Lisa's new Clinic

Here is a picture of Lisa at her government clinic in Chuabaj. These are her partner nurses Claraluz and Anabella. Claraluz has been training Anabella in the mountains of paperwork and will be leaving at the end of the month.

Chuabaj is a town of about 3000 people and is about 30 minutes from Chichi and there is a small church of Christ in town. People have been very cordial and welcoming. In addition to consults and paperwork she gets to give educational talks to midwives and will be meeting with the local teachers as well as the local municipal committee to discuss health issues in the area. In the end she will present an overall report about the health status in the town of Chuabaj.

Monday and Today we had some pretty uneventful clinics - Gracias a Dios! Our guests Rugel and Connie continue to be in good health and are great.

I guess the most eventful thing that has happened is that at the Clinic in Lemoa today was we discovered that our latrines are filling up. We did not expect this as we dug them 10-12 meters deep; however, since we have been receiving more than normal rainfall the ground is extremely saturated and since our latrine is a little more downhill the water is leaking in through the ground into the latrines. You can actually see the water seeping out of the wall of the latrine into the pit. One latrine only has about 2 meters left, so pray for less rain! We are not sure what we will do yet but we do have a pump and hopefully we can get a firehose in a pinch! Luckily the latrines are somewhat new.....

The rain is actually causing quite a bit of problems around Guatemala including more mudslides which have resulted in buried houses and some deaths. We have not had many mudslides here but we have heard of some pretty bad ones in and around Guatemala City in the neighborhoods that are on the sides of the valleys. Here we mostly see corn crops that have fallen due to the soft ground as the roots are not able to hold the weight of the corn.

Ladies' Day

1Th 5:11 Therefore, encourage one another, and build up one another, as you indeed do.

We had a great day today worshiping with the church in Xepocol. We jumped in the truck with Connie and Rugel Sowell and headed to the hills for a special service honoring the women of the congregation. We were celebrating the one year mark of the ladies' bible study group. While this seems a little over the top to us raised in the States, it is special, because in the rural areas where we work there are few churches with women's ministries/classes. After bringing Linda Henry in to teach at the first women's seminar here last year, many churches began forming organized women's groups. So thank you, Linda!

We were excited to see how the elders put forth the effort to recognize the women leaders and honor their work. They even brought out a special preacher today who gave an uplifting and encouraging message to everyone to keep up the good work and continue setting new goals for evangelizing the area.

Presentation of gifts to the women's ministry by the elders.

After worship, we all sat around and had soup, tamalitos and hot coffee--which was really good as it was cold and rainy today.

Mactzul II

On Friday we had our first clinic in Mactzul II. This church has an interesting story as one day while at clinic in a neighboring village, about 9 men ranging in ages from 20 to 60 years old came to visit with the specific purpose of asking for a clinic in their church. They had heard about the clinics in some of the other churches and were very ready start this type of ministry in their community and they already had men selected to serve as volunteers. We had heard some good things and some not so good things about the church, but these were all second hand. Nonetheless, we were a little apprehensive about having clinic there.


Well, God blessed us on Friday with a great experience in this village and church of Mactzul II. The brothers and sisters of the church came out in full force and what I thought was going to be a small church was a very sizable church membership wise. The church has 70 adult members plus children and visitors, so probably in the range of 150-200 people each Sunday. We also found out that the church started in the 1970's, so it was one of the first churches in the area.



As noted, the church came out in full force and I would bet many of the members were there, some hanging around, some cooking lunch for us and some coming to see us as a patient. We ended up with 52 patients after going through a few stages of "there is just one more patient".



We started the day with just Dr. Josefina Lux, but quickly realized when we arrived that we would need some help. So we called Sheri and Dr. Rugel Sowell who were seeing patients in Choacaman, about 45 minutes away, to come to our rescue after they had seen their patients. Luckily they only had around 11 patients and they were able to join us around lunch time.



After lunch the quite a few kids started arriving after school and they had some fun with Sheri's camera.

During the day we had 2-3 brothers from the church praying with patients and one helping me with registration and talking with the patients. We ended the day with a brief meeting and the church volunteered to host a larger medical / dental team on November 1 which is a national holiday here. We talked about whether they though we would have patients being a national holiday and they seemed to think with a good announcement people would attend as there is a great need in the area.



