10...9....8...7...

Well, won't be long! We have been spending the last few days with our students orienting them to life in general here in Guatemala and life as a missionary in particular. It has been so much fun being with them all and with Roger and MaryBeth McCown, former missionaries here in Guatemala. It nice to realize how much we have learned these two years and have to share with our brothers and sisters who are just starting out. This is a group that has already spent a week in language school together and has become quite close. It will be a little sad tomorrow as we separate them into two groups to begin their work. But, it will also be exciting to be able to show them the nitty gritty of what we do each day.

Tomorrow we take 6 students with us to Chichicastenango and introduce them to their host families. We (Kemmel and Lisa) also will be staying with our friends in the small town of Paxot II this month to try to intensify our language learning efforts. Please pray for this to be a productive month for us as we really would like to improve our ability to communicate in K'iche. We have our notebooks ready and bags packed. We will post some news and pics Saturday or Sunday, because we won't have internet out there! Have a great week and thanks for tuning in.

Off to Montellano and then to Paxot II

We have 2 posts that posted this morning so please be sure to check out "The Bell Tolls" as well!
We head to Montellano, site of Clinic Ezell, today to start orientation with the MET students (want to know more about MET, see previous post). They have finished their week of language school, including having the chance to go see a professional soccer game between Quetzaltenango and San Marcos, just Quetzaltenango lost. The school is in Quetzaltenango so it was a huge event as it was one of the final games for the championship as well.

We return Tuesday with the students so that they can begin to work with us and stay with the local families. We will also be staying with a family in Paxot II for the month so we can try to learn some more Kiche. This means we will have limited access to internet, but we do plan on coming home Sat and Sun nights to have internet access, wash cloths, rest, etc...

Please pray for safe travels for everyone and that God will bless the students with good health and great experiences while they work with us in Guatemala!

The Bell Tolls

...so that there should be equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. -- I Corinthians 12:25-26

...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. --John Donne

You cannot see them very well but there are 2 men in the towers ringing the bells.

Clinic today in Tzanixnam was interesting. Practically the whole town and several visitors from other towns were present, not for clinic, but for a funeral for a young man who fell ill and died on his way to the United States to work. His body made it back yesterday and today they had the service and burial. There were hundreds of people milling around, visiting the family, and at about 2:00 everyone headed to the cemetery. The bells on the church in town were tolling as the very long procession of people carried the casket and accompanied the family. It was impressive to see how the entire town paid respects to this family and shared in their grief. Needless to say, we saw only a few patients, but it good to see such a display of unity in a town.

Meanwhile, our health promoter Tomas spent time talking to the mayor and another city councilman, sharing with them the good news of the gospel. The mayor was especially interested and coming from a traditional Mayan religion background, had many questions. It was a good day in that some contacts were made and seeds planted so that the kingdom of God grows in that area. Be praying.

Tomas with the mayor of the town.

Yesterday, we also saw a woman for followup of an abdominal mass that we had seen in the Xesic clincic. She brought her ultrasound, which showed a probable gastric or possibly pancreatic cancer with metastases to the liver. I spoke with the lady and her daughters and told them that she only has a few months to live. They were sad, but mostly wanted to make sure we could help with pain control and we assured them we could. This gave us a great opportunity to talk to her about her spiritual life. We talked to them about the reality of eternal life and the need to make a decision during one's physical life to follow Christ. That God sometimes blesses us with the knowledge of when we will die, so we can be sure to make ourselves ready for that day. All three women were very interested in knowing more and we made a call to the brothers in Xesic where they live, to go study more with them that evening. We got a call last night from another friend who said the ladies asked to be baptized into Christ today! While we mourn with them that they will not be together much longer in this life, we rejoice with them and the angels that we will all be together with Christ one day.

Gaspar speaking with the ladies from Pacaja Xesic.

On Thursday, we also got to see Tomasa again. She continues to have a great attitude and seems to always be happy. She has finished her chemotherapy treatment and is waiting on the results of a CT scan. They return this Monday to the city for the results and some continued radiation treatment. We continue to praise God for the healing he has provided to her and her family so far. Let's continue to pray that she is completely healed!

