This morning we left Anitgua for the 3 and a half hour drive to Retalhuleu (nicknamed Reyu). We would have been there in 3 hours I think, but our buses got stuck behind three trucks full of sugarcane going uphill. That took a while.
In Reyu we had an orientation meeting for our first day of clinic tomorrow in the village of Nimina. It will be the first time Nimina has had a medical clinic, and as some of us wondered if anyone would show up, a wise leader in our group reminded us that the real worry would be from the villagers – would we even show up? Or would the promise of a clinic be another one of many broken over the decades from people who want to help but do not follow through.
This team is ready to serve! Everyone one here, from different backgrounds and positions, are looking forward to the ways God might use their individual gifts and skills to help in the healing of someone, or someones, we have never met. There is an obstetrics and gynecology team, an internal medicine team, a pediatrics team, a team for mothers and children, a laboratory testing team, a pharmaceutical team. Tomorrow I will be serving with the Ear Nose Throat team – I guess “team” is putting it lightly, and it will just be me and the ENT doc. He promised I would be so good at hearing exams and ear irrigations by the end of the day tomorrow I would be able to leave the ministry and go into ENT 🙂
We are trying to put together, if time and space allows, a Prayer Room for patients, that I can attend and pray with and for people, especially those for whom surgery will be a diagnosis. We’ll have to see – the logistics of the team are such that every pair of hands are needed. The Guatemalan culture is such that when prayer is needed and desired, it doesn’t have to have a special room, we can all just stop and pray together. So either way, God wills bless what needs to be blessed, and heal what needs to be healed. Your prayers are welcome for Day 1 tomorrow…
