Aldea La Paz

Wednesday April 9,2025

So in Christ Jesus, you are all children of God through faith. - Galatians 3:26

Clinic day three brought rainy weather and a first-time village, where we had the pleasure of being the first Friends of Barnabas team to visit. As usual, we were welcomed warmly and set up the clinic in a church and small school which served as the community’s center.  This community was situated in a beautiful agricultural area, surrounded by various tropical fruit trees.  One man was thrilled to gift us several freshly picked pineapples, which we were equally as thrilled to accept.  

As we cared for a community of patients who had not received medical care in some time, many of us found deep human connections with the people we treated.  A theme that was impressed upon some of us today was that although we come from very different circumstances than our patients, we are all just people, all children of God.  For one team member, this became apparent as she interacted with a mother and her children.  She played peek-a-boo with one of the children for a while and found a connection with her as they played.  Later, she held a sleeping child in the same family to help out the mother - when the child woke up in her arms, she looked right up at her face and gave her a huge smile.  Her connection with this family inspired her to give her agape cross to them.

Other crosses were given to a child with cerebral palsy, whose mother carried her everywhere she needed to go, and a woman who needed a hand to hold and some reassurance while wax build up from her ears was removed to allow her to hear clearly again.  Many were also inspired by a family composed of a mother and her eight children.  The love and connection among the family members was apparent.  When it was time to leave for the day, they walked off together, the younger children riding on the backs of the older ones while others held hands.  

My favorite moment of the day was interacting with a woman who was found to have high blood pressure during her registration process.  When I tried to recheck it, I quickly discovered the problem as she tensed every muscle in her arm the moment I put the cuff in place.  My translator and I unsuccessfully tried every trick we could come up with to get her to unclench her fist and relax her muscles.  In exasperation, I finally grabbed her arm and shook it around, laughing, as I tried to show her what I needed her to do.  She started to giggle, and the two of us were soon laughing uncontrollably together.  She never did relax her arm, but the moment of laughter we shared together crossed cultural and language barriers to remind us that we were both just people, both children of God.

-Dr. Gabbi Beck