Happiness is Chichicastenango Growing Nearer and Nearer

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21

Well, you guessed it... I got assigned to work in Chichicastenango! Actually, I will be in a small town (Chuabaj) about 20 minutes away (no off-roading required) seeing patients and getting involved in health education at the school and working with the local officials on addressing public health concerns in their town.

I was able to talk to the director of the health department here in Chichi today, and he was suprised by my visit (not expecting to receive an intern), but said that they had lost the nurse in charge of one of their biggest clinics so was happy to place me there. He even asked if I would stay longer! While Nebaj wasn't a bad place and we were excited to get to see some new territory, we sure were relieved to find out we would be back here in Chichi. I guess this place is growing on us.

God has been more than generous and we are so grateful to him not only for this opportunity, but also giving me the assurance and peace we've prayed for during this transition. Thanks to everyone who has prayed and written and called. We will keep you up to date on the various happennings.

On the Health Talents front, Kemmel is at a small hotel on Lake Atitlan with the rest of the team for an administrative retreat with our stateside director, Rick Harper. They have been tackling issues and planning for the coming year, in addition to enjoying some recreation time. Kemmel just called and said there had been a mixup and the cook didn't make it for dinner, so they ordered pizzas from a place in Panajachel--they were delivering them by 30-minute taxiboat ride out to the cabins! (It pays to be in a tourist area.) But, true to Guatemala style, the delivery boy got off the boat , and then he realized that that was the last boat for the night and wasn't scheduled to return to Panajachel! The team had to hire a private boat to get him back to town. Life in the fast lane........

Well, so long for now.

Change of Plan for Licensure!

We have run into a slight change of plans, which, Primero Dios, will be a good change of plans. On Tuesday while in Nebaj, Lisa was notified that she needed to be in Guatemala City on Thursday morning for a meeting with the Director of the licesure program at University of San Carlos. The reason for the meeting as presented was to discuss the study that would be performed by the students in the Nebaj area.

We left for Chichi Wednesday afternoon to get halfway to the city and then on Thursday left early to go to Guatemala City for a 11am meeting. Once there we found out the meeting was not until 2pm, so we got to have lunch at Chili's. The burger was great but the blue cheese dressing must have been bad as Kemmel suffered the rest of the day and night and part of Friday. The cost you pay for a good burger!

Anyway, back on point. During the meeting at 2pm, Lisa and the other students serving their year of service were informed that they were being pulled out of the Nebaj area. Apparenty, some kind of disagreement ocurred between the University of San Carlos and the Director of the Health Department in Nebaj which due to the circumstances caused the University to pull all of the students out of Nebaj. This is kind of sad for the area as this pulls out all of the physicians minus the 10 Cuban physicians who run the hospital. Hard to understand the hows and whys...

Most of the students will be sent to other areas such as Chimaltenango (1 hour from Guatemala City), El Progresso (2.5 hours from GC), Solola (Lake Atitlan and area), and Izabal (4 hours from GC). For some reason, the director is treating Lisa extremely well and is allowing her to stay in the Chichicastenango area. So, once again God is Good! Lisa is to present to the Director of the Santa Cruz Area on Monday to see about her assignment. It may be in the Centro de Salud
(Health Clinic) in Chichi or in one of the Puesto de Saluds (Rural Health Clinic) in the municipality of Chichi. We will not have a solid answer until at least Monday.

The only complication so far is there are no other students in this area; thus, Lisa will report to the physician over the area of Solola. Solola is about 1.5 hours away, so Lisa may have to attend meetings with the physician there and also be a part of the combined study they do with all of the students in that area.

So, our plans are up in the air again, but we know that she will be closer to Chichi which is positive for us in many ways, so there is no room to complain. We just thank God for the way he is taking care of us and continue to pray that we will have the faith to trust in him. Our church, Eastside Church of Christ, is using the scripture of Psalm 27:13-14

13 I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD
In the land of the living.
14 Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the LORD.

as there focus for mission Sunday. In our current situation, it is also a great encouragement to us.

Bean Counter

Things are going well in Nebaj. We are so thankful to God and to all of you who are praying for us. I (Lisa) finally got some concrete goals to accomplish during my time in the health department. My supervisor came up to visit on all of us interns/students and told me that the director of the area wanted to take advantage of my "skills and experience" and have me evaluate the epidemiological statistics for the district, designing a more reader-friendly version of presenting the info . I guess journal reading really does pay off........ Also I will be designing a training/education course on maintenance of vaccines in cold storage (not an easy task in areas where they use solar electricity and propane refrigerators and have to buy the propane 3 hours away!).
Anyway, God has put us here for some reason, and he will guide me as I tackle these tasks. Pray for my communication skills. I feel like that is my real weak point. I can get my thoughts across, but I don't sound particularly scholarly! But as the apostle Paul said,

"But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. " II Corinthians 12:9

We have found a room to rent as well, that is big enough for a bed, shelves and kitchen area. It will serve our needs perfectly and will save us some money and time, by not having to check in to a hostel every week.

