Day 3
Our first clinic day ended late into the night. You might think that meant we would wake the next morning with tired faces and weary bodies. But that wasn’t the case at all! Instead, we welcomed the new day with songs, stories, great anticipation—and, of course, coffee! (Smile.)
Before breakfast, we gathered together and Dr. Mark Woolf led us in a devotional from Mark 1:29–31. Simon’s mother-in-law was lying sick with a fever when Jesus came to her, took her by the hand, and healed her. Immediately, she got up and began serving them.
Dr. Woolf challenged us to consider what motivated her to serve. Was it sheer willpower? Or was it a heart overflowing with gratitude for what Jesus had done for her?
And then came the question that has stayed with me all day: What is my motivation for coming here, year after year?
I’m not a medical professional. I can’t diagnose an illness or write a prescription. There are so many things I cannot do. And yet, I can’t seem to stay away from this country that has taken up such a large piece of my heart.
I know what it feels like to be so deeply loved by Christ that the only response is to fall to your knees in gratitude. And somehow, that gratitude becomes a call to get back up—to serve, to love, to show up for someone else.
I don’t think I’m alone in that.
In fact, I would venture to say that every one of our volunteers comes first and foremost because they, too, have experienced the overwhelming love of God. We have been recipients of grace, mercy, healing, and love. And when you have received that kind of love, what else can you do but respond with your whole being?
So we will keep showing up.
We will keep crossing borders and stepping into communities. We will keep listening, serving, encouraging, praying, and ministering to the needs of our Guatemalan brothers and sisters. Not because we have all the answers or because we can fix everything—but because we have been loved first.
And this is the beautiful work of Faith in Practice teams throughout the year—teams of people from all walks of life who keep showing up in communities across Guatemala, offering their time, their gifts, their compassion, and their love in response to the love they have first received from God.
A few years ago, I was in Paris and visited the beautiful Sacré-Cœur Basilica. Inside the sanctuary was a banner that read:
“For over 135 years, here, night and day, someone has been praying to the Lord.”
I was absolutely floored by that thought.
For more than a century, people had come to that place and prayed. Through Nazi occupation, through terrorist attacks in 2015, through the devastating fire at Notre-Dame in 2019—through generations of uncertainty, sorrow, joy, and hope—someone was always praying.
Someone was always showing up.
That image has stayed with me.
So this year, I brought a map of Guatemala and hung it up on our first day. Over the past 21 years, the Johnson team has traveled to communities all across this beautiful country, and I placed a pin in every location where they have served.
Then each of us placed a sticker on San Benito, in the Petén, where we are serving this week.
Next week, we will pack our bags and go home. The clinic will close. The team will scatter back to our homes and our ordinary routines.
But this place will never be ordinary to us again.
These people have been written into our hearts.
This community has been marked by our presence, and we have been marked by theirs. We may leave Guatemala, but we will carry San Benito with us. We will remember the faces, the stories, the laughter, the needs, the moments of prayer—and we will continue to hold this community and these people before God.
Because love does not end when the clinic closes.
Why do we keep coming? Why do we keep serving? Why do we keep showing up?
Because God first loved us.
And when you have experienced a love like that, what else can you do but give it away?
Julie Eberly Photographer and Blogger
