DAY THREE - Medical

I am not going to lie. I think this was the day I was most afraid of ever since I signed up to be a volunteer for Rising Star. On medical days, we go into lepracy colonies and wash the lepors feet and hands if needed. On this specific day, we went back to the same colony we went to the day before to a old folks home. What made this home really special is this specific colony decided to put their money together as a group effort and build this home specifically for older people to go stay at so that they could have the attention needed and a place to stay as they got old. It isn't anything like American retirement homes. It is made out of strictly cement. Has two large rooms. One room for the ladies, and one for the men. The beds are all medal beds with hard matresses and their belongings are just laying around their beds. But, there are very many happy faces there. There are the cutest old ladies in the world. Some of them have leporasy, and some don't.
When I got there, my first assignment was to wash the feet in water. Lepors have huge ulcers that eat away at the skin until they deform the whole muscles, bones, and flesh of the individuals feet, hands, and legs. I was afraid to wash feet. For one thing, I normally don't like to touch feet in general. The other was I didn't know how I could look at all the ulcers on their skin. Suprisingly enough, it was a very emotionally rewarding experience for me. My first patient had some bad ulcers all over her feet. Tears were dripping from my face as I was washing her feet. It reminded me of when Jesus washed others feet and when others were washing Jesus's feet. I eased into this medical process very fast as I ended up washing, oiling, and taking off the bandages of the patients feet. As I was serving these people, the ulcers didn't even phase me. I just knew we needed to help heal these patients, and this was how we needed to do it. Although many of them were in a lot of pain, they were brave souls that just seemed grateful for us to make eye contact with them and help them heal. I will never forget one of the older ladies I connected with. It was like we just spoke with each other with our eyes. We didn't understand each other, but she did the ritual where she blessed me over and over again. I wanted to take the old lady home with me. When we were finished washing the feet, the fun began. We broke out into dancing and we interacted with the people at the home dancing and laughing. What good times we had. They will always be in my heart.
We were able to hit the town after our medical experience, and I had some fun buying many different 'treasures' to take back with me!
Some of my favorite times is in the evening when we are with the little kids. It is a time for bonding with the kids, playing games with them, and helping them with their homework. I was bummed at first that I didn't have a girls dorm, but have ABSOLUTELY bonded with this set of boys! I just need to get these extremely weird names down.