Today, we are in the capital for a meeting at the university. I was told at 11:00 am, but got there and got the "Look, miss, it's like this......." response so common here. The meeting isn't until 2:00 pm. Oh, well. We can go eat lunch at Chili's!!

God bless, and have a good day.

Chickens, Chickens, Chickens

This week we have been joined by a small group of students from the University of Tennessee Knoxville - Kelly (professor), AJ, Leslie and Elena. We started speaking with a core group from UT over a year and half ago for the purpose of targeting specific agricultural needs in the communities we work with. We have discussed everything from soil, to corn, to worms, to water harvesting, to animals and in this case specifically chickens.

For those who know the story, this does not include chasing down wild chickens! In most of the areas we work, chicken serves as the primary meat eaten by the families and thus, they are very important to their quality of life as they provide food and when raising chickens to sell, also provide an important source of income for families. In discussions with various communities we have seen much interest, primarily from women, in the care and raising healthy chickens. Thus, we locked into this idea with UT Knoxville and specifically with Kelly whose specialty is animal science.

This group developed a program to help educate interested people in the proper care and methods of raising chickens in a healthy environment, allowing them to have the full benefit of healthy chickens. They came this week to teach a seminar to the women of Xepocol in these methods including proper couping, feeding, isolation of sick chickens and mainly immunization to prevent massive epidemics that result in high mortality. Interesting enough, one of the areas of Xepocol just recently had an epidemic that killed around 100 chickens in various homes, primarily in 2 or 3 homes who raise chickens for income.

On Tuesday they purchases supplies and demonstrated how to make isolation cages and taught a class. Then on Wednesday they prepared some more isolation cages and also a chicken feeder which allows the chicks to eat without pesky bullies eating all of the food and then did a class on disease and immunization. On Thursday, they went around to the various homes and assisted in immunizing 335 chickens.

Here Tomas decided to isolate his little brother Josue.

Part of this program was to demonstrate that providing immunizations can be inexpensive should everyone work together. Traditionally, most people go to get the immunization just to learn that it costs about $2.50, Q16 and to vaccinate 10-15 chickens, that is a large expense for them. However, what they have not realized is each vaccine ampule will vaccinate 150 chickens. So if you go in together to maximize the number to vaccinate, you can do this for as little as Q.12 cents each!

The immunization is good for 3 months and then they must keep repeating the cycle until the chicken is killed and eaten or sold - to be eaten. We identified some women in the community to help organize this effort, so "primero Dios", they will continue the immunizations. We plan to follow-up in 3 months to help this be a successful program. One of the women identified to help organize is our health promoter's, Gaspar, wife. She is very organized to we hope to see a positive result.

We had a few laughs when they explained that if a few chickens get sick they should kill them right away and eat them if they are of the age! :) They did not want to accept that one very much, but we did tell them we could come to the party to enjoy the fried chicken together.

Thank you UT for a great week!

Local Church Support and Days of Feria (the Fair)

This past weekend we had a much needed 3 day weekend. Well, not that we needed much more rest after a month of rest in the states, but we needed some time at home. Lucky for us the Nebaj fair is this week and the health department gave Monday off to all of their employees, which now includes Lisa! We have always wanted to enjoy those government holidays, just did not expect to enjoy them in this manner.

Saturday was pretty much a blow off day which was nice as we stayed around the house and just piddled in house stuff. One of our friends and employee's, Manuel, also came by the house to greet us and see how we were doing. It made us feel good that we have developed strong enough friendships for people to take the time and come and speak with us.

On Sunday we did our market shopping and went to church. The excitement for us happened at church when one of the elders asked to pray for us while we were away. The demonstration of support and care we have received from those we work with here in Guatemala has been incredible. Not only do we have many people back home praying that God will bless the situation, but we have many here as well. Who could ask for anything more! We had many "oh really", "oh no" and "we really feel for you" comments from our Guatemalan brothers and sisters.

We are very encouraged by everyone's support both stateside and here in Guatemala and want to thank each and eveyone of you for your support and prayers. We feel comfortable with the situation and now just continue to pray that Lisa will have more guidance as to her responsibilities in this new role.

Monday was weed eat the grass day! Remember the 3 times rule - well it still applies! We needed this day as the grass since we left in June was now knee high. We should have taken a picture but did not think about it.

We headed back to Nebaj Tuesday morning and entered the "feria" zone. My (Kemmel's) internet restaurant was closed for feria as many businesses, and as a result I did not feel extremely productive that day and ,I took the oppurtunity to take in the culture of feria. I never experienced fair as I experienced it here. The families come from all over and mill around the square and market with kids, parents, grandparents, etc. I am sure there is quite a bit of drinking and the like happening, but what was more noticeable was the way the families enjoyed the day.

