Antigua

I love traveling.

There are many beautiful places in this world, one of the most beautiful is right here in Antigua Guatemala.

I got the chance to go with the PA team to Antigua last weekend for a little vacation.
Antigua is one of the best preserved old spanish settlements next to three active volcanoes. It has been destroyed many times by those same volcanoes, but it still survives.

Cobblestone streets, Tiled roofs. Fernando's Coffee. Mmmm. I love this place.

Ahh, volcanoes. 

What is it about them that just sucks me in? They are so fascinating. 

Seeing them in person takes me back to elementary school and the Magic School Bus TV show.

I am definitely putting on my bucket list volcano surfing. 

If you want to know more, see here: Volcano-boarding.

Antigua is a wonderful tourist attraction. It is a little weird to come here after living surrounded by poverty, and people who live on a dollar a day.

But it is certainly a place I really enjoy going to.

Early breakfast at Fernando's

Fernando's is one of the best coffee places in Antigua. I highly recommend it. Yum. 

We had the chance to do some touring around Antigua. We visited some ruined cathedrals that had been destroyed in some earthquakes.

We also saw an old convent that was only open for a few years due to a major earthquake in the 1700s. 

Back then, the firstborn was always given away. Boys either could be sent to the army or the priesthood, and girls were sent to a convent, never to leave. 

If I had to spend my whole life locked away in one building, this one would be a pretty awesome one.

The back of an awesomely big oven.

1700s version of a spa, complete with an oven to boil the nice-smelling herbs for the bath.

Water pipes through the kitchen.

1700s version of a toilet.

The room where the new nuns would stay for a week to pray and fast.

The three alters for Holy Week.

The Crypt. Best Acoustics Ever.

Guatemala is a very large producer of Jade. We had the chance to visit the Jade museum, and learn a bit about the history of the Mayan Kings who first used jade. Apparently, they also did a game similar to a mix of soccer and basketball that you could only use your knees, chest, and upper arms to hit the ball. The winner of the game got to be sacrificed to the gods.

Yep, the winner.

Jesus won everything in my opinion. He paved the way for us in blood. He did it so we wouldn't have to. I think that's the thing that is really hard to tell people here. Here, it is about doing all the things you can to appease the gods. adding one more god is just something you do. I don't think people die for the gods here anymore, but they do mix religions quite a bit. Any church you enter here has a mix of Christianity and Mayan polytheism going on, that is supremely muddled. If you want to know more about the syncretism, please see my post in April titled "Time is Speeding Away".

Thank you Jesus for giving us Truth. My prayer this week is that the Truth would spread through Antigua, just as it has in Tactic.

Machetes With Minds Of Their Own.

The end of the week has come.

It's bittersweet, but the team from PA and I have had some good times this week.

I told you about some of our interesting cases in the previous posts, but let me tell you about a few more of them.

People use machetes for many things. It is not unusual to walk along the street and see men and women carrrying unsheathed machetes around. It's not even unusual to get on a bus and have a machete next to you. 

Machetes however, sometimes have a mind of their own. 

Last week we saw two machete wounds. Both of them were female. One of them was a little girl. 

The first one we saw was the girl. She had cut open the inside ankle, right over the bone. Around here, it is common to stuff wounds with limestone to both stop the bleeding and to prevent infection. In this case though, it probably wasn't a good idea. She needed stitches, badly. Elvin can stitch people up no problem. The problem was that with all the limestone in there, even with careful cleaning, we don't know if we got it all out. If even a little bit of a foreign object is still inside a wound, there is a much higher likelihood of infection. 

Some of the ladies of the PA team had worked really hard to re-organize our storage room. Inside we discovered one set of butterfly bandages, which we snapped up. After a thorough cleaning, and large amount of polysporin, we got her sort of closed up, with room for oozing. 

We put her on antibiotics, told her to come back at the end of the week for a recheck, and sent her home. She is in the school system, so it is fairly easy to check up on her. 

