Nov. 27, 2019 Wednesday

Today our team woke up early to pack up our van and move our supplies to a new clinic in Pachacutec Ventanilla. It proved to be a busy and challenging day. Instead of separate treatment rooms that we enjoyed the last two days, today we all went in one big room. With 4-5 patients in the room at a time, much crying and noises ensued. Heath and Kala were able to work with several patients who travelled with their family from the Amazon jungle, one family over 18 hours of travel. Kala took on orthotic cases, helping to patiently adapt them for the patients’ needs. Heath also snuck in a couple orthopedic evaluations for members of the team who where feeling the strain of the week. Katie and Ryan worked together with some quadriplegic cerebral palsy patients. One received new orthotics and another left with a brand new wheelchair to better support her posture, development, and fit the functional needs of her family. Sarah and Kristin gained confidence with wheelchair fittings and showed off some creativity. A highlight of their day was a sweet young girl who could not stop giggling throughout her entire session. At the end of the day several of us stood on the roof and looked out over the city and the ocean. The landscape is vastly different from anything you would see in the United States. The houses are very crude and rundown, everything is brown and dusty. It was a good reminder of how fortunate we are and how much God has blessed us to be born and raised with the privileges we have in the United States. We believe God has blessed us this way for a reason and we can give back accordingly with our times, talents and resources. A patient at the end of the day went out of their way to provide heartfelt thankfulness to a couple of tires therapists who had provided customized orthotics for his daughter. He expressed his gratitude over and over again, so thankful that a group of people would take time to give to his family in such a way. The therapists were happy to reply back to the man that the kindness of God’s grace is the main reason why they are here. God was so kind and so overwhelmingly loving to us to send his son to die for us, that now after receiving His free gift of salvation, we now have a new desire to love others the way that He has so sacrifico ally loved us. And what a more amazing, tangible way to show the love of God to others than to first address their physical body as a conduit for reach the heart in a spiritual capacity. We are so grateful to be here, even though many admitted this was one of the most tiring and trying days of the week so far.

Our Peruvian friends say that they will be celebrating Thanksgiving with us! There is talk of our amazing cooks bringing us some of the holiday favorites to our dinner table tonight. Although it will not be a traditional Thanksgiving, we could not think of a better place to be. We are excited for the lives that we will interact with and impact!

-Heath and Katie