It was typically busy at the clinic the day a woman we’ll call “Sophia” arrived to have a cyst removed from her foot. As Sophia was pointing to the location of the cyst, the examiner couldn’t help but notice a rather grotesque and poorly healed scar that ran along Sophia’s forearm. Curious – perhaps even suspicious – the examiner asked Sophia how she’d gotten it.
It was more than 20 years earlier that the young mother found herself scurrying from a conflict that was brewing outside her village in Nicaragua. The Sandinistas and Daniel Ortega were still in power, but they were losing their foothold, so there was trouble in the air. As Sophia waded across the river with equal parts celerity and vigilance, she felt the shock of hot lead slam into her right arm, her strong arm, and streak upward until it finally exited at her elbow. The greater tragedy is that Sophia always used her right arm, her strong arm, to more easily carry and better protect her two-month-old baby, whom she was holding at the time and who was propelled into the turbulent river the moment Sophia lost all voluntarily muscle control of her arm.
Despite the mightiest efforts of an adrenaline-pumped shooting victim, the desperate mother could not wrest her baby from the river in time.
The passage of too much time and second-rate surgical work had reduced Sophia’s right hand to little more than a claw. After they successfully removed the cyst from Sophia’s foot, the angels of La Merced announced they’d be back the following year to repair the damage to her arm and hand – knowing full well that while they may once again make her right arm her strong arm, there are some scars that just run too deep to be removed by any amount of surgery – or charity. For Sophia, it would be a miracle just to have the proper use of her hand again.
Nicaragua is the second-poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. While the state makes basic medical services available to everyone, it is not the level of care that we take for granted in the United States. The government, for example, will provide pediatric surgery in the case of life-threatening illness or injury but not for congenital deformities, which can greatly impair or even destroy the quality of life. This is where La Merced comes in.
Founded and run by Salisbury-based surgeon Vincent Perrotta, his wife Tina, and Nancy Rodriguez-Well, Rph, La Merced (“the mercy”) provides general plastic and reconstructive surgery for children with congenital and other types of deformities. These include deformities of the hand or palette, lymphatic malformations, hemangiomas, cysts, burn-scar contractures and more.
For roughly 15 years, the Perrottas had observed the spiritual relationship that exists between their parish, St. Francis De Sales Church in Salisbury, and its sister parish in Nicaragua, Nuestra Senora de la Merced. Every other year, a dozen or so members of St. Francis made a pilgrimage to the Third World nation to visit their brethren in faith. The five-day excursion consisted mostly of prayer, a mass and the exchange of culture.
During the pastoral visit of 2007, however, something changed. The exam-ple set by pastors Antonio Castro, Michael Roark and Edward Aigner inspired some members of the group to expand their efforts by establishing an annual medical mission, one that would deliver first-rate surgical care to Nicaraguan children who otherwise wouldn’t receive it.
The first medically focused mission occurred in 2008. With invaluable
support from Nicaraguan doctors Armando Siu, Gerardo Mejia Baltodano and Dorianella Arquello Costillo, 15 children received free plastic and reconstructive surgery for the correction of minor and major congenital deformities.
“While there’s no way to overlook the poverty,” shared Tina, “you can’t help but walk away amazed by the kindness, sincerity and gentility of these people. Ultimately, it’s as overwhelming for us as it is for them.”
The impact of La Merced continues to evolve with each trip. For the June 2009 mission, the team not only brought with them $25,000 worth of medical supplies donated by the Salisbury and Seaford communities, they also established a procedure unit at the Roberto Clemente Clinic for Women and Children in addition to having restored the students’ computer room at the Marillac school after it had been vandalized.
“When we first went down there,” Vincent offered, “we were there just to fix the bodies and leave the souls intact. We never went there to change them, but what wound up happening is that they changed us – forever.”
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