By Catherine Flanagan

Fred Rogers, TV’s beloved Mr. Rogers, used to say that when there is a crisis, look for the helpers. During our week in Vinto, Bolivia, as part of Solidarity Bridge’s Multi-Specialty Mission Team, we never had to look far to find helpers. In the hospital hallway there was the social worker, stepping in to ease the way for a seven year-old girl to receive cardiac surgery. In the operating room, there were the young Bolivian doctors creating a language bridge between US and Bolivian surgeons as they removed an entrenched uterine cyst. Our team leaders were on site at three locations, coordinating a thousand moving pieces to make sure supplies and healthcare providers were situated where they could do the most good. There were people helping people everywhere, bringing healing and healthcare to those in need. And overarching it all, we could sense God’s overflowing grace.

As we began our work in Vinto, Ann Rhomberg, Multi-Specialty Medical Mission (MSMT) Leader and Solidarity Bridge’s Executive Director, noted that while we were there to provide healthcare, we should also be open to receive God’s grace in other, sometimes unexpected ways. In our final group reflection, we were invited to look back over our week on mission and share a moment where we encountered God’s grace. As each team member shared, a common theme arose: we all seemed to find God’s grace in the people we had encountered. Whether they knew it or not, they were all helpers.

In my childhood catechism, I learned that Grace is a gift from God. Every moment of this mission experience has truly been a gift from God - even the moment when there was an unexpected leak in my bathroom - for that moment led to two religious sisters wielding wrenches in my bathroom while giggling over my poor Spanish skills (something to work on for future trips).

There was grace in the moment an earnest father looked up from swaddling his newborn child in the hospital waiting room to joyously call out, “Buenas tardes” as I rushed down the hall. He didn’t know it, but he was helping me to slow down and be present, to put aside my impulse to rush from one task to the next. In his smile and his unabashed pride over his new child, I felt God’s grace.

I witnessed God’s grace when a surgeon held her patient’s hand to reassure her that she would be well taken care of. It was there when she promised a worried mother that she would operate on her daughter with the care she would give her own. It was in the tenderness of our chaplains as they sat with waiting and nervous patients. God’s grace led us on home visits where surgical and physical therapy patients vulnerably welcomed us into their living spaces, to show us where they would return to recover and regain strength. God’s grace filled the clinics, the halls, and the operating room as helpers of all kinds came together in solidarity in a common mission of healing, growth, and transformation.

Through God’s overwhelming grace, we were able to encounter 490 patients during our week in Vinto, Bolivia. Working in partnership with our Bolivian colleagues, we created bonds of friendship and solidarity as we witnessed and experienced the grace of all kinds of helpers coming together in shared moments of healing and intercultural encounter that are sure to remain with us long after we have returned home.

Look for the Helpers