Day 7: All the news from yesterday!

Yesterday was packed full from the 5:45 morning alarm to falling into bed around 10:30pm.  It was our last day of clinic, which presented new challenges - It had the potential to be very busy with people wanting to get in while they still had the chance, we were running low on a variety of glasses, and we knew we would need to pack for the trip home at the end of the day.  

We started the morning as we usually do, with 6:30am breakfast at Claudia’s, a delightful little cafe-type space that she opens every morning just to cook us breakfast.  There we have morning devotions, breakfast, and prayer.  Then we were picked up by Gregario, our driver for the week.  He’s amazing, getting our bus into and out of traffic, fitting into the smallest, most unlikely places, and keeping us safe.

We left for the church at 7:30am, even though clinic doesn’t start until 9am, because we wanted time to get organized for a long day and hopefully some preemptive prep for packing.  There were already a good number there waiting when we arrived, some of whom traveled over three hours to reach us.

Once the day started, it was a blur.  We prayed in the morning for our busiest day yet and the opportunity to help as many people as we could before we leave, and God answered.  We were a little short on translators, but many of our team members have some Spanish skills and others were brave about practicing some newly-acquired ones.  It needs saying that our translators this week have been remarkable.  They worked tirelessly, moving from station to station, patient through some long fitting sessions, helping solve problems.  They were our teammates in every sense of the word - no one more than Cristian, our guide, companion, and interpreter for the week.

We normally close clinic at 4:00pm, but we kept it open until 6:30pm to make sure every single person who came went home with what they needed.  After that, we packed up the clinic and had a beautiful vesper service in the church led by Pastor David and attended by our team and many of the local folks who helped and cared for us all week.

Randy was a standout yesterday, as he played his Clarinet at times throughout the day, played with the two musicians for service last night and then blew us all away by playing the Guatemalan National Anthem at dinner as a gift to our hosts.

Pastor David and our hosts hosted a dinner for us after Vespers last night and we all sat down for a beautiful meal in a transformed clinic room. 

After loading our suitcases of clinic supplies into the bus, Gregario brought us back to our place and we dragged our tired behinds and heavy luggage back up to our rooms before meeting for our final nightly debrief.  It was bittersweet to talk through the end of a wonderful and productive week, honoring the friendships we’ve made while knowing that there’s no way to hold permanently onto these relationships in the exact way we’ve enjoyed them this week.

Experiences like this are like those dark summer nights with a million fireflys…all you can do is be present in the moment, allow the experience to be burned into your memory, and then let it go gently.

We’ll be in Antigua today!  Enjoy the photo collage from yesterday and we’ll look forward to sharing our experiences from Antigua.