Medical Trip to Buenos Aires, Costa Rica

A number of weeks back on yet another medical trip - this time to a Southern part of Costa Rica, and with only 16 pre-med students - we found ourselves in a town called "Buenos Aires"... and held clinics in a nearby village called "Terraba" - an indigenous community where a number of the older people still speak their mother tongue apart from Spanish.
We held the clinics in a school classroom for two days after having gone house-to-house on the first day, inviting people from the surrounding community to come in for check-ups and any other conditions that required a Doctor´s attention.


Most memorable of the entire trip, was a "patient"... a 93-year-old gentleman by the name of "Serafín" (Seraphim in English) who came to have a check-up upon invitation... and as it turns out, he´s a lot healthier than men scores of years his junior. All of his vital signs were checked and there was nothing amiss, including a blood test we did to check his blood-sugar levels.
A number of years back he was diagnosed as having diabetes, and his blood-sugar levels were hitting the roof... not theses days!
To all of us it was evident that the real purpose of his visit was to share his deep faith in God´s ability to heal and the power of prayer as a Christian. He had an infectious enthusiasm and energy, as he kept punctuating his testimonies with fervent "hallelujahs!"
As our small group of four students were interviewing him, and I was translating back and forth from English to Spanish and Spanish to English... I found myself being the link in relaying his testimony... one that so many people sorely need to hear.
He still goes out every day to work in the fields, using a "machete" amongst other things - knocking stripes off the younger men. He repeated time and again how prayer and more prayer is what gives him strength every day.
He gave us a number of testimonies, initiating a dialogue with the question, "Have you ever seen a person raised from the dead?", to which no one could give an affirmative. He then went on to tell us of how he had laid hands on a young boy who had died, and prayed for God to bring him back to life, which happened just as it did in the Old and New Testament. He also gave us an account of how he had laid hands on a woman´s stomach to pray for God to heal a giant cancerous tumor that had grown... and when the woman went back to the hospital to have further exams done, they found her in perfect health, which was a confirmation of what was already obviously visible.
Serafín talked of how he wanted God to give him decades more of life, so that he could share God´s word and continue to preach. In every breath he gave God the preeminence that He deserves.
There was absolutely no room to doubt his testimony as we listened to this most humble man, who had an excellent level of health at his age to back his words, where all too often people would dismiss these accounts as mere "stories" - as a stretch of the imagination.
A verse from the Bible comes to mind, where Jesus, speaking to Thomas said, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe."
You come away from such testimonies not awed by the man himself, but rather the faithfulness of God in answering the prayers - no matter how tall the order may seem - of those who come to Him in faith.
I was only able to spend 4 days on this trip as the group headed on to Panama (I wasn´t able to get a visa on short notice), taking Ana away from me. I must say that it was difficult being away from one another for the first time since we got married. Originally I was to travel back to the capital, San José, by bus - which would have taken the whole day. As it turned out, a doctor and her daughter who had volunteered to come on the trip needed to head back to the capital as well, and they had a private 6-seater charter plane ready to pick them up early in the morning... and of course they invited me along.
I got a chance to see the incredible landscapes of Costa Rica... stretching from the Pacific Coast all the way inland to volcanoes, mountain peaks and meandering rivers. It was incredible being able to see it all from the air... especially the layout of the Capital, where we´re so used to seeing parts of the smaller picture traveling by bus.
Now I didn´t have my camera with me to take any photos, since of course I had to leave it with Ana to take photos in Panama (you can see some of those on her blog)... so, I found a picture on Google Images which closest resembles the kind of plane we went in. Amazing huh?
I arrived home in record speed, only to be left reflecting on a conversation I had had almost 9 years ago with a South African lady who had been a missionary in France: She was telling of how God always has the best of adventures for us, and surprises waiting around each corner. She told me of a trip by airplane (upon invitation) that she took in a similar situation to mine, being able to see the mountains and lakes from the air. I was awed by God´s gift to her, at the time thinking inwardly, "Wow!!"... and then my train of thought was broken as I realized that God had done exactly the same for me. It made me think of how we often need to take a pause and take stock of the blessings God has lavished upon us. All too often we take our immediate situations for granted... we may even enjoy them somewhat, but when we put everything into perspective it really is incredible.
God bless you all.