Team Johnson 843 – Day 1 Arrival in Antigua
Hello from beautiful Antigua, Guatemala!
Welcome to the Blog for Team Johnson. My name is Josie Johnson and I’ll be writing daily posts this week that cover our journey. This is my tenth trip serving with Team Johnson for Faith in Practice (FIP), always as the photographer, and often as blogger as well. I am so thrilled to be back in this special place and ready for the week ahead.
This is a special year for Team Johnson because our trip coordinators, Linda and Phil Johnson, are celebrating their 20th year leading this village team. (In fact, they have led many more trips of various types throughout other parts of the year, but this particular group with the same core members has visited villages around Guatemala in the early part of the year since 2006!)
RN Twyla Brack and Cindy Pekow have joined every single one of these trips. NP Robin Beach started with the team 19 years ago, and now her daughter, Laura Hardwicke, is joining for her second FIP trip as a physical therapist. Dr. Bernie Gallacher and RN Pam Gallacher have lost count of how many FIP trips they have completed, and many of those were with Team Johnson. Many others have joined for various years and are surely on their way to their own 20-year mark in the near future, demonstrating the deep level of commitment these volunteers have shown and how important FIP is in their lives.
We marveled over these numbers when we gathered as a whole team or the first time at our hotel in Antigua (some were already here completing other mission trips the previous week!) Though many of us are old friends and extended family, we were excited to welcome four new team members as well, who will be serving as our pastor, a pediatrician, a wheelchair assembler, and an ENT physician. Dr. Abby Kennedy made her first trip last year and shared with the group that she had to come back because her experience was completely life changing. In total, our team has 28 volunteers that flew in from mostly from the Houston, Texas, area, but others came from Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Illinois, Arkansas, and Kentucky.
After introductions, we heard some remarks from our trip leaders and local staff members. Linda Johnson shared a note from one of the team regulars, Dr. Debra Caspers, who couldn’t make it this year but is dearly missed. She reminded us that if it’s your first time to Guatemala with FIP and you’re not sure why you’re here, by the end of the week, you will know exactly why.
We also heard a warm welcome from Ivonne Anzueto, president of the Asociacion of Casa de Fe within FIP. As she explained, Casa de Fe stands as a beacon of compassion—a beautiful two-story building here in Antigua where our surgical patients and their families can stay and enjoy homemade meals, showers, and laundry services in an environment of genuine care and dignity.
Yvonne reminded us of the broad network of individuals that make FIP run beyond the US volunteers, from the caretakers at Casa de Fe tending to new visitors every week, to the staff at the warehouse where our medical supplies are stored, to the local community leaders who travel to remote areas to find those most in need of medical care. Our families and friends back home play a key role in this mission as well, by taking care of our children, pets, work shifts, and anything else we might need in order to join a medical mission abroad. Last year, these collective efforts resulted in nearly 3,000 surgeries and reached more than 20,000 Guatemalans—each encounter a potential spark of hope and change.
Yvonne’s remarks reminded me of one other important group to thank for their role in making this trip happen: our donors! We are so grateful to each of you that have supported us. If you haven’t already, please consider making a donation in any amount to our team with this link: https://donate.faithinpractice.org/team/599831 I have witnessed, year after year, how something as simple and cheap as a pair of reading glasses can make a major difference in someone’s life, let alone a major surgery or treatment for a chronic condition. Funds are always needed, so thank you, thank you for your contribution.
After this welcome, we gathered for our first team photo on the hotel roof patio. The volcanos surrounding Antigua are not always visible but we were treated to a few peeks from behind the clouds—an auspicious start to the week!
We are all feeling grateful to be here and energized for the days ahead. Now we are off to bed for an early morning departure to our village site. Check back in soon for our next post and thanks for reading along!
Josie Johnson, Team Blogger/Photographer
