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Can we even do this much on Roatan!

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If you are on Roatan and you don’t read this shame on you.Having said that, Happy Holidays everybody! But seriously please read this, it’s important.

When you or a family member is ill or injured, where do you turn?

If you’re like most in our community, you go to a hospital or a clinic.

Why?
Because you know you will receive medical care that only a qualified Professional can provide. You probably go to Clinica Esperanza or as we islanders call it, Miss Peggy clinic, because you know that you’ll be treated like a real person, by dedicated, compassionate health professionals in a warm, caring environment.

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As most of you know I am a local islander on an unlikely journey, fighting against all odds, to become a doctor. If there is somebody that knows and cares for the people of Roatan both tourist, expats, and local it’s me.  Being a doctor with a message of hope and change in my community is something that I badly want to do, it is what I believe my purpose is in life and is something I will continue to work hard for if given the chance. To do this I need your help.

While having medical brigades is awesome, when you train a local doctor that knows and is a part of local communities, you are helping touch the lives of thousands– whether patients are facing an urgent need, a devastating disease or seeking to improve their quality of life. Your aid can help make the difference

I want to be the vehicle thru which you can make a difference.  I want to serve you and your loved ones – to provide hope, healing and recovery. Your gift for this next year of schooling is extremely important because it will enable me to learn the clinical skills that can one day make a real difference in the lives of many.2015-gift-never-waster-graphic

Your gift of any amount to my fundraising campaign at https://www.gofundme.com/esa4t2b7 will help me continue on this journey,  and will help make an immediate impact on urgently needed health services for our community.

I am committed to working hard to honour your gift by being all that I can be – for you, for your loved ones, for every person in the community.  Please help to make this possible with your contribution.

I need your support. You and I can make a difference. Right here. Right now.

Thank you so much for your help.
Natan Webster
https://www.facebook.com/medstudenthonduras/

I´ve had choices!

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I’ve had choices , since the day that I was born.
There were voices , that told me right from wrong.
If I had listened , no I wouldn’t be here today.
Livin’ and dyin’ , with the choices I’ve made.

I received news today of a young man, named Crist, being murdered on the island. Crist and I grew up next door to each other, while he and I were never really friends we were neighbors. I knew him quite well and am saddened by what has happened to him. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.

Hearing of Crist´s untimely passing made me think of the past. I remember very well one night hanging with a few boys at the corner of our neighborhood, the guys there that night were Jeremy, Alstan, Fredy, Edmond, Crist, Murphy, Leroy, and Natan(me). we were between 9 and 12 years old, it wasn´t a school night so this is usually the nights we were allowed to stay out. I cannot remember everything but I remember we were having a wrestling competition as boys usually do. little did we know or even think about the turns our lives would take.

Fast forward to today. Oh what a different picture. Jeremy, the fun loving clown of the group,  is currently unemployed and has problems with drugs and alcohol. Alstan ,the shy one, has been in and out of jail and also has a terrible drug addiction. Fredy got involved in the gangs was in and out of jail until he was found dead in the woods. Edmond ,the bully, got involved with the gangs managed to keep himself out of jail but ended up murdering a young men earlier this year and last I heard was in jail. Murphy got on some very heavy stuff ended up brained damaged, he was a drug addict and a thief until he was too found dead in the woods earlier this year. Leroy ,the rich kid, moved to the U.S last I heard he had joined the army or something like that. And Crist , the too cool for school one, well he got in trouble and was murdered this morning.

Yep, these were the kids I grew up with they had almost the same opportunities and upbringing as I did. how did we end up on such different paths? How did these boys end up all messed up in life, and I…. well a little less so. I was talking to my mother this morning about how Christ Freddy and Murphy were my next door neighbors, these were they kids ,my age, that lived in the houses around us in Coxen Hole and they are all dead. All three murdered, that thought is surreal to me!

I dot know what the answer is, why things happened as they did. But I thank God for the mind he gave me to seek out a different path, a better path! I am thankful for the people and the influences he brought into my life.I am thankful for my mother and the way she raised me.
I have truly had choices along the way, and I have made some bad ones and some good ones. I remember the first time someone offered me a cigarette I tried it, bent over nearly vomited and decided never to try it again. I remember my dad and brother laughing at me when I went to visit him because I would not drink alcohol. Yea thank God he didn´t raise me. This is not say that people who smoke cigarretes or drink alcohol are gonna end up this way, it’s that at the age this was offered to me it would have been a very bad choice for me!

