Written by Erica Saxey
SATC medical campaign volunteer – January 2025
One of my favorite things to do is to travel the world with my husband Chris, we like to hike mountains and canyons and see the culture and archeological sites, but recently, for the first time, we took the opportunity to travel to Peru for a humanitarian medical mission with the faith-based group Scalpel At The Cross. I had some hesitancy over this, I don’t have any medical skills, my Spanish is minimal, and I tend towards introvert-ism. Although trained as a high school biology teacher, I haven’t formally taught since having my family 14 years ago! I figured there would be some way I could help, and was excited to get some direction in that. Right away, we attended a Christian church with the surgical team, and I was encouraged by the sermon to not focus on what God wants to do with me, but to join Him in the work He is doing around me. This is a good way to approach our lives in general, to seek a relationship with our Savior, use personal revelation through the Holy Spirit, and join Him in the work He is doing around us.
On clinic day, before our surgical team had even finished setting up, a couple hundred people were gathered, only half of them being people with ailments, the rest being their families, and many of the gathered were people from two local churches who had come to sing and pray. I couldn’t believe that even 6-7 hours later, there was still a man strumming his guitar, people singing and clapping to the beat as the last few patients visited with the doctors. It was really heart-warming to see some patients who had received surgery 12 weeks prior come back for another check-up and see the progress they had made. The hospital serves a massive region of Amazonian Peru. Some patients lived in Pucallpa, but many patients had traveled for days to come to have surgery from small villages where they may have traveled over water or by foot. The theme of Scalpel At the Cross is healing bones and hearts. It was beautiful to pray in the hallway of a hospital with a surgeon, a nurse, a patient, and give it to the Lord to guide the minds and hands in the surgery and touch the hearts of all those involved.
I had never known so many children or teens, and even young adults to have congenital bone irregularities. Here in the USA, a baby usually receives surgery fairly promptly after birth if it is going to have a big impact on their life, to remove extra or abnormally grown fingers or toes or limbs, or release their Achilles tendons to help them walk and not have club feet. These surgeries are not readily available for everyone in the jungle of Peru. On clinic day, we met a wonderful young man who had a sixth toe that was quite sideways on one foot. Not only did he have to buy 2 pairs of shoes, but it also affected his mobility, and he had been bullied a lot for looking different. He really wanted surgery, but had been told that he would be on a waiting list, and likely, he would not be taken care of in this campaign because of so many other cases, like fractures or infections that needed attention sooner. We assured him to have faith in God’s plan, that things would be ok. He asked specifically for prayers that he would be chosen. In order to have time for one more case, the very last day, part of the team went extra early to the hospital, but for a different patient. That morning, the other patient, unfortunately for him, ate the bowl of breakfast quinoa, so his case had to be cancelled because it’s dangerous to have anything in the belly when fully under anesthesia. The young man who had been praying for his 6th toe to be removed was called to surgery. God did provide a way for him. In visiting with him the next day during what we called Spiritual rounds, he had great interest in learning about Jesus Christ and was hoping to help with music in the church near him in the future.
A bulk of the surgery time was spent on very complicated cases. Many of these were bones that had been broken from such things as moto-taxi or motorcycle accidents, a man in his 70s had fallen from his roof, a young man had been working, when a huge beam fell on his leg and destroyed his knee. These patients had had a surgery before where hardware plates, nails, or wires were placed to reinforce the broken bones or joints, but they hadn’t healed yet, some even after 2 years for various reasons, most often due to infection from the inside out. The orthopedic surgeons from the US were tasked to open up the surgical site again, debrief the tissue and bones, getting them all clean, and then figure out a way to restabilize the bones; all without the handy little x-ray machines that are found in US operating rooms (Fluoroscopy).
I have to insert now that although I have a great interest in all things medical, sometimes my head gets to me, and seeing things, smelling things, and even hearing details of medical cases causes me to have some nausea. Not always, but occasionally. You can imagine I had some angst about this medical mission. Because I don’t have any medical experience, I assumed I would be holding the hands of anxious patients pre-operatively, or working in reception, or even mopping floors or the like during the OR days. The night before the first case, when I found out that I was needed to scribe in the operating room, and particularly, take detailed photos of the surgery for the EMR, I said a sincere prayer that I would be able to do what was needed. I had snacks for nausea ready, I knew to step backwards and slide down a wall to the floor, but Heavenly Father blessed me so greatly, and I was fine the whole time in the OR, even in the cases in which I scribed that were particularly invasive. It was so eye-opening for me to get to see what my husband, as a nurse anesthetist, does, to see the amazing light and knowledge that God has provided to the surgeons, and to have a better understanding and therefore empathy for the suffering of the patients and the importance of the campaign.
