we do" fashion.  As a side note, Dr. McKenney has also been working on developing his own biodiesel from African oil palm which has been planted liberally around the grounds in an attempt to get off the grid a little more. 

For having only spent a couple hours there, the impact and amount of information I gained was huge.  My head was reeling a little bit as I traced the route back to La Ceiba and boarded a bus for Teguchigalpa.  I was incredibly grateful for the example and incredible dedication of the McKenneys and was really challenged to take seriously this work I have been called to.