She didn't end up coming in for a check up though. Elvin went to her school to take her some extra dressing supplies, and found out that she wasn't taking her antibiotic. She also was walking a lot, which was pulling the butterfly bandages off. Poor kid, she most likely has to walk everywhere, and who knows why she wasn't taking her medication. Thankfully Elvin was able to follow up with her.

Our second machete wound was severely infected. The poor woman did not have access to clean dressings, and had let it fester for many days. Her leg was swollen, red, hot, and the wound was oozing yucky goo. 

A thorough cleaning later, some hefty antibiotics, and she was sent home too, with instructions to return every day for a check to make sure the antibiotics were working. 

She didn't come back until this week. She was almost done with all the antibiotics when I saw her for her re-check, The wound looked slightly better, but was definitely still infected. Thankfully, the NP from the team that saw her is a friend of mine, and I could Facebook message him for advice. In our newly re-organized and clean storage room I found a bunch of wound dressing equipment, and wanted to give her the best that we had. 

I was going to put up a picture of the healing wound, but it is not for the faint of heart. Sorry guys.

Anyway, we decided that for now, she just needed to finish the antibiotics, keep it covered and clean, and let her body heal. We had enough dressing supplies that I could send her with a large amount. She should be coming in on Tuesday next week for me to see it again.

Those were some of our most exciting stories from the week. I really like being here for the longer-term, because it is so fun to follow up with our patients, and make sure they are keeping up with their medication. God also does miracles. What does not seem like a medication or intervention that would work, God turns into something amazing. I am so blessed by that. 

God really used the team last week. God always works here. He always works everywhere. 

Our Big God

Today was a precious day.

We started off the day without water again, but we had power and that was a blessing.

God brought us quite a few patients, and gave us strength. A few of the team members were pretty sick today, but they relied on God for strength and help, and worked right through the pain.
"May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 15:5-6.
It could have been a bad day. We could have been at each other's throats, because of people not feeling well, and being tired. But God, our God, is a God of endurance and encouragement, and that is all I heard today. Everyone was helping each other, and praying hard. God came through.

It was a hard day in another way.

We had a little girl come in. She had been raped a few months ago. They reported the man to the police, thankfully, but she was still struggling. Two team members were able to share their testimony with her, because they understood. They understood the anger, and desire for revenge. They understood the feeling of smallness. We even had a Guatemalan woman sitting with us in the room who had experienced that also as a child, and she shared her testimony too. That is honestly unheard of for a Guatemalan to talk about trauma. I was praising the Lord in my heart, because now this girl knows she is not alone. We were able to share the dollar bill analogy with her, to remind her that no matter what, her value never changes.

You take a 100 Quetzal bill, and ask, "how much is this worth?".
"100Q" she answers.
Then you crumple the bill, and spit on it.
"How much is it worth now?"
She pauses, and looks at you hesitantly. Can she believe that it is still worth the same?
"100 Q" you tell her.
She looks up at you for a second, slowly nods her head, then looks down again.
"This bill is worth 100Q because the government says it does. You are worth far more than that bill. God says what you are worth, not man, not friends, not valuables. God. No matter what happens to you or by you, your value NEVER changes."

This little girl has a long road ahead. I was so grateful that she came to the clinic. We were able to share the love of God with her. We could encourage her to find a church that cares. We could make sure that she did not have an infection. We could also show her that she is not alone.

Join me in keeping her in prayer. What a horrible thing to go through, but what a Big God we have.

Water and Power

We have had a lot of fun this week.

This lovely lady came in for some prenatal questions. She is 7 months along, having her first baby with her husband. And, she has been having some contractions. Thankfully we concluded they were just Braxton Hicks, and not premature labor. Poor Karl was a little nervous though, because he does not usually do prenatal visits. This was also the first prenatal visit she had ever had, so there was a lot to go over. Thankfully Karl called his wife who is a labor and delivery nurse, and I gave my opinion also, and we got her all set with some prenatal vitamins and some good education on what to expect.
The beautiful woman seated on her left is her midwife, and we did some further education with her also.
It has been a joy to work with this team.

Christy and Elvin working in the pharmacy

Lisette taking a breather from translating.

                                                           

Arianna working on the blog, and Jeff finding some meds for Christy.