Here are a couple of pictures from around the square. It filled with more people towards the end of the day.

On special weeks like these, part of the custom is to celebrate with traditional dances and apparently some other dances abit more modern. The traditional dance is what you would expect; however, today there was also some dancing in costumes that were quite shocking. Somewhere along the way some of the traditional celebrations have taken on this more modern dance and music which includes costumes of movie characters (this is where we enter the feria zone). Just think of a Star Trek convention but with people dancing in the streets. Very strange and maybe one day we will get the meaning of it. Anyway, here are some pictures. Enjoy.

Yes, this is Luke Skywaker in Nebaj. Go figure!

This is the leader of the group in what I think is a Last Samurai costume. Note the masks, everyone wears masks and some are pretty lifelike.

And it would not be complete without Chuckie!

Costumes include Pirates of the Carribbean, Chicken Little, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Star Wars, wierd aliens from some movie, etc.

I must apologize for the sarcasm but we really do not understand this part of the culture. I am sure there is plenty strange with us Americans as well! Anyway this is way too long! Have a great day!

First Week in Nebaj

***For those just reading, be sure to read the post before this one to see why Nebaj***

Our first week in Nebaj went reasonably well. We headed up to Nebaj on Tuesday, found the office where Lisa was to report to and eventually got led to the National Hospital. Tuesday was an easy day for Lisa as she just had a tour of the hospital since everyone else was traveling that day. On Wednesday Lisa met the Director of the Area of Salud and the Driector of the Hospital. She was also given her assignment which is to be the medical director over the community health office of Nebaj. Nebaj is part of what is called the Ixil Triangle made up of 3 major towns, Nebaj, Cotzal and Chajul. So Lisa will be managing all of the puestos de salud that are part of the major town, Nebaj.

Native Nebaj dress

Lisa will work with a nurse, who has been running the show for quite some time, and about 6 other health promoters or nurses in the main office. They oversee the health department functions in the area including medical clinics, sanitation licenses, evironmental health, immunizations, epidimiology, tuberculosis treatments, etc. The list is pretty extensive. She has been spending time with the head nurse and staff to get to know the system. We have learned quite a bit about how it works, but still have a long way to go.

I found a restaurant with wireless internet that is free so took the time to catch up on a number of items both personal and involving HTI. I also scouted out the town and hopefully found a more suitable place to live more long term. It is a hostel called Media Luna Media Sol which is somehow related to the restaurant and is also supposed to have wireless internet. We will see!

This is the hostel Media Luna Media Sol.


We came home Friday evening to be able to rest and take care of items around the house over the weekend. Next week is "feria" (fair) in Nebaj so Lisa has Monday off and we do not head back until Tuesday. As part of the work with the feria the community health office took friday afternoon to inspect the local vendors of food items to make sure they covered their food, etc. The problem is there is really no fee they can charge if they do not comply. All they can do is make a recommendation to the municipality to not renew their license the following year. Part of the problem here is there are not many people who inforce the rules.

Today we are taking it easy around the house, doing all the humdrum stuff, but it feels good!

For more info on the area of nebaj see http://www.nebaj.com/ or http://www.nebaj.org/.

Nebaj - Long Story!

Well, some of you have heard of our recent situation and some have not, so I will attempt to fill everyone in.

Since we have the desire of working long term in Guatemala we have begun the process of applying for a permanent Medical license for Lisa. We submitted our application in May of 2007 with the plan to take and exam in hopes that she would pass and the license would be granted. In Guatemala, there are 2 options for a foreigner to be licensed, so one option is the exam and the other option is the 1 year of service with the government health system which is a social healthcare system. (You probably already know where this is going now).

Well, we came back from the US on 7/30 and went to check on the status of the application on 7/31 to see when the test would be scheduled. We had heard the test was difficult but Lisa wanted to give it a shot. We were surprised to hear that the test option had been denied so we want to the Directors office to get some clarification. In short, the test is an option but basically it is set up so that everyone fails, leaving the service as the only option. He indicated Lisa could take the exam and would fail and would have to reapply the following year and repay the application fee. During our conversations, the Director was courteous and professional as he was just trying to help us understand the process. He also had a letter for Lisa from the board who reviews applications that she must be in Nebaj on 08/01, the following day. We explained our situation with HTI, the clinics, etc. and he gave us a week to make a decision.

Thus, after review with HTI and the local churches we made plans to start the year of service. We know God has been working on this as so far most things have fallen into place. We were able to reschedule all but 1 clinic (which we were going to cancel anyway) with the other team who works with us - Dr. Josefina Lux and Sheri Kretzschmar, RN. The only bad part is we have to split their team to do so, but we think it will work out well as they both are very attentive to the needs of the patients.

