Thriving Thursday, June 22, 2023

Strength for today (bright hope for tomorrow): Strategic. I have been made with a distinct way of thinking; a special perspective on the world. An ability to sort through the clutter to find the best route. This is my strategy. I sort through the events of my day with the strategic goal of seeing God’s hand and His perspective on my life.

My heart begins to sing. It takes me a moment but I recognize it:

Firm Foundation
“Christ is my firm foundation,
The Rock on which I stand,
when everything around me is shaken,
I’ve never been more glad
that I put my faith in jesus
because he’s never let me down.
He’s faithful through generations
so why would he fail now?
He won’t!”

I sent this song to Ari, pre-trip, to soften the voices of the naysayers in her life. I guess it has become the anthem of our trip.

We drive our two hours and return to our church from yesterday.

I’m sitting in my family room again, as I did yesterday. My same family members haunt the hallways in the forms of my Mexican amigos. I am no longer invisible as they recognize me with grand smiles and endearing Buenos Dias. Benny is a thirty something handsome man wearing his signature red baseball hat and I learn his name today. His smile is outrageously sparkling and he welcomes me back with a vigorous handshake. It is later that I realize he reminds me of Philip.

This church family is lovely to watch as they care for one another. There are hugs and slaps on the back for everyone including myself.

Joe and I run our station like a well oiled machine. I welcome every patient with a smile and a blood pressure and he takes over from there. I am a bit surprised to realize that I am actually missing doing exams. When I began the trip, I felt so inadequate but as is so often the case, God calls me to be willing and when I say yes, in spite of my fear, I rarely have to do the thing I dread. Today, He has replaced dread with longing and that makes me kind of laugh. He knew, as Kelly did, that I have nothing to fear when God is doing the equipping.

Mi amigos, Santiago and Susanna, have returned today and they eagerly transfer over to mi loco nino, Joe. Water bottle flipping challenges go on all day.

There are a set of teenage triplets running registration. Two of the three do the paperwork and one organizes the line. I’ve noticed the two paperwork doers fold the papers in opposite directions. I find that fascinating. When they ran out of forms, they each had a different idea about how to get me to understand this. One ran off to retrieve an actual form, one spoke rapid Spanish detailing the need and the third folded an imaginary paper in the air and put it in a bag. The last one beat the runner and we retrieved some more forms.

Our local, lovely gatekeeper of the door to clinic, Socorro, laughs and smiles at me every time I enter. She catches me savoring a moment in front of an electric fan and giggles. It becomes our thing to watch each other and it is a highlight of my day.

I felt a bit isolated from the team in our down the path locale, but somehow closer to this church community who seem to have made me a part of them. The cook took my face in her hands and kissed my cheeks saying something about manana. Yes, indeed, until manana!