Kathleen enjoying some sunshine,

We had a girl come in with difficulty seeing, so we got her all set up with the eye machine, and found her a pair of glasses. Oh the smile on her face!!!

We started off with a miracle this morning. 

All week we have had NO water. At all. 

We have been using hand sanitizer, and the second day with no water they finally brought us a big tank of water so we could at least flush the toilets. 

Then today the power went out.

So we all got to the clinic, and the computers weren't working, the internet was gone, and we couldn't register any patients. 

We were prepared, and ready with some paper and pens. 

Then, after a devotional and some heart-felt prayer in which we petitioned God for light and water, while our eyes were closed...

We hear water gushing out of the faucet. 

And the lights came on.

It was all God, and it really made Him feel so close to us. He heard our prayers, even though it was for something as silly as electricity and running water. He knew our need and he met it. 

God is good.

For me personally this week has been so wonderful. Not only are my friends here, but they brought a little bit of home with them for me. My mom and Gramma sent down a care package filled with love, and my Bible Study sent a card. The card was so encouraging, and I look at it and pray for you guys, with the end of the semester and travel and jobs. 

I also got Algernon the alpaca and some very cute finger puppets.

Algie has now joined Birtha as our team mascot.

God bless you all. 

Hearts

What a difference a team makes!
This week we welcomed the medical team from Calvary Church from Lancaster PA. It is like welcoming my family. I first came to Tactic with this team two years ago, so I know a few of them really well.

We have been hard at work all week, seeing patients in the clinic. 

The first day was a little rough around the edges as the team was figuring out the computer system, and working on getting a work flow. The rest of the week has been really good, everyone works together really well.

At the end of the day everyone eats together, and we do a debrief of the day. We have had a few cases that have tugged on the heartstrings of us all.

We had a little girl come in, She is very young, and her mother told us that she has heart palpitations when she does a lot of activity. When we listened to her heart we discovered that she has a galloping murmer. One of the loudest murmers I have ever heard. With her having trouble with activity it is really important that she goes for more testing and possibly surgery. The only problem is, in Guatemala even with a referral, it could be years before she is able to make her way to see a cardiologist. The family also has to be able to afford the testing and the surgery. 

The team really struggled with this, because as rich Americans, we have money. 

However, if we just give the money, it may help this family, but later down the line, it causes dependence on the Rich American Problem Solvers. 

God calls us to give. We should give. 

However if it is not coming through the ministry, or the churches in the area, it is not the people helping each other, it is the Americans solving the problems.

Thankfully in this case, the community the little girl lives in is putting together a gift so she can get the testing she needs. 

That is what the ministry is aiming toward. Having the Guatemalan people showing God's love to each other. 

Another case that gave us some worry was a little boy with a fever. 

He came in with his family, lethargic, breathing rapidly. Fever of 102. Our Nurse Practitioner Karl couldn't find a source of infection. Then we heard that he had been in the hospital a few weeks ago with the same thing, and that he had low white blood cells. That is not a good sign. The concern with that is the possibility of Leukemia. This little boy needed testing, and probably IV antibiotics. His family was traveling to Coban that night anyway - Coban has the only hospital and it's about an hour away - so we sent him there. The next day we hear that they family could not afford to have the blood work done, so they just took him home. We all have been praying very hard for him because without that test it is very hard to figure out what to do. A few days later we heard that he was doing better with some tylenol, he was eating and playing. God is good. I am hopeful that the ministry can help that family out, or that the church can take a special offering. The church here is so good. They really come around these families, helping as much as they can. The ministry also has a fund specifically for helping with expensive medical procedures. They need more money though, and that is something we can do. 

If you would like to contribute to the clinic and would like to send some kids or adults for some major tests or surgeries, you can send a check to Impact ministries.

Impact Ministries

P.O. Box 550

Duvall, WA 98019-0550

If you put in a note that designates the money for the clinic, that will help get the money where you would like it to go. You can also go to this website which is specifically for the clinic, and use a credit card: Medical Clinic Support

Walt is making airplanes. He is very popular.

It can be really hard to come into the clinic and have half your patients in with stomach pain; Especially when their stomach pain is because they don't have any food at home. 