Las Trampas and Appendicitis

Today we headed to clinic in Las Trampas which is located on the highway to Guatemala City. For those who have been reviewing the blogs, this is the clinic that we were not able to make it to 1 month ago because of a teacher strike that closed the road.

The church in Las Trampas has a great story, starting with a man, Diego, who was an alcoholic (in his terms a strong alcoholic) who had hit a point in his life where he began to search for something different. Thank God he started to look at churches, catholic, protestant, etc. for answers. He ran across a small Church of Christ about 45 minute walk from his home and began to attend the church. After some time of continuing to struggle in his search, he became a christian. Then he followed God's instruction - he went to his family and told the about Jesus and soon the became christians. They erected a small adobe church and after time, they out grew the church and with the help of other local congregations they built a bigger church which now has over 100 people attending each Sunday in Las Trampas.

This is Diego with his sly looking smile.

They are now in the process of saving money to build an annex to serve as a kicthen to be able to have other activities at the church.

In clinic today we saw about 15 patients, most with the standard aches and pains, gastritis and diarrea, which brings up another topic - see below on names of diarrhea in Guatemala! Very interesting! We actually saw a patient with hypertension, this is normally pretty rare in these parts since everyone walks up and down hills, even just to go to the latrine. :)

This is another volunteer at the church, Miguel and his family.


We got to experience the hills today as a man came to clinic asking if we could go see his son who was having right sided abdominal pain. So we asked where the house was and he said "aw, just a little bit down the hill". It was down and down and down the hill, after about 15 minutes going down the hill we realized, yeah we still have to go back up. Lisa made the comment that the patient had better be really sick this time. We get many "oh he is bad sick" requests for home visits, and then we get to the house they are up and roaming around and could have probably made it to clinic.
Not this time, he was pretty bad off with what looked like an abscessed appendix. So, bad news for him was he had to walk up the same hill we did or at least half way so we could drive down part way and pick him up. The good news is we had a surgeon standing by for him. The climb up was a little rough but we made it - Gracias a Dios. The sad part for us was we were breathing pretty hard with some tight lungs while at least one Guatemalan was still breathing out his nose with his mouth closed - pretty impressive! This was after a 30 minute climb up "puro escalera" - pure stairs, just no stairs. So to end this story, we got the patient to the hospital without incident - Gracias a Dios.

Ok, so you have heard how they say the importance of something in a culture is defined by how many words they have to describe that one particular thing. Well, let us tell you, diarrea has been around a long time here and has many names. Here are some of our favorites:

--Mal de Mayo - bad of may - the month of may is when the rain starts and washes all the goodies into the water supplies.
--Asientos - the sits, meaning sitting alot.
--Ja chapam - this is kiche for water is coming out
--Chorillo - faucet
--Diarrea
--Disenteria -diarrea with blood or mucus

Cookin' With Gas

Gracias a Dios (Thank God) we have a gas stove! The people here will cook for 2000 people on open fires such as these - it is incredible. This is Manuel stirring spagetti for dinner - Kemmel has also had it with scrambled eggs for breakfast. Kind of wierd but do-able.

I am always trying to figure out recipes for different foods we eat here. For the most part, food appears to be pretty uncomplicated here, as most people just cook stove-top (or fire-top). It is interesting to me how good cooks in all cultures make their cooking look easy. But, as we are almost daily blessed , with home-cooked lunches, we get lots of opportunities to taste test. Let it suffice to say that not all chicken soup is created equal. The ladies in Paxot II make very good beef and chicken soup. The Mactzul V sisters are specialists in salsa made of chile coban and a salad made of cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and lime. hmmm, rico! Gaspar's wife, Juana makes a mean stewed chicken, and the family of women in Choacaman are especially talented in stewed pork in a sauce called "ricado".

Yes. that is a green plastic bag in their pot. This is used to seal in the steam for tamalitos - steamed corn stuff. That day they were only cooking for around 100 people. Slow day.