I choose a couple years ago to come into the capital to enroll in a medical program, a choice I did not make likely, the capital is a dangerous place and coming here would mean giving up a lot. I am very poor and medical school is incredibly expensive so I knew raising the money to finish would be difficult at best. my mother is in her fifties and a single woman so not working for eight years would mean me not being able to help my mother for eight years, my girlfriend, my church family, my job, these were all very hard choices to make. would I even be successful? what if I failed the very first class?

Again I thank God for giving me the courage to make good choices. One of the things I am most looking forward to is being able to look young people in the face, young men like Crist and Murphy , and say to them there is a better way, hard work and determination does pay. Here is how I did it, let me tell you my story ! And let me tell you if you make good choices there is an army of people, Dr Nate being number one, that will stand behind you. I am thankful for Peggy Stranges Over at Clinica Esperanza , Mark and Dave Elmore over at SOL who supported my choice to come to medical school and helped open a way for that to happen even when they knew very little about me.

Eleanor Roosevelt said “in the long run we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility”

As most of you know I started my fundraising campaign for the following year of medical school in october with the goal of raising 1750 dollars to help cover the 7000 dollars needed to stay in medical school here in tegus.
Thanks to Generous donations from Karin Fehlauer, Janice Fehlauer, Caroline power, Averard D’Souza,Jess ica Pfeltz,Ma Barley, and Anna Boucher Moskowits  I have raised 1350 dollars for the next school year and step in this journey. I still need to raise 400 dollars to be able to come back next year and I need your help to do so.

If you would like to help me on this journey go on over tohttp://www.solsite.org and click the donate button today. I can not do this without your help. Please consider sharing my story with your friends via Facebook. I greatly appreciate any action taken to help me.

I proudly continue working hard to be a community doctor. I continue to dream of helping and healing people and with your help. Please go on over to SOL today and chip in to help get me accross the finish line.Make sure to type Natan Webster in the dedication line, and please make sure to share this post with your friends. Also remember that all donations made via SOL are tax deductible.

donate here now help me get over the finish line.

I am thankful to my mentors, friends, and supporters who continue to share my story with others.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Will you be a part of this?

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Dear Friends and Family,
I write this post with excitement, great Joy and hope for the future, as I continue my journey into medical school. As most of you know with help from Miss Peggy Stranges and Sol foundation I applied to and passed the admission testing, making more than the minimum requirement to enter medical school in Honduras in the summer of 2011.

My road to medical school has been challenging at best, as few students in my situation have tried to gain access to medical programs and succeeded, and of those who succeed to get in even fever actually get thru the program. I was born in less than ideal circumstances and have had and uphill battle all the way constantly beating long odds to overcome the challenges of life. I am the oldest of four siblings, and while growing up very poor with a single mother who did and awesome job considering the circumstances, I truly am a product of my family and communities hard work and perseverance, there are so many people that have invested time and energy in my journey way long before they even knew I was headed to medical school, Like Ptolemy and Neysa Matthews, and Joelle Fehlauer who came down to Honduras to volunteer time in a christian school I attended,all of whom made and incredible impression on me at a time when I was really struggling, fighting battles they knew nothing about.

I worked for three years at the local hospital in roatan, it was here that I truly became  inspired me to dream big and go beyond the expectations of my neighborhood. I know that inequities exist, and my curiosity for healing and justice deppened. I have made it my personal mission to improve conditions that prevent others from having equal treatment and access to education and healthcare resources. I have made it my mission to ease human suffering I believe this is the reason I was born.

My friends and mentors have said that I am a trailblazer, that I have taken the road less traveled, and that in the face of insurmountable challenges , I have overcome the greatest of obstacles. The reality is that I have had much help to be where I am today, and at every step of the way, I have encountered and relied on the kindness of friends, neighbors, teachers, and mentors to teach me and guide me through the process.

Now once more I must rely on the kindness of others to help me through my next step in medical school. Because Honduras really does not offer formal financial aid programs, or student loans, especially for poor people in medical school who´s parent has no valuable assets . I must fundraise to cover my medical school expenses in order to see my dream of becoming a community doctor come true. While I worked to pay my own way through high school, I am unable to work as a medical student due to the high volume of classes and information I will be required to learn over the next few years. I receive a partial scholarship from the foundation for the advancement of people administered by SOL foundation. which comes under review each year. This agreements as most of you probably already know requires that I raise part of the funds I need from the community.

It takes about 7000 dollars per year for me to stay in the program. I have a formula thru which Sol and Rotary provide roughtly 75% of this which leaves me to raise 1750 dollars per year. I have done this the past two years online with help from many friends. Well it is October I am about done with this year and it is time to do it again friends. I will be meeting with rotary and Sol in December to determine plans for the next year and whether they will continue funding me or not. But how about we start to raise our share and exceed it by them. I got help raising funds for this year from so many of you. Tricia, Anna, Nicki, Jennifer,Mark, Roatan homes, Peggy, Dave  and so many others shared my story and helped me raise the funds I needed for this year in about two weeks.

