Hello everyone! Welcome back to Team Anderson 740 blog. Today was the last day of surgeries but an amazing one! Everyone on the team had high spirits and was laughing throughout the day.
The 6:30 am morning devotional was done by Elizabeth Mihalik. She says that when God asks you to do something, you do it and that we are called to serve. She brought up the example of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet and how in turn we wash the patients’ feet and take care of them. We were each brought to this team for a reason. None of the work the team did could have been done without each and every person here on the Anderson Team.
At Obras Sociales, Katherine Martinez, a medical student from Antigua shadowed in Dr. Ignacio’s operating room today. She is on her fifth out of six years in medical school and is the first in her family to go into medicine. It was great having Katherine working alongside FIP this week.
In between surgeries, I went to PACU to talk to nurse Lanae Lindh and nurse Jarrelle Harper-Waldorf. Lanae had a major in family and consumer sciences with a minor in Spanish. In 2011 she read in a magazine about medical missions but could not imagine going on one until she was older because she had 7 kids. However, it became clear to her that God was asking her to become a nurse, even with a family. That year she started off in community college with a few pre-requisites to get the ball rolling, eventually starting on her AMP. Then went to San Jac south campus in Houston and went to a UTMB accelerated 51-week program with 20 credit hours a semester. This is where she met Jarrelle Harper-Waldorf, the other PACU nurse for FIP. Jarrelle is a wonderful nurse that makes sure every patient is taken care of. She knows how to command a room and truly serve the patients to the best of her ability. Lanae and Jarrelle have a beautiful strong friendship that continues to this day. It is evident when they work with each other how dedicated they are to their work and how much it means to serve.
Everyone I have spoken to on the team have had such a valuable experience here. Being a new face here at FIP, I was apprehensive about going to a new country with people I did not know, however it was more than I could have imagined. Every single person brought something to the table, medically or not.
We ended the night with a wonderful team dinner at Santo Domingo. This hotel is beautiful, built around ruins and the food was delicious. Each person was awarded a certificate for their service here at Faith in Practice and the teamwork everyone exuded throughout the week.
Thank you for reading along this week! Tomorrow is the team’s free day to explore Antigua and see all the beautiful sites of the city.
Catherine
To support this team and their commitment to our patients visit https://donate.faithinpractice.org/team/373498
