Guest Post: Victoria Way

As a newcomer to Canilla, I write this blog with fresh eyes after just seeing so much of this beautiful country and many of its people for the first time. Thus far during my days here, I’ve been given the opportunity to serve in the clinics that are held weekly. For anyone that knows me, this is more than my medicine loving heart knows what to do with. While I literally can’t get enough of interacting with patients and learning trademark signs and symptoms of certain illnesses, it’s more than just the medicine that I am so enthralled with. My spirit is well aware that physical life is so unimportant when lined up next to eternal life. Jesus doesn’t just get pushed to the side here. He’s the center of every single part of every single day. Mind=blown.

Each Sunday we hold clinic in San Andres (if you want to know where that is, everyone here will tell you its just over those mountains over there—all I know is it’s about 30 minutes up the road). On the ride there my first week, my new dear friends Leslie (supernurse) and Adrienne (organizational mastermind) forewarned me that this clinic was the more hectic of the one’s I’d been to. And it was. There were lots of people coming in and out all day, and it felt like we saw one hundred million patients. Some were super sick while others just needed someone to listen to them talk for a little while. Regardless of their reason for coming, each one was given love just the same. A few were prayed for, many were given medicines, but everyone was served with the love of Christ. It was such a reminder that even in the chaos, no matter the circumstances, Jesus can be shown to the least of these. That’s the only reason to do medicine at all.

There was one particular patient we saw who had broken her leg very badly several years ago. God chose to miraculously heal her, as her leg used to be about 3 inches shorter than the one that had not been broken due to the shattering of her bone. Though this miracle has taken place, she is still in disbelief. It saddened my heart to see her walking with crutches when I knew she could do otherwise. But when I dwelled on it some more, I realized how common this is to so many people. What are you and I letting hold us back even though God has set us free?

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17). What a humbling reminder to walk in the freedom that God has so graciously given to us. It’s a daily decision that has to be made, but that freedom is there waiting to be embraced every single day. I’m praying that this verse will sit in the forefronts of our minds as God allows us to be his hands and feet here in Guatemala.