A woman who was truly terrified to go to surgery because she feared dying during the operation received words of prayer offered up on her behalf by her surgeons and anesthesia provider. It was apparent that she felt comforted by the Lord from that prayer as she became calm and peaceful as she was readied for surgery, despite not even having any sedation up to that point. Her femur had broken 2 years prior and had been fixed with a plate, but somehow her leg had become infected from the inside, and the infection worked its way out and could be seen in an opening in her leg. All the infected metal and tissue were removed, and a new plate that was coated in an antibiotic cement was placed to stabilize the femur and prevent another infection.
Although I couldn’t help but have my heart broken thinking about the body on the table being a living person who had had such turmoil, I was reassured that their lives were being improved and, in some cases, even saved. For example, the poor soul who had stepped into an animal trap out in the Amazon and had had birdshot shot into his ankle at close range, had had surgery where a plate was placed on his tibia, and now a year later, he still couldn’t walk and his bone was infected which had to be cleaned out. He was so grateful to have had a sign nail placed down his tibia, locking it to his ankle, and then some of the marrow from his femur was packed into his ankle, which will heal into bone. He will not have any ability to flex his foot, so he will walk with something like a stump for an ankle and foot, but he will walk again. The terrain is so difficult to navigate where these people are, and the work is such that having an amputation can be a death sentence for many. Importantly, the Lord has used His timing and the good hands of His servants to have placed several people in Pucallpa who can see to the care of the surgical patients in between the campaigns.
It was beautiful to connect with patients in hope. We all have need of hope, no matter our circumstances. The people in Pucallpa are a lot humbler, but we all have times when our hearts may be hardened and we need more humility. Sometimes God, our Heavenly Father, allows us to be brought down to a low point so we have the opportunity to humble ourselves, and then be brought back up by God.
Each night, everyone on the Scalpel at the Cross team was tired, yet we gathered for devotionals, which were so worth staying up for as a good reminder to reflect on the day and connect in Spirit with Christ. One of the orthopedic surgeons pointed out that back home when he is teaching, he suggests that better language than “the patient suffered a fall” etc is “the patient sustained a fall”. In Pucallpa, truly, we saw suffering as many of these patients had waited years for healing and have had to provide a living for themselves and their families despite great physical pain or impairment. And so many people were just doing their best without complaint. In Romans 5, we learn to rejoice in our sufferings. Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope. What a beautiful and hopeful people these Peruvians are. How can we, too have hope as we rejoice in our hardships? I want to remember that as a take-away in living my life here to rejoice in hardship.
We got to be a part of helping some friends in Peru know that they are sons and daughters of Heavenly Father and we seek to be able to live with Him again. This was a chance to use medical skills in combination with our faith in Christ. The broken bones became a means to the end of, healing broken hearts. It was absolutely a joy to be with people from various faiths, mostly the Christian faith, from around the country and talk about Christ together with them. They were the hands and feet of Christ. At one point in the OR I removed a lid of a hardware kit, the surgeon looked inside and explained to me that this is not at all how it would look in his OR back home, everything was archaic in comparison, yet he was able to work with what he had, and with the Lord, he did the best that could be done. My husband Chris had an anesthesia machine to work with, which didn’t always respirate the patient, so he carefully and lovingly bagged many patients breathing them, the entire case. When a rainstorm caused the electricity in the hospital to go out on and off the whole day, and the backup generator also failed, those of us not scrubbed in, reached over and turned on the headlamps for the surgeons and scrubs. I saw them take tangled and jumbled appendages and right them, and then the next day talk with and pray with these dear brothers and sisters. I know that there is so much good and light all from Christ in this world, and it was such a testament to His love to me and all our brothers and sisters, to work in a good cause with people to bring to pass much righteousness.
One of the nights, Chris gave a devotional where he spoke of the parable of the Great Supper in Luke 14. The feast represents the blessings of the Gospel which are for all of us, God’s children. At first many who are invited have excuses to not come and partake; don’t bother me now Lord, I just bought land, I am too busy with my new family, my work takes too much time, or other material things that cloud the vision of what is eternally important. There is free will, no one is forced to come, but in choosing to come, one is choosing God first, God before everything. In this parable ,we can put ourselves in the place of the servants as we do our best to act and serve others as the Lord’s servants, as we were striving to do there in Pucallpa and as we strive in our lives at home. We can also imagine ourselves as the poor, we too are poor. There are always things that we lack, whether temporarily, physically, emotionally, or spiritually. Trials make life hard, but as we seek to do our best and depend on the Savior, we will be blessed. The Savior can fill the voids in our lives, and He can lead us from the dark parts of our lives because He, Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world.
It doesn’t take traveling to some place exotic to be the hands and feet of the Savior. For everything under the heaven, there is a time and a season and a plan for all things. Heavenly Father is in all the preparations to bring us to where we are, and for us to help in doing His Work. As we strive to intentionally be closer to His presence and learn of His character, where our feet are standing is where our hands can serve.