Hello friends and family,

We are mid summer already and looking towards the school year and fall coming up! I (Alisa) have been at Grace Medical Home since April and have been enjoying getting to serve there. It is a unique medical practice that functions off of countless volunteers to serve the working poor in Central Florida. I have called it concierge medicine for the poor as we have allotted a long time with each patient to discuss all of their medical, physical, and spiritual needs. I’ve never been given an hour for a physical exam with a patient except during grad school when I was learning how to perform one! But now at Grace I get this kind of time to spend with patients.

The goal of Grace Medical is to care for a patient’s physical needs while pointing them towards the person of Christ. Each patient is offered prayer, given opportunities to meet with a pastor on site, and is provided with excellent medical care. The organization runs off of an army of volunteer scribes, front desk workers, nurses, and speciality medical providers.

The patients that qualify for services are at an income level calculated to be below 100% of the poverty line and do not meet criteria for medical insurance. Who does this look like? Well, some patients I have seen range from recent immigrants to others born in Florida. Some have dark skin, some are white. Some speak English, while others only Spanish, Creole, or Portuguese. Most all work some kind of job whether it is waitressing, construction, or retail.

While working at Grace, I have been apart of pointing patients towards wellness. It is a welcome change from Honduras where the majority of our work was acute care and there wasn’t space to talk a lot about prevention. No one wants to hear about getting a colonoscopy when their arm is broken in several places and you are trying to re-set it! They have a great emphasis on preventative care, catching things early, and are able to direct patients towards treatment when necessary.

Last week I started a patient on a treatment for osteoporosis, hopefully this will lessen the chance of any fractures in the future. The pharmacy had a free bisphospinates (part of the treatment for osteoporosis) in stock, so the patient was able to start right away on a treatment that is normally thousands of dollars.

Now for a family update! Evie is now nine months old, crawling and pulling to stand all over the house. Alena is about to enter into pre-school in the fall and has been enjoying swimming and playing at the park all summer. Andrew continues to work at an Orthopedic practice in West Orlando area and spends about half his time in clinic and the other half helping in the operating room.

We are thankful for your continued support, care, and prayers! All the puzzle pieces of our lives seem to be coming together slowly in the past few months. We are grateful to be able to do this in partnership with you. My verse of the week for myself and my patients has been Zephaniah 3:17: For the LORD your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.

I pray that you would feel the Lord’s delight in you this week and his calm presence in the midst of any fears.

Prayer requests:

• Please continue to pray for the construction for the new hospital in the Yojoa area of Honduras.
• Continued community building in Orlando.
• Development of new skills and knowledge in our medical skills that could support our colleges in Florida and Honduras.

Praises

• We are living in a beautiful rental in the College Park area of Orlando, this home has been such a blessing!
• We have tickets to visit the team in Honduras in October and can’t wait to head back for a short visit.