Ricado is basically a thick sauce (like for enchiladas) made of many different ingredients that vary from region to region. The uses are endless: stewed meats, tamales, chuchitos, bean stews, etcl. The base (for red sause) always seems to include toasted pepitoria (pumpkin seeds, basically), sesame seeds, and chiles (mild or hot). Then comes stewed tomatoes, bell peppers, onion and garlic. Some even add cinnamon and other spices like thyme or bay leaf. Most women agree that the best flavor comes from grinding all ingredients on a stone. I did get a chance to practice this--it is a labor of love! So, the second best is throwing it all into a blender.

The stone grinder - Gracias a Dios we have a blender! This is Maria and she is the Choacaman cook / ricado queen! She had hand surgery last time we were there so we just had rice and beans, no ricado - pretty sad day.

Today I tested out my own version of ricado--spicy of course, and with beef and vegetables. It was actually quite good and now I just need to write down the recipe so I can tweak it. It was exciting to actually reproduce something that at least approximates the dishes here. Someday, I will get brave and serve it to someone besides Kemmel and myself!

Here is my recipe if you want to try it:

2 fists full of pumpkin seeds toasted on the stove

1 fist full of sesame seeds lightly toasted

6-7 chile coban toasted (3-4 large dried New Mexico chiles, toasted would be a good substitute)

(or 2 red bell peppers cooked )

1onion cooked

5 roma tomatoes cooked with skins

1 4oz can of tomato paste

5 cloves of garlic cooked

3 cups of broth

(All of the cooked veggies I just had in the crock pot with my meat several hours before. You can also just simmer in a pot for an hour or so ).

Salt to taste

Throw all in blender until smooth. Add to roasting meat/chicken, potatoes, carrots. Cook 30-60 minutes together, adding water as needed. Serve over rice.

Hasta pronto y buen provecho!

Memory Lane

This is a picture of central park and the old catholic church built in the 1500's in Quetzaltenango (Xela).

We just got back from Xela today from our visit with the MET team this weekend. They are settled in with their host families and started Spanish class today and will finish on Friday. Just a brief intro or brush up for some, so the month won't be so stressful. It was good to see our friends from church and the CBA language school (www.languageschool.com.gt). It brought back good memories of when first started. We also visited with our host mother Elubia--she seemed excited to see us as well. She is hosting Sarah, one of the MET students.

This is Elubia, our host mom.

On Sunday we worshiped with the church of Christ from Zone 3 (well, used to be Zone 3, until they moved out of their building. Rent is very high in this city and finding a central and affordable site is difficult). So we met in a convention hall in one of the hotels--very roomy and a great location. The brothers and sisters there seem to be thriving and busy, but sure miss Gene and Janice Luna who were missionaries there for many years, but just moved back to the States.

After church we took our "kids" out to lunch to a typical restaurant complete with live marimba! Everyone got a taste of the local fare and had to order in Spanish. Next, we walked back to the park together, gave a few tips and turned them loose. We in turn headed out to see a movie (Panic in the High Sea--or something like that). Very marginal movie but in English which is always a plus, and true to Guatemalan style, they cut off the movie half way for an intermission--it was not even two hours long! Gotta sell all of that popcorn.

This is the Guatemala marimba. No sheet music, all by memory - and actually no sheet music exists anywhere for the marimba - or so we are told.

Anyway, we don't have any current pictures--forgot the camara, so these are all older pictures that we had on file. We will keep you posted as we get closer to having our students working here in Chichi.

Medical Evangelism Training Program

Today 12 students arrived from various places in the US to participate in Health Talents International Medical Evangelism Training (MET) program. This program is very dear to us for many reasons, the primary of which it is where we met 17 years ago. Of course, it also inspired us to always be interested in missions.

So anyway, the MET program is a 6 week program in which university students in their last 2 years or medical/dental students who are interested in missions come and work in a medical evangelism environment (with real-life missionaries - US or national missionaries). During this time they live with Guatemalan families in their homes to experience their lifestyle and their culture. This also serves as a total immersion language training program as many times the student speaks no spanish and the families speak no english. For those that work with us in the Chichi area, there are some family members who only speak Kiche.

Each day they go out with a physician and their team to work in clinic ministries in local churches in both the Department of Quiche (Chichicastenago area) and the Department of Suchitepequez (Montellano area) where the Clinica Ezell is located. The students participate in performing vital signs, patient interview, prayer and distribution of medicines. They also have the opportunities to evangelize, teach, learn, etc., etc.

