God be with you

Do you know that "goodbye" is a shortening of "God be with you"? This morning Kathy and I hugged our wonderful medical team goodbye and sent them into the airport, knowing that God was with them. By now, they're home and telling their stories to family and friends, as they remember the people and the days of our mission.

We saw 1305 of San Rafael Cedros' citizens during our five days with a total of 2185 clinic visits. A number of our patients had serious illnesses that needed referrals to the local clinic or hospital for follow-up care. I'll be keeping connected to some of those follow-ups, and to our 50 patients for the cataract surgery week in May.

We will all remember different things from the week, different faces - surely this lovely woman in pink will be well remembered by Kathy and Sister Amalia - but we know we've been blessed by the people of San Rafael. And we've been deeply blessed by getting to know each other. By the end of this intense week, the 28 of us had worked together, laughed together, shared stories, wept a little, danced, played cards, enjoyed Salvadoran food, loved the sunshine in February. It was as smooth a week as Kathy and I have experienced, and for this we're grateful both to our great team and to the super-organized local volunteers of San Rafael Cedros. May God be with all those returning home with memories of a week well spent.