As for us, Lisa was assigned to a town called Nebaj, which is 2.5 hours north of Chichicastenango. Although farther than we wanted, this is much better than we what we expected for Lisa’s first rotation. This first rotation is for 6 months.

This is a picture of Nebaj on the way into town. The town is surrounded by mountains.

This is a view of the central park and catholic church from the porch of our hotel room and another view looking off to the west.

Lisa has been assigned to the Area Health Department for Nebaj in a position that has not been filled for 3 or 4 months as they cannot get any physicians to move here. She will have more of an administrative role as this is their need and she has already had here residency in the US. This is good as she may not be treated as a student and may not have very many exams. It will be difficult just because of the type of position which is management and overseeing a process that has already been put into place and not sure you can make anything better in this short of a time in a health system that we yet have to understand. However, we do get the opportunity to see how it works and how we as HTI can better fit into the system. In just 2 days we have a much better understanding than we ever did. This area has around 20-30 health clinics staffed by promoters, nurses or residents who are serving their time. Thus, she will travel around with some others from the office and maybe Kemmel will get to tag along some as well.

Here is a couple of pictures of Lisa on her first day at work. That is our little Suzuki we purchased from Gene Luna - Thanks Gene it works great for running around - you can park anywhere!

Lisa is on her first such journey today – She and her now – co-workers left this morning a 3:30am to go to an area about 3-5 hours away. They had to leave early as at a certain point they close the road for construction and you have to pass it early. So they passed the area where they close the road and then they were met by a mud slide which eventually got clear out. Lisa called a few minutes ago and she is on the way back to Nebaj now.

In the past the road to Nebaj was not paved, but as of 2 years or so it is so the once 6-8 hour drive from Chichi is now only 2.5, but it is still only 120km or around 70 miles. Here you must go by time and not by distance. The town is pretty nice and we have found a hostel to stay in that says they have wireless internet. We will start staying there next week. We plan on staying in Nebaj Monday through Friday and returning to Chichi on Friday for the weekend. Kemmel will also be able to stay involved a couple of days a week in Chichi since it is not too far away. We could have been placed 8 hours away on dirt roads plus a hike, so we are happy!

Here is a picture of the view from the highway at about 7am in the morning. Breathtaking area.

The road is paved, but still has its excitement. Luckily this happened a couple of days before we were in the area.

Now that we are settled we will keep up with the blog and the stories. There is a restaurant here that has wireless internet! And it is free and they have good food. Go figure! We are in the bocacheeta (kemmelism for middle of nowhere) of Guatemala.

Thanks for checking in with us!

We are back!

Well, sorry we have not kept up with our blog while in the US, but it was rather difficult to do. We had a wonderful trip spending time with family, friends and our 2 supporting churches in Colorado Springs and Jackson, Ms. However, we never realized how hard it is be on vacation for a month. Not much in our blood! While we kept busy in many places our workaholic tendencies definetly ate at our souls!

While in the US, Lisa studied alot and took her recertification exam for Family Practice and Kemmel got to play some golf in Colorado Springs and in 115 degree Phoenix heat - hey but golf was cheap! That dry heat aint got nothing on Mazatenango humidity heat.

We came back to Guatemala City on Monday, stayed the night, ran some errands in Guatemala City on Tuesday morning and the headed on to Chichicastenango. We already ran into the 3 times rule - remember if something normally takes 1 hour, here it takes 3 hours - for many reasons including traffic, people, language, and just bad juju. We already miss the nice wide roads of the US - this is probably our most missed item. Here a normal 2.5 hour drive became 4 hours to travel 75 miles.

Our trip back home was uneventful, except delays on the road which we cannot complain about much as it is improve and widen the roads. Sure is easy to whine and complain about it in the meantime though. :) Almost forgot, we came back to a new airport! So those that have been here in the past, you now enter into a pretty nice terminal (although it is still undergoing some construction and probably will for long time).

We were welcomed back by phone calls from some of our coworkers and friends and started back with the clinics on Wednesday. While at clinic on Wednesday, a group of men from another community came to speak to us regarding the possiblity of beginning a clinic ministry in there church. This was very encouraging as 8 men from the community walked about 1-2 hours to come speak to us about how they want to serve in their community. Awesome! or as they would say here - Puro Utz! We had a great conversation, but I did have to tell them we would need to review and could not promise them anything right now but we were definitly interested in the future as we have the ability to grow.

So, if you are a physician, PA, dentist, or nurse reading this, the harvest is plentiful and there are many communities here with little to no access to affordable healthcare. Of course, this would be for most countries, but how many have year around spring like weather! We can hook you up!

Still no photos! Sorry but we do have our camera now and will begin once again with some good photos. Please check our prayer requests for other updates!

God bless!