Latin Americitis

9 days: just enough time to get to know a place and its people and to miss them when you have to leave.
I think every time I leave Central America, I leave a larger piece of my heart behind. The past 9 days were an unexpected blessing of finally seeing a part of a dream realized as I attended to my very first patient as an aspiring physician, my attending being a room away for those emergency consults due to frequent lapses in medical knowledge. It was a blessing to affirm that the past 2 years tucked away in the dungeon of Stanton Gerber Hall were not spent in vain and that facts such as Sturge-Weber syndrome is characterized by a port-wine stain, a left supraclavicular lymph node is indicative of metastasis of gastric cancer, and exopthalmos is one of the three characteristics of Grave's Disease are all important and relevant. Yet, even though I have already assimilated an incredible amount of information, this week taught me I still have even more to learn and the next two years will not be trivial.
It was a wonderful opportunity to be able to spend over a week with some amazing brothers and sisters in Christ, both from Nicaragua and the United States. I think one of the strongest evidences for Christianity is the transformation of lives, the life of a California gang member transformed to that of a strong Christian servant of his Christian family, the life of a shy angry girl now filled with joy and enthusiam at the thought of serving God's precious children. That's what I love about my Christian family-we come from such a diverse background and collection of talents yet God finds a way to use each and every one of us. Whether we can teach, heal, sew, preach, or simply smile and let someone know they are loved, we each have our role in supporting our Christian family in their strengths and in their weaknesses.
Serving abroad isn't about the pictures you take or the souveneirs you purchased. It isn't about the exotic places you visited or the foods you sampled. It's about the people. It's about remembering what those two wooden beams symbolize and reminding yourself of why you've dedicated your life to serving the man who hung from them. It's about getting in touch with that part of your soul which is obscured by the materialism and frantic lifestyle led in the United States.
Instead of the per usual quote, I leave you with a few special moments from the past week:



Benny Baker from Mision para Cristo told me I'd never forget them because I saw my first patient in Nicaragua. He's right. How many people have a picture of the first patient they ever saw?



With this view, who needs a rental cabin in the Smokies?



What else can I say? Simply precious.