We had a little boy, 12 years old come in with stomach pain. "Did you eat breakfast?" Karl asked. 

"No. We don't have food." The boy said with his eyes down.

"were you able to have dinner?"

"I don't remember."

He was the first. 

He won't be the last.

Sometimes I just want to yell at God and say, "Why can't they just have food on the table?". 

Why can't life be fair?

I guess the answer to that is right in my face. There is sin in this world. However we may want to change it, God does have a plan. He does not want little children to go hungry. We must do what we can to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoners, and help the sick. We must welcome the strangers, and show God's love wherever we are. It isn't about earning heaven. It is about loving God enough to tell others about how awesome He is. Loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving your neighbor as you love yourself. 

Sleepless in Tactic

This week has been rather sleepless.

Not because of being hungry, or too hot...

Mother's Day was this week.

What does that have to do with sleeping you ask?

Well here in Guatemala, if you want to give your loved one some attention, you pay the radio station to come by the house with a megaphone.

At 4 am.

So, we had a megaphone blasted in front of the house on Tuesday which is the Guatemalan Mother's Day. The neighbor is a part of the ministry and he had paid to have the radio station celebrate his wife. "Happy Mother's Day, from Eduardo to Nadi!". Then came the fireworks.

Seriously, fireworks.

It's all really cute, I was able to roll over and put a pillow over my head and fall back asleep. 

The other nights have been filled with dog fights. They get pretty loud. 

Enough of my rambling. Let's talk clinic.

So this week I have seen some interesting kids. 

One poor little girl came in with lower right quadrant pain, with increased pain to palpation, right leg movement, and jumping. That made me wonder about how her appendix was doing. I sent her to the Health Dept, to get seen by a doc and to have some tests run. I haven't heard how she is doing, but I hope she was fine. Operations here are slightly scary. 

I had a few sore throats, a fever, and a scraped elbow. 

The one that stood out to me though, was a lady who came in with heartburn. She was wanting to get checked for the stomach pain, and mentioned that she was told she was pregnant by the health dept, but didn't really believe it. So, I did another pregnancy test with her, which was positive! 

She didn't seem very excited though, so I was wanting to dig a little deeper into if being pregnant was a good thing, (she is married), or if she was not wanting to be pregnant. Turns out they were planning on having another child, but the first time she was pregnant, she had a lot of stomach pain too, and she was not looking forward to going through that again. Christy and I gave her some natural ways to prevent heartburn during pregnancy, and suggestions of what foods to avoid. We were able to give her some tums too. We took the time to pray with her, which I think did the most good out of her visit. God's presence always makes things better. 

The rest of my week has been spent cataloging all the glasses that have been donated. We are putting them into a database so that the prescriptions are easier to find. I surpassed the 1000 mark in number of glasses cataloged today. That felt like a pretty big achievement. 

My goal is to get through all of the glasses before the next team comes next week. I don't think I'll make it, but we will have a pretty good number of them in the system. When we have a team, we use our eye measurer to check the vision of people with eye problems. It spits out a prescription, and then we just have to find one that either matches or is close. This system will make it much easier instead of rooting through bags and bags of glasses.

I also finished my Uterus this week. Christy has dubbed it our official mascot, and we have christened her Birtha. (because it births things. hahaha...)

It's been a cool week, and the time is flying by. I can't believe I've been here for a whole month already!! 

We are looking forward to the next team coming in. They are the team that I came with the first time I came to Impact Ministries, so they are my friends. I am so excited to have them come, it'll be a little taste of home. 

To end this week, here is a picture of an adorable child with a goat. 

Love you all! and another Happy Mother's Day to my mom in particular, and to all the moms out there!

In the Mist

Guatemala reminds me of a movie, "Island at the Top of the World." It was a family favorite while we were growing up. I just love to stand on the porch during dinner, with the sun setting through the mist, seeing the mountains rise up, just barely discernible, with peaks as pointy as a volcano.

Good movie, highly recommended.

There are things hidden here in the mist. Dark things.

