A Series of Miracles? You Decide
By Mike Tysowsky
I’m going to tell you an improbable story. Some say its’s a series of miracles. You decide. In 2002, a group from Liberty Corner Presbyterian Church, in NJ and Westminster Presbyterian Church in West Chester, PA took a 7-day trip to Honduras—some to build an addition to a school and others to do clinical dentistry. An event on the last night the team was in town changed healthcare in the La Entrada community. A man appeared at the school yard gate seeking help, thinking there were physicians in our midst. The man had stepped on a board with a rusty nail that pierced through his foot. We had packed up; we were going home. But, the dentist in our midst, Bob Sumner, took the man in, removed the board and nail, and washed his wound with Clorox and alcohol. That’s all we had available. No tetanus shot. There was no other medical attention available to this man in the community. When Bob rose from helping the man, he turned and saw more than 100 hungry people, many of whom were sick, peering at us through the cyclone fence, smelling the food being cooked for us. He couldn’t get the sight of those faces out of his mind.
Bob was very quiet, almost non-communicative on the return flight home. We thought he might have been ill, but he was just quiet; he was thinking. He had recognized that if we were going to make an impact on the community of La Entrada, the Hondurans needed a great deal more than what we could offer in one week. They needed permanent access to healthcare.
Weeks later, Bob assembled a few people in West Chester and began the conversation with, “Maybe we could start a clinic in La Entrada—a couple of rooms, supply medicines, hire a doctor, or maybe buy some land and build a clinic.”
“Maybe we could start a clinic in La Entrada—a couple of rooms, supply medicines, hire a doctor, or maybe buy some land and build a clinic.”
We knew no one in the country, we had no wealthy friends, we didn’t speak Spanish. How could we ever build a clinic in Honduras? A miracle, that’s how!
This is where it all started 20 years ago. Bob saw the need; he had a vision and he assembled passionate people around him. And even before any of the details were worked out, we stepped out in faith and started collecting used medical equipment and storing it. Many thanks are owed to Bill Winters, Gary Hudell, and Jim Harrison for the use of their warehouses over the years.
We focused on relationship building, knowing the importance of community buy-in for what we wanted to do. In an early meeting with local government officials and business leaders, the mayor at the time stood up, looked Bob Sumner in the eye , and shook his finger at him saying loudly, “Si no hablas en serio, ¡no me hagas perder el tiempo!” Simply put, “If you don’t mean business, then don’t waste my time!”
In 2003, Serving at the Crossroads shipped some medical equipment to La Entrada, helped establish Manos Amigas as a private non-governmental health organization with its own Honduran board of directors, hired a physician and started treating patients in a refurbished government building.
The lines of patients waiting for care were so long.
Miracles alone aren’t always enough; they are the spark which starts a fire; but it takes people to fan the flames. Most call these people doctors, philanthropists, bakers, and builders; we call them angels. 
Angel #1
Here is where we met our First Angel, Dr Jesus Dubon. Peering from his office across the street, day after day, he saw the lines of people waiting to be treated at the clinic. He knew that one doctor could not see all of those patients in a single day. So, Jesus went to the clinic each morning before opening his private practice to help the clinic physician. He triaged, treated and instructed patients on health matters and would not take a lempira for his efforts. He was our first true volunteer. The clinic saw 6,000 patients each of those early years.
Angel #2
By 2005, we were talking about expanding the clinic and adding dentistry. God sent us not just another angel, but also a message. We met our second guardian angel—a wealthy woman in Kansas City who wished to remain anonymous. She was trying to buy the Kansas City A’s baseball team at the time, but we did not know that. She looked at our “back of the envelope” drawing for a clinic and said, “Boys, you are thinking too small….think bigger!” On the way back to the airport she wrote $100,000 on a napkin, handed it to Bob saying, “This is what I am going to do for you, but first you must raise $100,000.” Over the next year we did that. She then told us she as going to give us another $100,000. Now we were excited; we had $300,000! With that money we expected to buy land and build a new clinic in Honduras. We told everyone we knew back home—neighbors, churches, friends. We applied for matching grants, interviewed with Philadelphia’s The Inquirer, and continued collecting more surplus medical equipment.
Angel #3
The miracle of manna, or heavenly bread, descended on the children of Israel during their exodus in the desert. Our manna came from a local baker in La Entrada. As it turned out, Don Amancio became our third angel. His company, La Popular, is the largest employer in the region. He was a busy man and we waited almost 2 years for a meeting with him. He spoke no English, so we communicated our plans through his secretary / interpreter. Don Amancio said, “I’ve been wanting to do what you’re proposing. I just didn’t know how to do it.” He believed God had sent us to him and told us that he would help us anyway we needed. That kind of commitment was life changing for me. Don Amancio introduced us to a local architect who produced drawings for a clinic at no charge.
However, even though God provides opportunity, it doesn’t mean there aren’t still challenges. We put the drawings and specifications out for bid in Honduras and the cheapest bid was $850k with others coming in at more than $1M. And that did not include electricity, plumbing or drilling a well!
Despite this seeming setback, we continued raising money. We consulted with the local Manos Amigas board and started a search for land which Serving at the Crossroads intended to buy and donate to Manos Amigas. We settled on a plot of seven acres about 5 miles from La Entrada and on the main highway from San Pedro Sula. In the meantime, Don Amancio said he would help us financially if we drilled a well. Shortly thereafter, we broke ground on a well and struck an aquifer. Water shot from the rock, thirty feet in the air. “This was when I knew we were on the right path,” said Bob Sumner.
