I feel as if I should define a normal week as we approach September and what is normal will become the new normal.  I have been here ten days now and those days have been filled with daily life and praying and planning over what is to come.  Clinics have continued along with daily life and work on the new building.

Here is a snapshot of what normal looks like….

Friday we visited the widows, did a short devotional with them along with a time of sharing. We meet in Chiminisiguan which is a 40 minute car ride followed by a 30 minute walk to our clinic.  These women get together once a month to share with one another as well as bring their baskets or other goods that they have made since the last time we met.  The ministry supports these women by buying their goods and providing them with a small bag of food.  Many of their children were in the final stages of malnutrition when they were brought to our clinic for help.

On Friday we also did our grocery shopping for the week.  Friday evening is market where the people come in from the surrounding villages to sell their fresh fruits and vegetables.  We stock up every Friday for the next week.

Saturday – Clinic in Canilla – Clinic days mean traveling to our clinic, seeing patients as well as children in our nutrition program that come in from the surrounding aldeas.  On these days I monitor the children in our nutrition program by weighing them and charting them and then assist Leslie in seeing people that have come for medical care.

Sunday – Clinic in San Andres

Monday – Paperwork – typing up information on the widows, preparing information on the nursing school and the needs that abound with it.  We are also going to be switching to a new charting system with patients so I am trying to process what that needs to look like as well.

Tuesday – Clinic in Chiminisiguan

Wednesday – This day is our Sabbath.  As you can see the other days are filled with ministry and preparation and we have come to learn that we can fill all of our time with busyness and continual work if we are not careful.  And so we have set aside Wednesday as our day of rest.  I spent my morning listening to the sermon from last week, doing some reading, cleaning and settling in more and took a walk up the canal to do some bug catching with the girls!

Tomorrow will be a prep day for a team of dentists that will be coming to this area to do extractions, fillings, and treat infections that many of these people have lived with for years.  We’ll have to clean the rooms, move in tables and chairs, set up the entrance and make sure everything is ready to see roughly 140 people this weekend.

Thus finishes the last normal week we will have for awhile.  As this fall approaches and we experience a lot of change to the way things were, we covet your prayers as we continue to move forward in all that God is doing here.  Just this week we added an engineering team to our list of visitors for October that will be helping with the design of the hospital.  The pieces to this puzzle continue to come together and I am excited to see the development continue.