Monday, February 11, 2019
The Sus Manos team visited their first community of the trip today in a village called El Chaguiton. This community has been a part of the FOBF program for three years and is considered an Advanced Learning Community due to additional educational programs made possible by the community partnership they have with Farmville UMC.
Community members greeted the team with smiles and lined up behind the bus to help unload the many boxes, tables, fans, and supply containers needed to set up the clinics.
The team leaders greeted the community with a welcoming speech, a short prayer, and an invitation to pray over individuals looking for a word. A woman dressed in black emerged from the crowd with tears in her eyes and asked for prayer over her son who she had recently lost. The team leaders anointed the woman with oil and said a word of
prayer over her to help her find comfort in a time of loss.
Soon thereafter, Sus Manos team members and FOBF staff quickly put together the clinic stations. Families began lining up including a mother with several children and a new baby only 41 days old, which excited many team members whom asked to hold the child. Another family highlighted the importance of inter-generational care in this community as a grandmother with a walker was surrounded and cared for by her family members. The same woman shared with Virginia that she had been praying for the medical team. Touched by the sentiment, Virginia gave the elderly woman her cross and she expressed her gratitude and consideration for the team.
Of the 200 people in the community, the Sus Manos team served 144 individuals in the general clinic. By the end of the day, the team was overwhelmed by the impact the three years of health care through FOBF programming had made on the community. Flo ended the evening with a reminder about the call to “take courage and follow Jesus into the world”. Galatians 2:20
~Mary Riddick
