AMAA Medical Mission to Armenia – June 2015 – Day 4

By Kyle Kevorkian

The City of Vanadzor, Armenia

Day 4 – Our first day at the clinic!!

So to start this out, I have to say, even I was surprised by yesterday. It was a long day indeed. Every year the Phillips family tells the team that the first day is hectic and everyone is frustrated and not used to their jobs, etc. etc. However, in the past I had found this to usually not be the case. Most people adapt to their jobs within the first 30 minutes of the clinic and people flow through easily and quickly with no panic or hectic messes.

This year, I cannot say the first day was as usual…from my experience that is. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way saying that yesterday’s clinic didn’t run well; it ran exceptionally well. It just so happened that on the first day of clinic, we had a very large patient order (300+ patients were expected to be seen yesterday). On top of that, we started the clinic a bit late yesterday AND we also had a lot of the usual trouble makers come in. Yes, after four years you remember the old ladies and they remember you and some of them. Needless to say, they are the notorious trouble makers. To our luck, they all seemed to have come in on the first day (that could either be good or bad depending on how you want to slice it).

Regardless of the crazy nature of yesterday’s clinic, during our debriefing dinner, we came up with strategies to make the clinic flow smoother and allow all parts of the clinic to work more efficiently for tomorrow, since we do have a monstrous goal of seeing 1500 patients by the end of the trip. It’s a high goal, but I am excited to see if this amazing team will pull it off and be able to extend God’s love and care to so many people.

For today, I ask you all to pray for the team. Please pray that we are able to work together well and work efficiently so that we can meet our goal and share the light of God with as many people as possible. Today begins day two of the clinic and we have 435 people scheduled for today, the most we have ever scheduled in a single day. Please pray for us as we interact with and share God with the people of Armenia. Thank you as always for everything: the prayers, reading the blog, and the lovely compliments and encouraging words you share with our team via email, text, social media, etc.