One of the goals of the program is to help the students indentify their level of interest in missions with the hope that they will continue in missions after they have finished their schooling.

Right now the 12 students have traveled from Guatemala City to Quetzaltenango for a 1 week period of language school. So each is with their host family preparing for a great month. We will hook up with them tomorrow morning and hopefully post a picture Monday. Please pray for each of these students, as God works in their lives.

Class Time and Cow Lungs

We have been trying to post this blog since yesterday and were finally able to get it posted - local internet issues...


Well, we had our second health promoter education class today. There were 23 volunteer promoters representing churches from as far away as 3 hours. All of these brothers and sisters were so eager to learn and asked lots of questions during the class. Our topic was on pneumonia, which is the number one cause of death in this department if not the country. We looked at anatomy drawings, talked about how a lung functions and finally looked at a cow lung. Everyone donned a glove and got up close to check out the lung. We finished up with more Q&A and then enjoyed some refreshments. It was really surprising to see so many interested in studying, and we pray that God will bless them and their communities for their dedication.

Some of the men come from very remote areas that we can't reach with our clinics yet, which gives us some good info for future expansion with new medical teams. Be praying that we can help them for now through these classes, but also that God will prepare new areas for us to serve in the future.

God bless!

Office day - See one, do one, teach one

Today, Wednesday, was spent in the office doing administrative things--checking boxes, doing reports, packaging pills, general housekeeping stuff. Kemmel also spent a good part of the day setting up a newly donated computer and monitor in the office and showing our staff how to print medication labels--very liberating! After a morning of running around we stopped for lunch at the neighbors' house where she charges $2 for homemade lunch and soft drink! We sat around and talked politics and ate fried chicken.

No this is not a staged picture! Looks like it but they were all pretty much enthralled with it all. Juan is the one sitting and he is teaching the others. He and Gaspar went to some computer classes earlier in the year so now they get to start using the newly found skill. Each person took their turn in turning on, printing and turning off. So far so good. All of these guys only have a 6th grade education (minus Dr. Josefina) but do not let that fool you - they are very sharp people and learn fast.

We also learned that our neighbor Manuel had been operated on for gallstones on Monday, the same day another of our patients had a ganglion cyst removed from her wrist. Meanwhile one of the kids in Paxot II was rushed to the ER with appedicitis. We are grateful for the good work Dr. Tom Hoak and his wife/surgical assistant Janie do at the hospital here in town. So we took the opportunity to go visit and everyone was doing well. Gracias a Dios!

A cultural thing here is if you are very sick you wear a do-rag on your head. This could be a large hankerchief, a towel, etc. We have not figured out the rational yet, but it makes them feel better.

Thursday we have health promoter education day--we are going to talk about pneumonia. Lisa bought a cow lung yesterday for a demonstration.

Pacaja Xesic I

Well, we were back on the road again, today to Pacaja Xesic I. This is a great town with very friendly people (okay, all the towns are!). It started out slow, which worried the brothers a little, but we filled up and saw 26. Several new folks as well.

Pacaja Xesic is where the little girl with lukemia lives - her name is Julisa. Kemmel arrived later at clinic after a meeting in Lemoa and stopped at a store to buy some water and it turned out to be the home of Julisa. Kemmel was able to visit with the family some and learned that she and her dad went to the capital yesterday and are expected to stay about 1 month. Later the family came by the clinic, and as you can imagine, her mom is very sad and worried and we gave her some meds to help her sleep. But mostly we prayed with them and sat and talked with them. Please pray for her and especially her family as they are very close-knit and all very distraught right now.

The curley hair girl in the above picture is Julisa. When we saw her in clinic last week she was as pale as her shirt. The other girl in the picture is her big sister, Miriam. To put family life here in perspective, they both have an older sister who is about 24 years old and has a little girl about the same age as Julisa.

