I am tired. And we haven’t even started seeing patients yet. That happens tomorrow, and I can’t wait.
I’m tired because I stayed up late. I was responsible for giving the worship talk to the group in the morning. My talk was about the importance of making sure you invest, not just in your future, but also in your relationship with God. I took this message from the story of the rich fool found in Luke 12. You should look it up.
After breakfast we traveled 40 minutes to a beautiful waterfall called Misol Ha. The experience of climbing to the top of the fall was invigorating. There was a cave at the top of the falls that contained another waterfall inside. And lots of bats. Yeah, you read that correctly.
After climbing down from the waterfall, I had some time to just sit and read. This was really relaxing and peaceful. It didn’t hurt that there was not cell reception.
One group stayed behind and started to organize all of our medical supplies. We brought these supplies from the states in about 50 black duffel bags. (Yeah, that doesn’t seem suspicious.) It was great that a team was willing to stay behind and get that work done. It means tomorrow we can hit the ground running.
We returned to the hotel to have lunch and start organizing ourselves for tomorrow. It takes some coordination to organize five operating rooms and two clinics, but we got it done. It was at that time that I found out what my job would be for the next four days: surgery scheduler! I’m not too worried since I’ve helped with this responsibility before, but it’s gonna be a little more challenging this time because the operating rooms are not all in the same place. Movement of patients will be an issue, but I’m confident my team will handle things well.
At 6pm, we went to the center of town for a welcoming ceremony put on by the president and his staff. They played music as we entered the hall and were seated. I served as the translator for our director as he thanked the president and his cabinet for making it possible for our team to be there to serve.
They put on a cultural dance performance for us that was entertaining and colorful. After taking several pictures with the local authorities, we headed back to the hotel for dinner and final announcements for the start of the work. You could tell there was excitement, energy, and nervousness all at once. On a trip like this it makes sense to be nervous. We are doing medical procedures in a place we don’t know, under circumstances that we sometimes can’t control, with patients we have never seen. That can be scary.
But I know we have been called to be here at this time to do this work. So I am going to put aside that worry and trust in God. He is going to make sure that we are a blessing this week.