Friends, today I humbly ask you to dream with me. I am asking you to once again support my goal of becoming a physician by helping sponsor another year of my medical education, It would be impossible for me to do this without your help. My goal is to fundraise at least the 1750 dollars in order to help meet the 7000 dollars I will need for the next school year. . I am doing what I can in applying to scholarships, finding alternative measures of funding, and now asking for your support.

I know there are many other needs and I have seem so many request for money lately on Facebook for so many good causes, I also know that while we would like to help everyone there is only so much we can do. I have lamented how politicians are able to raise so much money from so many donors while many charities are lacking funding. But the truth is  one of the reasons they are able to do so is because a lot of people know about them.

Friend one of the best things you can do besides chipping in yourself is making sure to share this with your friends. I know there are many people who would be glad to help if they only knew about my dream and my story. After all, all I need is 1750 people to donate 1 dollar.

As I have mentioned before I am only able to continue on this journey because of the generous support of people like you, I would really appreciate it if you would go over to sol foundation website and make a donation of any amount to help me thru next year and to help me complete this program. I assure you I will honor that donation in loving service, and by making sure I am doing everything I can to pay it forward. Just make sure to type Natan Webster in the dedication box. Every penny sent to sol with the dedication line Natan Webster is administered to my scholarship Program, and is a foundational stone in helping me become a doctor with a message and a mission in Honduras.

http://www.solsite.org/

Cesar words resonate with my life goals of community work — “We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community… Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.” I believe in the power we have as a community and hope that you can help me reach my dream of becoming a physician.
Thanks to the support of many I am about to finish and will soon be posting grades for macro-anatomy, neuro-anatomy,embryology,histology, and public health.

With your help next year, I’ll be able to finish physiology, bioquem, psychology, public health,microbiology, and genetics 

I proudly continue working hard to be a community doctor. I continue to dream of helping and healing people and with your help, I will be one step closer to creating a healthier, and more just world for all of us.
Please go on over to SOL today and chip in making sure to type Natan Webster in the dedication line, and please make sure to share this post with your friends. Also remember that all donations made via SOL are tax deductible.

donate here now

Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Thank you!

Class schedule ready!!!

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I’ll go ahead and say it: last semester was pretty weird.  Frankly, I’m just glad it’s over.  I learned some valuable lessons, but they came with a heavy dose of hard knocks.

One bad semester won’t break me, though.  Today, a new dawn broke over my academic life.  A new semester has arrived, and I’m really excited about my new schedule.  Here’s an outline of the classes I’m taking, and what I hope to get out of them:

  • Macroscopic anatomy – Gross Anatomy or topographical anatomy: This is officially my first real medical class, no more introduction no more pre-med, this is the real deal.  I’m hoping to really understand the human body in general.  I have heard alot about this class the huge amount of material, the awful testing and of course working with corpses. Yep I am pumped and ready to dig in.Hopefully I wont be a fainter.
  • Neuroanatomy:I must say I am not as excited about this one. The human nervous system is very complicated and I suspect this class will be. Gonna have to hunker down and study. Already thinking about the all nighters I will be pulling for this one. Can’t wait!
  •  Embriology: The study of the development of an embryo from the fertilization of the ovum to the fetus stage. Got to get thru it, got to get thru it, that’s all I’m gonna say about that one. Lets just say gynecology and urology are not on my short list for specialties.
  • Microscopic Anatomy – Histology:  The study of the microscopic anatomy of cells and tissues. Looking forward to this one too. I am amazed at what an awesome structure the human body is and microscopic anatomy is an amazing testament and offers and amazing study of that structure and how it functions. As long as I don’t have to draw anything I’ll be happy.

Well, there it is ,four classes , 40 hours a week in class. 5A.M to 7P.M Monday to Friday. And still hoping to get one class in on Saturdays.  Now that I have some real, published goals, it’s time to work, well one more week of fun and then work! 

Thank you all for making this possible for me. Look for more updates on my progress!!!

I have a dream!!!

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Haha there is a lofty tittle!!!

I do not claim to be anything like MLK, his spirit and amazing oratory skill is something I will never have.This is not a post about civil rights or MLK´s legacy , even tho I am a part of that legacy.
From what I´ve read about the march on Washington and MLK´s famous ¨I Have a Dream¨  speech, it was not the exact speech MLK had carefully prepared for the occasion, but as he got near the end of his prepared speech, Mahalia Jackson cried out ¨Tell them about the dream, Martin!¨ 

And today I want to tell you a little bit about my dream or myself from a different perspective. See in my last post I told you a little bit about myself about where I come from, and why I consider everyday I have a gift. About some of the adversities I´ve faced even as a baby, and the principles that guide my journey. How my mother taught me to work hard and dream big. I would like to share with you in this post where I´m headed, and share with you a little bit of my dream. 