We also saw a new sister in Christ named Francisca. She is a lady we first saw last year with what looked like post-traumatic stress disorder after witnessing the murder of her own father in their home more than 20 years ago. Gracias a Dios she became a Christian about 5-6 months ago and has had a noticeable change that we can see. Her affect has lifted and she smiles more, and even jokes a little. In the past, she couldn't bear being in her own house because of the memories. Now she lives with some cousins and has been studying the Bible more and looks to be improving and growing spiritually. It is nice to see the changes that God makes in a person as he transforms them into who He wants them to be. Pray that God will use her healing to bring others to him.

Mactzul V

Yesterday was clinic in Mactzul V. There are 7 Mactzul communities and we hold clinic in 2 of them. It was a good day with about 23 patients, including 6 new patients. At this clinic we draw from about 6 communities.


This the church in Mactzul V with the make do tienda on the side...

Patients waiting at Mactzul V. Marcos is the boy in the hat at the end of the bench.

Marcos
One family was brought by one of our health promoters, Felipe Chivalan. He has been studying with them and has been concerned about the 17 year old son, Marcos. He has been having nose bleeds for six months and says his nose is swollen. When I saw him, he was pale and thin and talked funny. On exam an obvious tumor was visible in the right nostril and extending into the back of the throat. This is a strange tumor for an adolescent to have and my suspicion is lymphoma. I recommended that they go to the ER at the local national hospital, but his mom said they had been there a week ago and the xray was negative and he was given a Rx for expensive meds and sent home. I was a little discouraged, but encouraged them to go back and wrote them a referral note. We also prayed with them asking God to go with them and to guide the physicians that would attend him. We told them to call us if they weren't attended to, and we would see what else we could do. So far no news, so we are hoping that is good news. Pray for him and his family as they go through this trial. Also that their hearts would be open to the gospel.

Juana
Juana is a 76 year old recent widow. We call her the queen mother because her family is always very concerned for her and bring her to clinic a lot (we suspect for social reasons!). She always brings us some kind of produce--avocados today! Anyway, we chatted with her yesterday about how she and her husband had been married for almost 60 years. Her father gave her to him for a liter of hard liquor, she reported while laughing. I asked her how they met, (at the bridge or the corn mill???) and she informed me that back then you just married whoever your family agreed to give you to. But, gracias a Dios, this couple had a long fruitful marriage and became Christians many years ago. She talks about him very respectfully and was excited to hear that we had a great picture of him to give her.

The man with the hat is Juana's husband who passed away in April. The lady sitting is one her daughters, Manuela.

Tomas
Tomas Tecum Mejia is one of the volunteer health promoters from Mactzul V, but was recently hired full time to work with Dr. Josefina and Sheri's team. He is a mature, faithful Christian and will be a great addition to the team. He and his wife Juana have a family of 6 boys and 1 girl--she is pretty special as you can imagine. He has been working with us this week in training to learn the pharmacy and business side of things.

This is Tomas attending a patient in pharmacy.

Guatemala Licensure - Part 2

!!!!!We actually were able to finish the application process these last 2 days!!!!

This is very exciting as we were not sure we were going to be able to. We left for the city Thursday morning with Sheri as she is flying back home for a week and we also had some other errands, one of which was to pick up the paperwork we left at a government office to be authenticated. This turned out to be easy and Lisa was in and out in 15 minutes.

The next task was to get the document translated, so off we went on foot to some offices around the area we were in. We went to 3 offices and all were closed. Unfortunate for us we decided to do this on Mothers Day in Guatemala, so many people were taking long lunches, etc. Also many of the certified translators are women so maybe they were enjoying the afternoon with their kids - or at least we hope they were. Anyway, we found a translator over the phone late in the afternoon and she was great. We delivered her the documents and she had them ready for us early Friday morning.

Next we went to the University of San Carlos (USC) to see what we needed to do next. We were hoping we were done; however, we did need to copy Lisa's diploma and all of the authentication documents. So off we go looking for a copy store that is able to reduce a large diploma to a regular size page. No such luck around USC, so we went to the trusted Office Depot and we were able to get it done there. By this time it was noon and we knew the office would close for a hour or 2.

We went back later, had all of the paperwork in order, paid our hefty fee and our application is now submitted. Praise God! So now we wait for USC to do some research verifying Texas Tech is a university and verifiy the paperwork and hopefully in 2 weeks we have some more info. The latest news is once the school and info are verified, Lisa's paperwork goes before a board for them to decide if she can take the test. Please pray that she is able to just take the test and does not have to do government service as that would negatively affect the ministries that we have already started. We selected the option to take the test; however, we do not know if the board has the final say.

