Highlights from My Week With the Seacoast Medical Team
Aug 17th, 2008 |
In no specific order, written while sleep-deprived and without any proof-reading (so consider yourself warned), here are the moments that jump out at me from the past week with the Seacoast medical mission team:
- Seeing Juan, the little boy we’ve supported at God’s School for the last three years, during the first medical clinic day. He’s very happy to see us, talkative, and playful. And he doesn’t want me to let go of his hand. My gut (or maybe the Holy Spirit) tells me that his home life is not good. I visit his house and meet two men there. They are sharing a bottle of vodka in the middle of the day. I want to snatch Juan out of there, but of course I can’t. I feel helpless. I want to cry.
- Serving with the leaders and volunteers at Nueva Jerusalem Church. Amazing people. Some of the kindest, sweetest believers I’ve ever met. True servants. Saints and angels. I think Amber and I may have found a new church home.
- Meeting Karla, one of the Nueva Jerusalem members/volunteers. Her face beams joy, grace, and love. She’s always smiling. One day at lunch she shares her testimony with a group of us. She tells the story of how her husband left her when she was 14 years old…after learning that their newborn son is severely handicapped. Karla doesn’t complain or show an ounce of self-pity. She smiles and says how blessed she is to still have her little boy with her after the doctors said he wouldn’t live more than a couple of years. He’s 14 now. Again I want to cry.
- Working with the Seacoast crew in the pharmacy. We knock out a few hundred prescriptions and share a few hundred laughs each day.
- Nightly “Signs” games with the team. More laughs.
- Serving with several of our supporters and closest friends from Charleston…and making new friends.
- Attending one of the most moving, spirit-filled church services in my life. Getting lost in worship with three or four hundred passionate Nicaraguans and twenty “gringos.” A glimpse of heaven.
- Cheering on Michael Phelps as he swims for gold medal #8. The whole team — plus all of the CFCI-Nicaragua families — are at a busy Managua restaurant. We cheer. Loudly. We get a lot of curious stares from the restaurant’s other patrons. An amazing finish to an amazing week.
- Saying goodbye at the airport and feeling like it really shouldn’t be time for the team to leave already.