“Shortly thereafter, we broke ground on a well and struck an aquifer. Water shot from the rock, thirty feet in the air. This was when I knew we were on the right path. ”
Angel #4
It was getting close to the fall holidays in 2008 and we still needed more money. On Christmas Eve, my next-door neighbor told me he had described our vision for a new clinic to a mission leader with whom he had served. Unbeknownst to me, that mission leader, Wes Syverson was soon to be guardian angel #4. Wes was head of Tech Serve International, a nonprofit organization comprised of U.S. professional tradesmen who travel the world building schools, radio stations, hospitals, and churches. “I think I can help you,” said Wes “How soon can you come to Little Rock with drawings?” The first week of January, Bob and I were in Little Rock. Upon reviewing the drawings, Wes said he could help us and he could build it cheaper.
Wes told us not to laugh, but we were going to source all of the building components—steel, glass, nails, bolts, doorknobs, commodes, cabinets, cement mixers and power tools and we are going to put up that building. Tech Serve loaded these materials in five cargo containers and put them aboard a ship bound for Honduras. Wes and his crew flew in and worked alongside local Honduran laborers to erect the clinic. We didn’t have loading docks from which to offload the pieces and parts of the clinic, but through word-of-mouth, local bull dozers and cranes from the area showed up and we had our clinic in place in less than 18 months and at a cost of about $650,000, including plumbing, septic and electrical!
While we did extensive fundraising in the U.S., we also received financial support from the businesses and communities near the clinic. La Popular Bakery, Occidental Bank, and Coagrisal Coffee Co-op all provided funds. When the council of mayors from neighboring towns learned members of their communities would receive medical and dental care at the clinic, they donated money as well. For the first time, they had a place where people were welcome and they could access quality medical services.
In April 2010, we officially opened the new 10,000 sq ft. clinic building, outfitted with medical and dental equipment, all donated to Manos Amigas to operate as their own facility, but assisted and supported by Serving at the Crossroads. We now had medical and dental care as well as a fully-stocked pharmacy. The long-range plan was to develop the land as a medical campus.
The Manos Amigas Clinic was real.
It was not going away or closing its doors because of a lack of support like so many clinic efforts. It was a part of the local community and operated by Honduran healthcare professionals.
Manos Amigas provided medical and dental services. We had a reliable supply of medications, small analytical lab and an operating room. When people had a medical consult, they also were given a prescription for medication which was filled onsite. We learned that Hondurans are proud and don’t like taking charity. So, those that could afford it, paid a small fee—about the price of a Coca Cola at the time. Those who didn’t have the resources to pay were never turned away; they received the same quality of care as paying patients.
Shortly after opening the doors to our new clinic in 2010, patient visits increased to more than 10,000 per year and many more angels appeared with the arrival of U.S. medical brigades.
Dr. Ed Fannan and his medical brigades from Geisinger Hospital followed us from the original clinic and were the first brigade in the new clinic.
Dr. George Trajtenberg and his surgical teams from Chester County Hospital set up an operating room with equipment donated by the hospital and performed general surgery.
Dr. Jim Gustainis from West Chester provided oral surgery in the new dental wing.
Jim Davenport donated hearing aids from the Gift of Sound Program and Operation Honduras.
Audiologists Judith Curtin, Elizabeth Meenan, and Jeanne Singer tested patients and fitted them with those hearing aids.
Meaghan Frisbee and Dr. Rottman with Vision Health International established our vision care program providing glasses and eye surgeries.
Paul and Sean Geary of GWR Medical started the clinic’s use of topical oxygen therapy for wound care, which has saved many people from having their legs amputated.
These angels and their teams continue to regularly serve each year. These are the miracle workers. As a result of the dedication of medical brigades, there have been a number of miraculous interventions whereby lives were changed forever. A mother who was deaf and never had heard her baby cry or speak was given the gift of a hearing aid and could hear her baby for the first time. An emergency breach birth where both the mother and baby were saved by members of the surgical brigade who just happened to be onsite. A grandmother who was going blind had a 20-minute surgical operation and when the bandages were removed, could see. She insisted all of the children who looked after were now to go to school. A 10-year old girl with deteriorating vision and juvenile diabetes has a supply of expensive medication. Numerous people could return to work after having hernias repaired. These visiting brigades are the guardian angels who make the impossible possible.
Angels have also come in the form of partner organizations. Working together, we can accomplish so much more. Summit in Honduras started working in Honduras about the same time we did. Over the years, they have used the clinic as a home base for their important work in the surrounding villages. They have donated supplies, provided training to staff, and recently gave the clinic an ambulance. Vision Health International chose Manos Amigas as the base for their work in Honduras, providing the gift of sight to so many. Starkey Foundation has provided hearing aids as has Operation Honduras and Gift of Sound. And we ended our 20th year with a new partnership—Blue Sky Surgical who joined with our general surgery team from Chester and Lancaster Counties and is opening doors to new types of surgery being available to Manos Amigas patients.
The past twenty years has been a series of miracles beyond what we ever expected. In September 2023, Manos Amigas had its 250,000th patient visit. We can safely say, “we meant business!”
