I recently returned from a medical missions trip to Guatemala.  My husband and I have been going annually for the last seven years. We go with a group of medical providers, a pharmacy, a dental team, nurses, van drivers, and interpreters. We stay at a church hostel in the city of Quetzaltenango and drive to five outlying villages during the week of our mission.

I am an interpreter. I love speaking Spanish, interacting with the local people and helping the team and the patients to connect.  I have worked with the nurses, with the medical providers and even in crowd control.

The villages we visit are selected by a pastor/doctor in Quetzaltenango who is in contact with our missions director. When we arrive at a village, we often set up our mobile clinic in an available school. The people we serve move through various classrooms to receive their services. It can be challenging to channel hundreds of local people to their needed stations and difficult for the stations to coordinate services.

This year, in each of the five villages we visited, we did not need to set up the clinic in separate classrooms. In each case, we were given the use of a large auditorium-like room. This arrangement reduced confusion, because people could see their next station, be it Medical Providers, Nurses or Pharmacy. This set-up also made it much easier for the stations to communicate with each other.

While observing the action in the busy auditoriums, it struck me how the team was working together as one. We weren’t puzzled, exasperated, uninformed stations struggling on our own.  Nursing or Pharmacy. Medical Provider or Registration. Rather, we were one.

I thought about this some more. Patient or Doctor. Guatemalan or North American. Old or young. “Happy my blood sugar level is good” or “I need a referral for the lump in my breast.” And I realized that we are all one in our dependence on the Three in One. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

And I could clearly see God is good.

What recent event in your life has changed “me” and “they” to “us?”

Susan Jacobson is a newly 60-year old female who presently resides in Bismarck ND. There is only so much Spider Solitaire a woman can play before thinking, "Hmm, what else can I do before I die?" From this arose her interest in blogging as a way to share with other women and praise God. Read more articles by Susan.