Getting the bus ready

We have an older school bus (the short kind) that is outfitted as a mobile clinic. We take it out when we have special medical teams that want to go out to a village for one day. This week we will have the privilege of having 2 doctors, 2 nurses, an ultrasound specialist and Dr. Scott's wife come for just 2 days and work with us. Dr. Scott Conard is a specialist in diabetes and hypertension and Dr. John Osborne is a cardiologist. The whole team is from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and Gateway Church. On Thursday we will have training in ultrasound techniques, Dr. Scott will see our diabetic/hypertensive patients and Dr. John will see cardiac patients at the National Health Center here in Chichicastenango. Carla will see our milk program children and Tonya will work with our patients in the triage area. What a blessing to have such specialty services here! On Friday, Dr. John will do a seminar for local health care providers and Dr. Scott will go out with the bus to the village of Xepocol and see patients along with Carla, Tonya and Mary. Mary has a portable ultrasound machine so we will be able to really do some diagnosing using that technology. This is very exciting! I have been trying to get the bus cleaned and outfitted with medicines and supplies. It really is time consuming.

We are also working on the Christmas party that we will have on December 7th. Last year over 1600 children received presents. We are not sure yet just how many children are signed up for this year. The families that have a family patient card at our clinic are eligible to sign up for the party. One of the big problems at the party is not enough bathrooms! This year we are constructing 4 temporary outhouses just for the party. We will be using our pavilion for the program instead of the front of the main building. We will use our side properties to hold all the families. Gateway Church is sending a team of 20 women down to help with the party and then at the end of the week hold a little retreat for all the missionary women and children.

So, as you can tell, this is crunch time! Too much to do and not enough time. Please pray for these activities because we always want to keep our primary goal as the presentation of the gospel and the salvation of the lost. We will have an opportunity to share the love of God the Father and His Son with over 3000 people in the next 10 days!

It really felt like Thanksgiving!

Since Thanksgiving always is on Thursday, we always hold our regular clinic anyway. It was a good thing as we had over 35 patients seen today. Our poor patients began arriving at 4:00 am and waited outside in the cold (it was 40 degrees last night) until we opened the gate at 7 am. The sad thing was that we could not see all of them. Dr. Heidi saw about 15 prenatal care patients as well as other return visits and the sick children from the milk program. We had 9 babies show up for the newborn assessment program. All the babies whose mothers had received prenatal care were born with a great birth weight and were doing well. Shawn stayed home to prepare the turkey dinner so I did her job and I also did Richard's job in the pharmacy as he is on vacation. It all ran amazingly smooth despite 3 of our regular staff not being with us. Virginia, an RN from Canada who has been helping on Thursday with the sick MP children, left today to work with a visiting team she knows. We are not doing just routine care but almost every patient has a special need. Some of the OB patients have problems - one fetus is not growing, another mother has not gained any weight for 3 months even though we put her in the milk program in July, others will need C-sections, another came from an hour away just to be checked. We saw Osni today as well. He is 2 months old and has a severe cleft lip and palate. He comes weekly to be weighed but has not gone above 7 pounds for 3 weeks. His mother is afraid to put the bottle nipple in far enough in his mouth and he barely receives any milk. We once again showed her how to properly feed him. Please pray that he gains weight soon or he may need to be admitted to the hospital.

After clinic 5 missionary families met at Bob and Shawn's and we had a wonderful dinner with all the fixings. The kids played and the adults talked and watched football. It felt just like we were in the States! The weather has been unsually cold and so the fireplace was enjoyed greatly as well. We have much to be thankful for both here and in the States. John and I remember many lonely Thanksgivings where just he and I shared our dinner. We are thankful for our new friends who have been called to work here in the Quiche area as well. We also wish each of you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

They just keep coming!