A leader in a church recently decided to take God's job into his hands and he went to a house of a parishioner with a gun. This parishioner had taken two women for his wives, one might have just been a sex slave, we don't know. So he took his gun, and in the middle of the night he fired it into their bedroom. God was protecting them, it was hot, so they were sleeping on the floor that night. Everyone was ok, but our ministry leaders have been praying about what to do with that church. Here, many churches have a position of power. Power-hungry people want to be leaders, and become leaders. They don't know Christ. 

They find themselves in "competition" with the other churches around, because more parishioners means more money for them. The ministry has been fighting against this for a very long time. They know that Christ gave his life for everyone, and they want everyone to know. They aren't in competition. Because the ministry chooses not to treat Christ as a magic wand of power, they aren't always liked by the other churches who do. 

We must pray that their eyes would be opened. That they would see the love and grace of Christ. 

Many of the people in the ministry have come out of very broken homes and severe poverty. 

Manuel's story stuck out to me this week. 

Manuel comes from a family that had a father, mother, and two older sisters. They lived in a tiny shack, with a dirt floor.

Manuel's father decided he wanted another family, and left them when Manuel was 4. He would return to visit every week, but really was not involved in their lives. When Manuel was 6, his mother decided she didn't want anything to do with her children anymore, and she left in the middle of the night, taking all her things. 

Manuel and his two sisters were left alone in the shack. 

The only way they survived was that their father would come once a week to bring some money to live on. It was barely enough to survive. 

Manuel knew of the ministry, and he and his sisters went to Les and Rita Peter's house (the founders of the ministry), and asked if they could live with them. 

Of course they said yes. Manuel worked very hard, went to school, and studied about Jesus. His sisters eventually decided they wanted to find their mother, so they left Les's house as teenagers. Manuel always stayed. 

There was a light at the Peter's house. The light of Jesus. He wanted to learn to cook, so the Peters let him study in the big kitchen, cooking for the teams that came, and now he is one of the best chefs they have. He is only 19, (looks like he's maybe 12), has a girl he's going to marry, and is loving the Lord with all his heart. 

God gave him a new life.  

There is light in the mist. It is beautiful. 

Moms out there, thank you for representing Jesus in our lives. On this mother's day, we remember to say all the nice things we love about you. I hope that throughout this year, we remember to thank you for loving us through the dark and the light, and always being a vessel of God's love. 

Both Hands

"I can raise my arm now!" A patient exclaimed excitedly.
"Why do you need to raise both arms? You are a teacher, you only need one arm to write on the blackboard!" Dr. A jokingly said.
"Because, now I can worship God with both hands!"

Isn't that a great testimony?

Dr Alvin

This week we had Dr A here as a chiropractor. He sure knows his stuff! He is gentle, and knows just the right pressure point to release painful, cramped muscles from too much hard labor.
The people here love him. He is a jokester, but with such a serious face, sometimes it's hard to tell if he is joking or not.
This is his 8th year I believe, and he knows many of them by name and face.

Some of the women were uncomfortable around him. He has a theory, that if someone has slumped shoulders, and walks with their head down, they most likely have had some psychological trauma in their past. (I'm thankful that theory doesn't apply to me, mine are from inattention.) There is a lot of sexual abuse around here. Many of the women (and men) have experienced abuse in their childhood. Many of them are experiencing it now. That is one reason why I was in the room. They never had to change any clothes for the treatment, but even having someone else's hands on them made them nervous.

We saw many women with upper back pain from holding children, making tortillas, washing clothes on a rock, and standing most of the day. We saw some children too though.

One of the kids was this darling little girl who has CP. Dr A has been treating her since she was a baby, and since the start of treatment there has been a vast improvement in her mobility. She walks by herself now, and uses her paralyzed hand. She was full of smiles when she saw him.

We saw a man who had fallen off a thirty foot roof and had come away with just a few broken bones. He was in for a re-check from the last year, and was doing really well.

There was a man who had been hit by a car, broke and dislocated his arm, and had been in a coma for a whole day. He was still in pain after months of recovery, and Dr A said that his shoulder was really messed up. His family was really thankful that he was able to get treatment, and that he could now go back to work.

