A full trip . . . and an exciting future - Wayne Centrone

It has been a full trip. 

​I am on the plane boarding to leave Lima and I feel like I’d be remiss if I didn't offer a few words of success. Over the past month our team has been building bridges in a number of different directions. Dr. Bob Gehringer has been all over the country training trainers on neonatal resuscitation (NRP). Our Director of Nursing and Evaluation  Karen Falkenstein, completed a conference in Lima and Arequipa, spent time in Arequipa planning for a anemia project in the community of Alto Cayma with Father Alex, and is busy this week interviewing potential new nursing care coordinators for the Ines Project. HBI's Perú Program Manager, Carmen Zavala is busy with Karen conducting the interviews, spent last week at the Union Biblica Camp Kusi in Yungay working with a team of dental volunteers, and completing a number of end-of-year activities. The HBI Director of Operations, Benjamin Grass spent the past two weeks assuring our projects and programs are running with efficiency. He traveled to a couple of key project locations and worked with the team on implementation and operational oversight. Needless-to-say, he has been a very busy person. Finally, Dr. Roberto Tarazona and I have been working on the expansion of the Ines Project and planning a trip we will be taking in early November to Rome for meetings with key partners.

The team held our fall retreat this weekend and spent the time building our plan for early 2018 and a future into 2022. We also added an extra day to our retreat this year and met with Father Alex in Lima to plan for the 1st quarter of 2018 and the speedy arrival of our first volunteer team from St. Olaf College in early January.
 
I am so proud of our team. It’s time like this past few weeks when I realize how great our impact is. We’ve gone from a dream and an outreach trip through Christ Episcopal Church in Lake Oswego, Oregon to a full-fledged international NGO working on a number of solid projects and programs with an extensive list of partners. And, all of this has happened in a little over 10-years. 
 
We’ve got a lot to be proud of and a significant amount of exciting opportunities hanging just a little off in the horizon. So - as we plan for the final months of 2017 and the first quarter of next year, let’s work together and make 2018 HBI's most successful year of bridges. Let's work together to be a commitment of advocacy, collaboration and service! 

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