Thursday morning

How do you describe a trip like this?  Yeah God.  Take a team from three different cities, who have never met all together in one place.  Move them to another part of the world where they have never been.  Mix in a language barrier and facilities that are very different from the medical facilities back home, and you would expect chaos.  Instead we got a smooth running machine that adapted to the bumps in the road without loosing stride.

It is really awesome to watch the team pouring out themselves into the people who come to the Fountain of Life church here in Costa Rica.  Mary Beth, Beth and Deb who are moving the guests from the waiting areas to the doctors rooms are smiling, playing with the children, and just pouring love into the people of Alajuela.  The Doctors have much more limited facilities than they do stateside but their standard of care has not dropped at all.  The care is only limited by the resources we have available here, and the only frustrations I hear are about not having more resources in terms of equipment and supplies. 

 Tom Robinson, Jim Wrass, and Tom Galvin in the pharmacy are filling 230 plus prescriptions a day working off two 9' tables in 90 degree heat.  Our pharmacy is at the end of a hall with a waiting room across the way, and it is not unusual for them to have 25+ people waiting in a noisy milling crowd just outside the doorway.  Trying to control the chaos of this crowd is only one of the challenges of our interpreters.  The other one is to find the person who's prescription they are trying to deliver.  Thank God for loud voices Saloul can make the walls shake if he uses half the volume his voice is capable of.  In spite of the heat, the noise, the pressure of high volume the pharmacists are providing the same standard of care they would at home.  They are by their dedication and work demonstrating the compassion and love of Christ to our clients.

 

The Church we are working with is really a small church in size of congregation 100-125 they have made a huge effort to provide us with a facility, interpreters, and crowd control to make this medical clinic work.  There is a group of teenage church members that have completely taken over ownership of the photo ministry.  We showed two of them how to do it on the  first day and they have trailed each other on how to do this compassion ministry .  So for the people visiting the medical clinic the photo ministry part is coming completely form the church there, not from the Americans.  This was our hope and prayer that what we were doing would build up the church with what we do, because it is the church here that will be left responsible for follow-up .  

We are part of something much bigger than this trip.  All of you who have been praying for us, or sent financial support, or helped by picking up supplies have helped build the church.  We can feel your prayer support and are enjoying being carried in the hands of God.

Phil