Tomorrow off to clinic in Mactzul V and we will start back up introducing you all to the communities we work in.

Guatemala Licensure

At the end of last year we found out Lisa could not renew her temporary license in Guatemala and had to look a getting a permanent license. This involves getting her diploma authenticated by various governement agencies, paying a fee and then the hard part, taking a test which is supposed to be extremely hard, or serving in a Guatemala hospital for a year.

So the story started in November of last year when we received the news, then in January we traveled all over Texas to get Lisa's diploma in Lubbock, have it notarized, then go to Austin to have the notary authenticated and then to Houston to have the notary of notaries authenticated by the Guatemalan Consulate. We think this must be part of the test to make sure you think it is worth the trouble!

Now we are in the phase to have the documents we had authenticated in the states, re-authenticated and translated in Guatemala. Quite an interesting process and very frustrating. Anyway, we went to the city on Sunday so we could start some things early on M0nday. Of course, being optimists, wew were expecting way to much. We found the office we needed to have our documents authenticated in - Ministry of Exterior Relations - and were hoping it would be a day thing. Much to our dismay, not so. Takes 3 days.

Thus, we are going back tomorrow to hopefully get the paperwork, have it translated (hopefully by Friday) and then we can submit Lisa's application for the permanent licensure and find out her options to take the test. When we asked the dates back in November we were told that they could not release that information until all of the paperwork was authenticated and the application completed. Highly secret information!

Lisa has to take her board certification relicensure in July and we think the Guatemala test is in August. This allows her to study once for 2 tests. The only kicker is the Guatemala test has basic science on it as well. We will see how it goes. If she passes the test (60%) then she gets her license, if not, she has to work for the government for a year. D = MD!

Please continue to pray for this process. We have had this request before and then we put it on hold for awhile as we needed to wait until now to make sure she was not scheduled before July to take the test in Guatemala.

Everyday is a new lesson in patience and humility. The guatemalans have us beat on these 2 character traits - except when they are driving a car.....

TGIS

Our work week is Tuesday-Saturday, so our weekend is just beginning--YEA! Today was a good day at Chuchipaca II. As always we have a good mix there of new patients and old, church members and neighbors. Our volunteer Juan Quino Mejia is always good to counsel patients, encouaging them to trust in God and seek his will. We talked to one woman in particular who is a young widow, to invite her to worship this Sunday. Lisa with volunteer health promoters Elvin (sitting), Juan Quino (standing with srcub top) and Gaspar, our FT health promoter.

Kemmel and Tomas Tecum (new health promoter who will be working with Dra. Josefina and Sheri K) packing it up for the day.

We were also joined by some friends of ours working in Quetzaltenango(Xela) --a young married couple Nathan and Connie Gundecker. We really appreciated their company and their prayers for the patients. Currently they are teachers at a school in Xela and are waiting to start medical school in the fall back in the States. Maybe they can visit again in the future and see some patients of their own!

Hot day in Choacaman IV

The parade!

It is really hot today (85 F), well, hot for here! We had a good rain last night which should mean the rainy season will be starting soon. Our day was pretty easy today in Choacaman. Not too many patients, and we hung around to have lunch with our brothers there and headed out about 2:00. This gave us time to stop and check on some signs we needed and drop by the market for some veggies. But also time to stop for an ice cream-- nothing better than dulce de leche (caramel)for Kemmel and mango sherbet for Lisa! This is a picture of some of our host volunteers in Choacaman. Right to Left: Enrique, sr.,
Jesus, sr., Jesus, Maria, and Chepe.

This is Chepe in the scale! Had some fun today!

We had a good day at our central clinic in Lemoa yesterday. Several new patients from the local ares and some followup care as well. We also saw a 4 year old girl with severe, recent onset anemia. She was white as a sheet and so quiet. Her family told us that a month ago she quit eating normally and became more and more lethargic and pale. We sent her for urgent labs and got a call from the lab that things are pretty serious. We are suspecting leukemia and the family took her immediately to the ER. She is supposed to get a transfusion and they are running more labs to determine the diagnosis. Please pray for her and her family. Her older, married sister told me that she is the baby and favorite of the family.

