Every morning at 6am our team has met at an outdoor patio in our hotel for a reflection and for songs. Our spiritual leader will guide us with either a Bible quote or a story, and even some of the team members have led our devotional, and then we sing songs of praise and joy. This morning we sang the song Lean On Me by Bill Withers. As I looked around at my team members I saw a community, I saw faces of joy, I saw love. This week has been all about love. Love has been present when family members carry each other into the mobility clinic, it has been present when the nurses hold patients hands before they go into surgery, love was felt in the operating room when the surgeons were closing the patient and a life was changed in the span of a few hours.
I witnessed love in the Post-Operating room on Tuesday. There was a woman who prior to her surgery had been singing with one of the translators and making jokes. She went in for a cystectomy, meaning she had a cyst on her ovary removed. When this woman woke up she was wailing. Her cries could be heard rooms away. I went to check on her to see what was happening and was with her as she moved from the OR to recovery. Eventually translators were able to speak with her and we discovered that she was not in pain, rather she was crying with joy. Our spiritual leader grabbed his guitar and rushed to her side as she requested they sing worship songs. The two came together and began singing. I was standing with the nurses as we watched the power of love between them. The patient kept repeating “gracias gracias gracias” through her tears of joy.
Wednesday in the mobility clinic a man came in. When his son was 8 his wife left them, then when his son was nine he was shot in the back. For ten years his son has cared for him. This man at one point had a walker, but it broke so in order to move he crawled. Their house was made of plastic and they had little money for food so the patient was very skinny. But the entire time I was with him, from when he got off the bus to when he was rolling around in his new wheelchair, he was smiling. He was cold, he did not have shoes or socks, but he did not complain. His excitement for the opportunity to move freely made me eager as well. The love that he showed all of us working in the clinic, even though he had every reason to be sad, made me nearly cry.
Our team of 43 cared for exactly 200 patients, 127 in the mobility clinic and 73 surgical patients with 104 procedures. We did not feel love only from the patients. The friendships that were made among our group, with the staff of Hospital Hilario Galindo, and with the staff from Faith In Practice will have long lasting impacts on all of us. Whether we return or not, this experience will have changed our group forever. We could not have had this opportunity without those that love us in our personal lives as well. The love and support from all of our friends and family, as well as all of those who donated, are what made this mission possible. Alongside the patients, we too are so incredibly grateful for all of those who made Craft Team 819 possible.
On behalf of the entire team, those who live in Guatemala, the patients and their families, thank you. Your love had a ripple effect, your impact will spread from our hands to the patients and beyond. We are all eternally grateful. “Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love-but the greatest of these is love.”-1 Corinthians 13:13
-Hadassah Duff
