Once again, we started our day at 5:30 with our morning devotional and meeting. Jason shared one of his favorite lament Psalms, Psalm 13. The Psalms speak about how the person is feeling in a prayer to God. This Psalmist is suffering, and he is desperate to know how long he must continue to suffer. He is waiting for God to rescue him from his condition. This Psalm give those who are suffering a voice or prayer to God. The prayer cries out to God for help but in the end, as with all the Psalms, there is a statement of trust in God and His love.
Psalm 13:5 But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.
We will encounter many people again today in our clinic that are suffering. They are waiting and hoping for relief from their current condition. Let us focus today on reflecting God’s love and do all that we can to help ease their suffering.
Felipe had a few house keeping instructions for the closing day. He thanked everyone for their willingness to be flexible and patient yesterday as we settled into our new location.
Each day there are always a few patients and their stories that seem to stick out from the rest. Today, we saw William, a 33-year-old man who was injured in a motorcycle accident over a year ago. William’s mom and teenage daughter accompanied him. The accident left William unable to walk or stand, with several disfiguring facial fractures, and he lost one eye. The first stop for William was our orthopedic department. After Ortho he saw Gayle, our Physical Therapist. She spent over an hour with William and taught him how to move from a wheelchair to his walker. He received both a wheelchair and a walker from our mobility clinic. William has not been able to walk in over a year. With Gayle’s patient instruction, he was able to stand and take a couple of steps with his walker. Gayle encouraged him to try to stand and walk as much as possible to help him regain his strength and muscle tone. William also visited our General Medicine department, and finally he went to our referral station. We arranged for him to see the ENT surgical team and then the Plastic Surgery team. He has a very long road in front of him with multiple surgeries. He and his family were so encouraged and thankful to be on the path to recovery.
Eileen, a provider in our OBGYN department invited me in today to take pictures of a young family during their fetal ultrasound. The father was so excited to be able to see his unborn child. Their 6-year-old daughter let us know she really wanted the baby to be a little hermana (sister). Unfortunately, she will just have to wait until the baby arrives to see if she gets her wish because Eileen was not able to get a clear picture to determine if she would get el hermano or la hermana.
At the end of the day, we began to shut down the clinic and help the volunteers reload the truck. All the clinic trunks will return to Faith In Practice’s warehouse where they will be restocked for the next Village Medical team. This is a huge job and the amount of man hours and organization it takes behind the scene to make sure that each clinic opens and runs efficiently is truly impressive. Faith In Practice has an awesome local staff and we are all grateful for the work they do to help the clinics offer “life changing” health care to the people of Guatemala.
After we had a chance to shower and rest, we gathered for our celebration dinner. It was a wonderful night. Our new leaders, Joe, Sharon and Mikki recognized and thanked each member of our team for their service. We ended the evening with a special tribute to John and Wilma Tysse for their twenty years serving as team leaders. Joe, Sharon and Mikki all expressed their hopes that John and Wilma would still plan to join us next year as team members because their contribution to the team is invaluable. We delivered a personal letter of thanks from Linda McCarty, President and CEO of Faith In Practice, to John and Wilma. Our team presented them with a gift of a tile to go on the wall of Casa de Fe. These tiles line the walls of Casa de Fe with messages of hope. The tiles represent personal donations or recognition of a loved one or of a team’s service.
We ended the evening with delicious cake and a lifetime of memories.
Total numbers for day four in the clinic 524
General Medicine 152
Pediatrics 107
Gynecology 60
Orthopedics 26
Audiology 13 hearing aids 5
Dental 37 extractions 110
VIA Cryo 54
Referrals 75
Lab test 163
For a grand total of 2006 for the week.
