Profiles of Amazing Students

We had the great pleasure today of hearing the personal stories of our new students in the Barefoot Doctors School.  Yesterday we had taken their profile pictures to add to the database we are creating about their villages and the need for medical services there.  Here is a sampling of those pictures.

Today we gave each of the 20 students the opportunity to get up and tell us about themselves.  They were to include three things in what they said:
1. Information about their family and their village
2. The story about when they became a Christian
3. Why they want to be a Barefoot Doctor.

Most of the students were very animated as they told their stories and gave their testimonies today.  They told us some heartbreaking stories about the loss of parents or siblings to one disease or another, mostly because there was no hospital or clinic to take their loved one to.  In this modern age, this is almost unbelievable and yet their stories were very similar.
We won't identify the student by name, but here is one of their stories.

My name is _______ and I live in a village in northern Burma.  I grew up with 8 brothers and sisters. I grew up in a Christian family   I was baptized into Christ when I was 13 years old.  I am now married and have one daughter.  My husband is a schoolteacher in Putao.

By the grace of God I can attend the Barefoot Doctors School and learn the medical and Bible things I need to learn.  Once I leave, I will go very far away from our house to serve people in a very remote area without any medical care.  I have many family members there.  There is a hospital in that area, but they do not give good care.  They don’t even give the limited medicine they have to their patients.  Many people die there.

A local villager had an appendix attack and the doctors at the hospital knew it, but they would not operate or treat his symptoms. In two days the man died right in the hospital, even though his death was preventable.  I want to become a Barefoot Doctor in order to really care about people and help them with their medical needs.

Once again in the evening we had devotions.  

Afterwards the President of the Class shared the news that we are all going to the Night Market in Chiang Mai tomorrow evening.  This will be the first time for everyone in the class except one.  They are in for a treat!