The Face of God

The last few years I have gotten to know Laurel Petralia, the senior director of advancement at Regis.  She has helped me with grant writing for the Guatemala program.  Sometimes when I tell people about the Guatemala program I can tell right away if they "get it” or not.  Well, Laurel “got it” from the beginning.  She has never wavered and has been a strong supporter of the program for a few years.  Knowing that you really don’t know the full depth of this experience until you actually come to Guatemala and the clinic, I realized her support lived in her head, but maybe not in her heart.  So, when we were putting together the alumni trip participants last fall and I knew we were going to do a public health project (the community needs assessment), I knew that this trip would contain some team members who didn’t necessarily have clinical skills, but would nonetheless be very valuable members of a “public health pod” for this trip.  So, I asked Laurel last fall if she wanted to come on the alumni trip.  She did not hesitate in her yes.

She told me a few days ago that in talking with her spiritual advisor before coming on the trip he had asked her to think about where she could see the face of God on her trip. After a few days of being in Guatemala she told me about that missive from her spiritual advisor and how she was finding it hard to answer that question.  To her, I think she was struggling with how hard life is here and how people can see God in that struggle.

Last Thursday night Padre Sergio, the Guatemalan priest who founded this whole community, took the core medical team members (Stephanie Ibemere, Eric Bertelsen, Richard Walter, and myself, along with Laurel) out to an amazing dinner at a 5 star, world renowned restaurant, about 30 minutes outside of Cobán.  The meal was amazing but it was the company and conversation I will not forget.  Padre is a busy person and often when we are there with the Regis team he is not in town or in the country.  So, to have a whole evening to just spend with him was a unique opportunity.  At one point Laurel told him about the missive from her spiritual director and how she had been struggling to find the face of God due to the intense pressures put on people by poverty. She asked Padre where he found the face of god, and he hesitated, then the twinkle came to his eyes.  He has the same twinkle that Dr Richard is famous for on our team.  He began to tell the story of before the school was built.  He would go and feed the children living near the landfill and play soccer with them.  He distinctly remembers seeing a little boy who was about 2 and had a dirty face.  Padre bent down to clean his face and the two locked eyes and it was as clear as anything to him that he was, at that moment, looking at the face of God.

When we are born, our first instinct is to find a face.  The blinking infant is searching for something to bond.  Any parent who looks upon their child’s face for the first time, knows this feeling.  The most important, and formative thing a parent can do for a baby is to gaze into their face, and engage the eyes.  God, who is the giver of faces, shows us divinity in one another’s faces.  It is so easy for me to see that in Guatemala.  I have been blessed to look into so many peoples’ eyes in this community and see the face of God. I think Laurel has now experienced that herself in this community.

Lauri Pramuk, MD

Padre surrounded by the children at Ciudad de la Esperanza