Team Thompson arrived in Guatemala City late Saturday evening. The first evening is always a joyous time spent reconnecting with old friends and meeting the new team members. After a quick dinner we were all off to bed, to regroup at 6:30am for our first morning devotional. Laura shared a reading about being of service which included the following:
The greatest service I can offer is being a light on the path.
Today I am devoted to shining the light of compassionate support and service on those who may be in need!
The bus ride to our clinic site in Monjas in the state of Jalapa took about 3.5 hours. The first task was to gather with our local volunteers. During this time, we met Armando who had been a patient of Faith in Practice fifteen years ago. He’s now the area volunteer coordinator for FIP and spends much of the year planning for this week’s clinic, locating dozens of local volunteers who will be supporting the mission this week, and identifying local Guatemalans who need our services. We cannot deliver our care without local coordinators like Armando, and he likely wouldn’t have become the coordinator here in Jalapa without having received medical care from Faith in Practice fifteen years ago. We can do the work here, largely because of people like Armando.
Team Thompson is going to be conducting a pilot program this week, in which we’ll be transitioning to a new streamlined online patient care program called Insight by ProMapp. Insight is a custom-made application developed specifically for Faith in Practice which will improve the flow and documentation of all the services that we offer both in clinics such as ours this week in Monjas, as well as any services that are offered to patients after we leave, when some of our patients will receive surgery in our partner hospitals. As the first team to use this technology we may have some hurdles in the next few days, but in the end, we will be better equipped to deliver the best possible care to our Guatemalan patients.
-Ruth Lacey