A woman came in with numbness across half her face, radiating down her arm. She had been suffering with this for about a month with no diagnosis. Dr A found that she had a pinched nerve in her neck, and he was able to completely take away her pain.

These are just some of the stories from this week. Every day has been something new. Dr A and I had a good system of him doing the hard work, and me scribing in the computer. Our system fell apart today though, because we had the Teacher Olympics today, and I had to be the medic. Yes. One more day of Olympics. It was great though. Those teachers sure can play some Futbol.

It was really cold this morning, with a chilly rain. Everyone was bundled up, and I actually had to wear a sweatshirt. Imagine that! 

Just two days ago we were sweltering.

We had to take a bus to go to the soccer field today. Imagine this. 28 passenger bus. 53 people. 

Yep. 53. 

We squished onto that bus! I was slightly terrified that we would crash and all die. 

Best part of the bus ride: Looking at the front of the bus and seeing "No standees permitted". 

I didn't have any major injuries today. Some cramped legs, a cut, some bumped noses, and an infection that had been going on for a day or so that I sent to the clinic. All in all a good Olympic run. I am slowly getting to know people's names and faces, and it is really cool to be able to greet people with their name. Yay!

We ended the day with a lovely dinner to thank Elaine and Dr A for their hard work this week. We have one more day in the clinic, and then a rest for the weekend. Elaine was here taking photos of the kids brushing their teeth, and was helping us make some health conscious posters for the schools. Yay Health Education!

During the dinner I was able to sit and talk with Rita. Rita and her husband Les are the founders of this ministry. They have been through so much as missionaries here. They have been kidnapped, stolen from, threatened, plagued with illness, had a baby dropped at their doorstep, and so many other things. I got to hear only a bit of the surface of their story tonight. When I asked, Rita said that she wrote a book about their lives here. It is currently being published, and I am anxiously awaiting a copy to be delivered here. When I get it, I will let you all know the title and how to go about getting one. It is definitely going to be worth your time!

I hope to be able to add some more stories tomorrow. God bless you all, and join me in being thankful that we have hands to praise the Lord with, and the mobility to raise them high. 

Never a dull moment

The past week has been quite fun.

The Olympics were great, the kids gave it their all. We had one girl pass out though.

The poor girl won the long distance race, and was so out of breath - as well as being over heated, that she passed out. Thankfully, Elvin was there with me so we could get her to a shady place, take her shoes and socks off and cool her off with some ice. She came around slowly and was taken home.

The rest of the week was pretty tame, I saw a few patients in the clinic with headaches and ear aches, which were probably infected. 

I tried a new fruit this week! I have no idea what it's called, and I have to say I was a little scared to eat fruit here from the market, because you never know where it came from. This fruit was really good though!

It's as small as a cherry, and tastes like a combination of mango, and kumquat. There's a nice big seed in the middle though, so there isn't much fruit there. It's about 1Q to buy a bag, which is about 13 cents US. Not bad for some yummy fruit!

We had a bunch of bananas that were getting nice and ripe, so I had my first attempt at baking yesterday. I made some banana bread that turned out pretty good. Not the best banana bread I've ever eaten; my mom and my housemates at home can make way better bread, but this was tasty. 

This picture doesn't do it justice.

I also spent yesterday doing some nice housework, as well as finding the stuff to make a cute uterus (see previous post). 

That project will be fun. Hopefully I'll get it finished before next Saturday, since I have to teach then. 

I met 3 Guatemalans this weekend who speak English. They all seemed very nice, even though they were older men who seemed very interested in conversation. 

Never a dull moment...

So this week we have a chiropractor coming (YAY!!!) I am hoping there'll be time for me to get my neck fixed. It'll be busy at the clinic, and hopefully I'll have some interesting stories. 

Tomorrow is a National Holiday (not totally sure which one...) so the clinic is closed, and I'll be working at home. I've got poster supplies and a cute Uterus to work on, so I won't be bored.

Have a great week friends, and send me some juicy emails!

Juicy... That is such a weird word. 

Makes me think of someone chewing with their mouth open.