I've decided that I am not very good at this blog thing! I haven't been able to write something each day but we will keep trying. It has been a really busy week. Last Tuesday we picked up our conference team from Bay City, MI and took them to Antigua where we had supper with Robin Garcia and Jaime Garcia. They are two brothers, both with their doctorates, who are on the cutting edge here in Guatemala. Wednesday we returned to Chichicastenango, had lunch then everyone went out on home visits. Later that afternoon, we met with our Associate Degree students for a time of sharing and ministry. Pastor David Ferranti had talked to John several years ago about our need to offer an AD here at ILIO. He purchased the program (on DVD) and the right for us to use it. We just graduated our first class with all 14 that started also finishing. This class has some of the most dynamic Christian leaders in all of Quiche. What a great time we had as the visiting team ministered to each one of the students.

Thursday was clinic day with lots and lots of things going on. One young woman has a breast mass that was biopsied and looks pretty positive that it is cancer. Another mother brought her very malnourished baby in that also has down syndrome. Thanks to Dr. Heidi Bell who is now seeing patients here on Thursdays, she was admitted to the National Hospital. She is 3 months old and only weighs a little over 3 pounds. Please remember these special cases in your prayer. We have been treating a young man with diabetes for the last few months. He was in a bus accident and broke his arm. He had surgery on it about 6 weeks ago or so. He came in on Thursday saying that he had fallen on Sunday. Turns out that he was drunk and fell in the street. He has rebroken the same arm and now also his jaw! It didn't occur to him to go to the hospital to get xrays! He says he has accepted the Lord but is really struggling with drinking. Please remember Jose in your prayers as well.

Friday and Saturday we held our semi-annual conference. The theme was the 5-fold ministries. We had a wonderful time with about 250 in attendance. Many were ministered to and encouraged as they learned how the church should function. Pastor David and his team did a terrific job. They really spent a lot of time in intercessory prayer before and during the conference.

John and Bob took the team back to Antigua on Monday and then spent the rest of the day picking up more boxes of Christmas gifts for our party and running other errands. They got back last night at 8 PM. Very exhausted!

Meanwhile I hosted the first ever Health Care Providers (for our area) meeting at ASELSI. There were 3 doctors, 3 nurses, 1 Medical Assistant plus other people who also work in clinics, etc. It was great to get together and share what we are doing, what supplies we have to share or give away and what our plans are for teams, etc. Looks like we will try to get together every 3 months.

Today I sent John back to bed as he was quite sick all night with a cold and cough. I had to send Benjamin our receptionist home also with a bad cold. The weather is quite cold for November. Tonight it is about 45 degrees. And we don't have central heat! Thank goodness for our electric blanket. Today was therapy day and we evaluated 2 new children for the program. About every week we are putting new children in the program. Sonia was referred to us by a Canadian nurse at the local Methodist hospital. She is 14 years old and is a paraplegic. She lives with her abuelos (grandparents) as her father has died and her mother is living with someone who doesn't want to be responsible for Sonia. At the age of 3 she had a high fever for 20 days and when it subsided she was paralysed from the waist down. Her recent trip to the hospital was due to kidney problems. Thank God they were able to take care of the problem. Sonia does not therapy and also some schooling. Due to her paralysis she has never gone to school and needs to learn to read and write and do math. We will be able to help her with some of this. Just last week I received a bedside commode from another ministry. When I found out that Sonia's elderly grandfather has to carry her outside to the outhouse and that causes her to soil herself sometimes, I brought in the commode and you should have seen their smiles! Now Sonia won't have to be taken out in the rain and cold to use the bathroom. God provides all the things we need.

We will be doing training again for a new class of therapy assistants in January. This is exciting as we need more workers to help with all the new patients!

Another trip to Antigua

I shared in our first blog about the trip to Antigua to set up surgeries for children with cleft lips. We were blessed that all of the children are signed up for surgery on January 8th! Several of the children are definitely malnourished so it is our job at the Milk Program to make sure they are gaining sufficient weight to have the surgery. Feeding a baby with an open palate is no easy task.