A little over a month before I moved over to Tegus, my aunt Mavis, the sweetest little lady you´ll ever meet, fell ill and was interned in the Roatan public hospital, my aunt had struggled with heart problems and had been interned in the hospital several times and would always recover, but this time it was not so. I remember looking into my aunt´s face as she took her last breath and watching as the Dr tried to resuscitate her (I was allowed to do this because I worked there) , and thinking about what I was signing up for. Did I really want to become a doctor?
About three weeks later and less than a month before I was scheduled to start, I came to the hospital for work, and found my sister crying near the entrance, I tried to find out what happened but she could not talk, someone else told my sister (half sister on my father’s side) had a heart attack and had died. I ran into the morgue and saw her body, I could not believe this had happened and was overtaken with grief( she was younger than I am). See I hardly knew her, we grew up in separate homes and I have very little communication with my father´s family. that´s a long story and hard to explain.
Anyway, I touched my sister´s face and she was still warm. Her mother lives in puerto castilla and I and some of my family took her body over to puerto castilla for burial. We rode in a car with her casket for 5 hours. I keep thinking do I really want to be a doctor?

When we got there it was amazing the streets were covered with people, so much people! They kept trying to touch the casket as we passed by and hugging us and stuff, everybody kept coming up and talking to me at her wake because they had not meet me before, They were telling me all these stories about how my sister was so loved, and the many little things she had done for so many in that little town. As I listened I kept thinking, I did not know this person at all and she was my sister!!! All these people had all these stories, she had touched so many lives in the little time she had here. I did not know her! I did not have any stories!  That made it even harder to deal with.

I remember one of my pastors asking me a while back ,¨what is your plan? where do you see your life in five years from now?¨ That question keeps coming back to me a lot as I go along.

I want to touch as many lives as possible folks, I want to be a positive influence in the lives of all I meet. I want to change the World.
When my story is told I do not want it to be a rags to riches story, I do not want it to be about this baby that was born in the worse of circumstances and came up to have a lot. That is not my dream, not that I have anything against that, in fact I admire the people that have those stories.
My mother always told me it is better to give than to receive, and to work that I might have to give to those that need. I was not raised nor came into this world to be a taker, while at this point in my life I am definitely a taker, I look forward and dream of the day when I will become a giver, it is what drives me to keep going.

I dream of the day I will graduate and once again become a productive member of society. I look forward to working with patients , I look forward to the day I can use the skills I am learning, to ease human suffering. I look forward to being able to contribute back into Sol foundation, especially their scholarship program. I dream of the day I will be able to fully assist in Sol´s projects here on the Island. I look forward to the day I will be able to contribute to the Rotary club of Roatan and hopefully become a Rotarian. I dream of the day I will be able to help my mom and sisters. I dream of the day I will become a giver!!!
That is my dream to help people, to help the sick, the needy, the poor, to give time ,skills and money to making my community and the world a better place. I want to help other students and young people not have to go thru the many difficulties I´ve had to.  I look forward to making sure ( my kids if I have any) have a father, a good father, not at all like the one I have.
When my journey is done be it a year from now or 60 years from now, my heavenly father and all those that know me can look on and say WELL DONE. 
I dream of positively changing the world of all those I come into contact with, and starting a ripple effect that will go on for a long time after I am gone. This is a long journey, becoming a doctor is a long and difficult process. But, I believe this is my calling and the best way I can serve both God and man, And I appreciate all the support I am getting from Rotary, Sol Foundation, and all of you.
Can you Imagine the day I get to maybe help some of my donors, that will be a very good day indeed. For me at least! not so much for them, because they will have to be sick for that to happen right?

As I read this I know it sounds very cliche, but friends that really is my dream.

As you know I’ve started a fundraising campaign to help cover cost for next year, there is no way I could do this without your help. I am looking to raise 1500 dollars for next year. Class starts on January 23 so I have about four weeks to do this. I would really appreciate it if you would click on the link below and go over to Sol Foundation and make a donation of any amount, to help me reach my goal, remember all donations are fully tax deductible. Make sure to type Natan Webster in the dedication line. Also consider sending me an email, commenting, following my blog, or sharing this with your friends, help me get the word out and follow my long journey, I need you. I have a dream and I want you to be a part of it.

https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1441500

 

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. May God richly bless you and cause his face to shine on you.

Thank you for all your support.

 

“The life of a man consist not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service”- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow