Thursday was the ahead teams first work day of pre- mission prep work. Our day started with breakfast and devotions in the morning and then several people went to the hospital where Derin began doing his pre-surgery screenings. I think they said they did around 15 screenings today and 13 qualified for surgery. Tomorrow is more of the same for them. The rest of the team went to the church in La Ceibita to do some quick inventory before heading back to the hotel to meet up with the team for lunch.
After lunch we spent several hours counting and prepping meds and organizing glasses. We are fortunate to have a room to use to spread out with all of our stuff at the hotel. Lots of work to do in these areas yet, but I think we made a good start!
The weather has been unusually cool here in Tocoa and raining on and off. I think tomorrow is more of the same weather wise with it starting to warm up on Saturday.
We went to church this evening in La Ceibita and enjoyed time in fellowship with our friends from the local church. It’s always good to spend time in worship with them. Im’ excited to work with them next week in the clinic!
After church we headed back to the hotel for devotions and a quick dinner.
In devotions we pondered several questions related to mission work. DO you call it mission or missions? What is the difference? How we live out our mission specifically today? Going deeper into our faith we were asked the question, “how does having a better understanding of our faith help us in the mission field?” I think this is an important question and one that is likely always going to be in a motion of growth. But truly I think after spending some time reflecting on this, I believe that having a better understanding of our faith, makes us less project leaders and more of a compass for someone who might need direction or support or just an ear to listen. Someone who can relate and empathize with people going through tough times and help guide them. I think having a deeper understanding of our faith, gives us a deeper spiritual foundation on which to build on our own lives, but to help build and lift others up too.
Today was a good productive day!
Blessings.
Shelley