On Monday the 13th, we sent off another group to be checked for various surgeries. 2 of the little boys had their cleft lips repaired last January and are due for the palate surgery. Another of our little boys, Sebastian, has had both surgeries but was left with an opening in his palate. He was actually the first baby that we helped to get this surgery. He is now 4 years old and doing well otherwise. We also sent Ana to see about the surgery to correct her club foot. A new baby with a club foot and missing fingers and toes went along as well.

They all saw the pediatrician on Tuesday. The children with cleft palates will have surgery on January 8th as well. They have decided not to operate on Ana's clubfoot until she has her spina bifida repaired first. Another long wait for this precious little girl who is determined to go to school. The baby, Tomasa, we are still not sure just what her treatment will be.

On Wednesday, we sent another group in only this time they were to see the genetic doctor. One mother with her 3 year old son, Andres, traveled for 14 hours by bus to get to Chichicastenango on Tuesday. She lives in what is called the Zona Reyna which is way up in the mountains where there is almost no medical care and only trucks with 4wd can get in and out. Her daughter lives near us and has her own baby in the milk program. She told her mother to come down and we would help her with her youngest. Then she had to leave for Antigua with our group at 4:30 am to get to the 7 am registration. 2 other children also went to be diagnosed. After fighting the crowds and getting registered we found out that the doctor had another "activity" to go to and would not be in today! I was beside myself thinking of how hard it was for these 3 mothers to carry these children all the way in from their homes. The social worker then told us that if they could spend the night that the doctor would come to the hospitality house to see them later in the evening. They all decided to stay and my assistant, Bertha, agreed to stay with them. So far I haven't heard how it went.

Thanks to you who have prayed and given. We have to really be advocates for these children as there are very little services to be found. The charity hospital serves hundreds of patients every day at a minimal cost. So far it has cost about $800 to get the children in to Antigua and cover the costs of food and other items. It is well worth the investment.

More later!

The Heart of the Matter

Back to the Beginning
I took four others with me to Nebaj for a conference on discipleship course. It was the first time that they opened the new road from our town in Chichi to the Ixil triangle there in Nebaj. It took two and one half hours in what used to take five hours. It gave me an opportunity to share about the last fourteen years of traveling this road with those in the car. The time the steering wheel came off while I was driving; the time Sharon and I walked over a mountain to a remote village and half way up Sharon could go no further. They had to recruit a local mule to help her up the rest of the way. It was hilarious to see her. When we arrived in Nebaj I was greeted warmly by many of my friends made over the last fourteen years. That is where I started teaching rural pastors and leaders.

Something new!

After enjoying the blogs of several friends, we decided some of our friends might enjoy getting more details on life here in Guatemala. So, we are starting something new! Actually John did a daily journal for a number of years which served as our newsletter. Some people loved it; others filed it away in the trash. For those of you that like details and to get to the "heart of the matter" this is for you! John and I will both be writing in the blog about things that have touched our hearts or difficulties we face or just plain news.

My day started out with 6 families meeting at ASELSI to load into our van and travel to Antigua. Each of the families have a child with a cleft lip and palate. Miguel Angel drove the van and Dr. Heidi Bell and Matt followed in their truck. Everyone got treated to lunch out, which is not a common thing for these Mayan families. They arrived at Hermano Pedro Hospital in Antigua and received their appointments for tomorrow morning. The hospital provides housing for the patients and families. It is so great to see the parents encouraged that just maybe their precious little one will look normal and be able to eat normally. Miguel's major gifting is as an evangelist so he always uses these trips to spend time talking to the families about the Lord.

We have 11 children that are in need of surgery for this problem. Each surgery will cost us $300 to $500 to cover all the costs. That is really cheap when thinking like a north American but way out of reach for these Indian families. We are trying to raise money to cover each child. So far we have 3 of the 11 surgeries provided for!

I got invited up to the Casa del Rey which is another ministry here in town. They had clinic furniture and supplies to give away. It was better than a garage sale! I found a good exam table, adult weight scale, stools with wheels for the PT program, and lots of other odds and ends. Those are all things I have prayed for and just look how God supplies our every need!