This is a picture of a young lady who comes each time we have clinic on Thursdays to volunteer her time. Her name is Claudia Marisol and she is from Chuguexa. The elder lady is Manuela, and she is the lady that we purchased the land from and now feeds us each time we have clinic in Lemoa.

Mactzul VI

Today we had clinic in Mactzul VI, where we have clinic the first Wednesday of every month. For those who have been on mobile clinics with Health Talents, we have visited this village 2 or 3 times. It has a very large auditorium and is home to one of the largest Church of Christ conferences in Guatemala. Once a year they have a conference where approximately 2000-3000 christians come and worship God each day for 3 days! The visitors are also fed 3 meals a day, cooked on fires. It is impressive to experience. This is a picture of the church during a conference. Most people are inside.

This was one of the first churches of Christ in the area and they claim to actually be the first but we have heard that from a couple of churches. Nonetheless, this is a very mature church with over 1o0 members, plus kids. The elders of this church are some of the most humble, strong christians we have ever met. One such person is Pedro Calel and I do not think it is possible to ruffle his feathers - he is solid and amicable as they come. He is the local facilitator for church issues.
This is Tomas Salvador, one of the elders from Mactzul VI who has been with us at each clinic and helps us pray with each patient.

Today we had about 17 patients, one a little blind lady about 80 years old - her single son takes care of her. She has a large goiter (swollen thyroid) and hypothyroidism which probably explains why she fell asleep during the consult. She has a hernia and we are hoping the local US surgeon in Chichi can help her out. She has little to no resources. Sorry but we did not get a picture.

Below is Emilio, he was one of our volunteers today and has much interest in volunteering each time we come to the community. As you can see he has a good sense of humor - these are the ears of the bull they slaughtered for the conference.

Two Very Different Worlds

Today we had 2 posts so be sure to check out the post on the Tzanixnam clinic as well!

After experiencing rural Chichicastenago we normally get the urge to unwind in Guatemala City which believe it or not is very modern - in certain areas. Since we had to renew our visas we also took the oppurtunity to get away. Many of you have come to Guatemala only get to see the rural areas such as Chichi or the area around Clinica Ezell, so let us introduce you to the other side - modern Guatemala City. Here is a picture of a mall located in the affluent area of town where you find many of the luxuries that we enjoy in the US such as chain restaurants, movie theaters, IMAX, etc. So this last weekend we decided to get away and we enjoyed some time strolling around the mall, seeing a movie and eating some good food. The only difference is there are never any good sales at places like this! That is a bummer! So it is pretty much just look and convince yourself it is not worth it.

Tzanixnam Clinic

Last friday we had our once a month clinic in Tzanixnam, with the volunteers from the church in Paxot II. Tzanixnam is a clinic where we have volunteers help us from a neighboring town in order to minister to people outside of their community. Our first clinics to Tzanixnam were in November and December of 2006 and we had over 100 patients each clinic. Then in January, the government of the town changed and our first 3 clinics in 2007 were very small as the leaders were not annoucing the clinic. Thus, this time we had the volunteers from Paxot II take care of annoucing in the village with loudspeakers. The results were great and we had around 50 patients this last Friday. We have heard from many that there is a need in the area just that they were not hearing about the clinic. Tzanixnam is probably the highest community that we work in, probably at about 7500 feet with gorgeous views of the countryside. This last Friday some people expressed an interest in Bible study so please keep them in your prayers and also that we can be God's instrument to bring people to a closer relationship to Him through this ministry. For those who were with us in the November clinic this is the village with the memorable latrine. :)

Towards the end of the clinic a couple men from the community leadership came by and we were able to speak with them some more regarding the clinic and since they saw a good outcome we hope that they will continue to support the clinic by annoucing in future community meetings.

Here is a view from the clinic site.

Inside the community center where we have the clinic. The men in the hats are some of the community leaders that came and watched the clinic in December 2006.



This is one of our volunteers, Tomas Sut Gonzales, praying with a patient.