Morning devotions started at 5:30am, with a hearing of the story about a man whose friends lowered him through the ceiling so that Jesus could heal him. This passage from Mark 2 features Jesus being moved by the friends’ faith, not just that of the man who was paralyzed. Jesus forgave him and told him to stand up and walk. Pastor Jason discussed how illness isn’t solely an individual’s challenge, but a challenge to his or her family and friends as well. We must get creative at times, thinking unconventionally about how to bring people to Christ and his healing. Pastor Jason encouraged the team to realize that each patient was connected to a family or group who was also suffering due to whatever ailment a person was suffering from. After breakfast, the team departed to Flores Costa Cuca free of any delay.
One change the pandemic has brought to village clinics is that the patients come in groups, staggering the times of arrivals. This allows for proper social distancing, but a hidden benefit is a more deliberately paced day. A pleasant result is that patients spend less time waiting. Doctors report being free of the distraction of long lines outside the examination area, enabling them to give ample time for discussion with the patients.
There was also a group that reminded us of the story from devotions. After the pastor and his translator spoke to Enrique, who had come to Faith In Practice suffering from a hernia. Enrique pointed to a group and indicated they all came with him, all from the same neighborhood, some were family. Enrique asked to pray in a big circle, so around eight of us spread out. Each person shared why they were at the clinic today, and together we prayed a grand prayer for this group who were supporting each other.
There were many men present today, suffering from loss of eyesight, hardness of hearing, and many men with hernias, including Juaquin, who was a 24-year-old father with three children, two being twins. Andreas who suffered from acid reflux and neuropathy. Many other men came suffering from hernias. One woman, Arsenia, was confined to a wheelchair and suffered from kidney stones.
We see patients young and old each day. The eldest patient today was a 91-year-old woman named Martina, who had pain in her side. The children who visited today included little Douglas, born premature, less than a year old and named after his father. His father brought him to test his son’s eyesight, which seemed to be diminished. 9-year-old Barbara came with her widowed mother Rosalisa, who needed the care of our OBGYN clinic.
As the day came to a close, the team packed up all the clinic supplies and put them in trucks, looking forward to serving in a new location on Wednesday. The day was full and tiring, the team felt a tinge of sadness in leaving this site, which served us well, but looking forward to what the next site would be on Wednesday.