This day they basically announced only to the church and some close neighbors to avoid a crowd to large. We ended up with a mix of patients of about 60% from the church and 40% outside the church.



Here are some pictures I had to steal from Sheri's website as I did not have my camera.


Kemmel, Connie Sowell, Dr. Rugel Sowell and Health Promoter Manuel.


Health promoters Tomas, Juan and Gaspar and Dr. Josefina Lux. It was nice to all come together as a team. We asked the church before the extras showed up if there was enough for lunch and the answer was an overwhelming yes! I think they fed everyone there that day, patients, visitors, etc.

That was a great lunch. God bless!

Xejox and Chuchuca Visit

Yesterday, Thursday, we went to visit a small mountain community called Xejox. The people of this village have been asking us for quite some time to come and host some clinics as there is much need and they are pretty remote to any larger towns with health clinics, especially during the rainy season. As we have an extra group coming in October and the rains should have reduced a little by then, we went to schedule a clinic for October. Drive time was not as bad as we thought - about 2 hours from Santa Cruz where the team will be based - maybe a little longer if there is rain. Most of the way had pretty good roads, but as you take the road to the village, we can see how it could get pretty muddy. The good news is the road is not right on the cliffs. :)

As you can see, this is a simple adobe building and these are a couple of the church leaders, Pedro and Andres. The exicting part about this community is that even though they are about 1 hour driving from the bigger town, the church is in this area has over 150 members plus children and visitors. There are actually 2 churches now, one on each side of the valley so that everyone does not have to walk so far. There is one church in Xejox (above) and one church in Chuchuca. These 150 members + represent about 50% of the entire community!

This is a picture with a view from the church in Xejox. The small white speck is the church in Chuchuca and I have a zoomed view of the church below.

Due to the distance and the possible large clinics we will hold clinic in this area for 2 days on Oct 17 and Oct 18, so please be praying for a good turn out and that God will be glorified. This will allow for us to leave early and be back to Santa Cruz each day before 5pm.

God bless and have a wonderful day! Today we are off to Mactzul II to initiate a new clinic there.

New Week in Chichi

After a relaxing day in Antigua on Saturday, we headed to Guatemala City on Sunday to pick up Dr. Rugel Sowell and his wife Connie. They will joining us for a couple of weeks to assist in clinics and to continue to help Sheri feel more comfortable in direct patient care. Sheri continues to do a wonderful job and has an excellent disposition for working in this ministry. Her love and faith for God and her love of working with people is very evident in her work!

Dr. Sowell actually has spent much time in Guatemala over the years - starting back in the 1960's working in various medical clinics and also spent some time living here in Quetzaltenango and Guatemala City. We are honored to have him and Connie here working with us. They are staying at a small hotel where they gtet to enjoy a great view of the mountains. In talking with people who have worked in missions for many years we continue to realize how good we have it now with transportation, internet, cell phones, electricity, running water (although we do not have all the time). Being a missionary today sure does not seem as difficult as it used to be!

Our week started well with a good clinic at Clinica Caris yesterday where we had 36 patients. This is a good number for us as it allows us to spend extra time with the patients and discuss the reasons they are visiting and to get to know them a little more and to pray with them. Today we had a number of follow-up patients and a couple of patients that were referred by others who recieved care in the past.

Yesterday we also had an emergency patient present. This was a little boy about 11 years old who had burned his legs in a gasoline fire. We evaluated him and quickly sent him to the local hospital to visit with a local US missionary surgeon, Dr. Tom Hoak. We later called to follow-up and learned that the boy has mostly 2nd degree burns but also has some 3rd degree burns around his calf muscle which could present some problems. Dr. Hoak encouraged the family to take the boy to the hospital in Guatemala City with a burn unit but the family is not responding well to his medical advice. Thus, 2 of our health promoters Gaspar and Manuel are going to visit them this morning to discuss the importance of follow-up and the need to get him the proper treatment. This family has a history of not complying with medical advice, so please pray that God will touch their hearts to seek the proper treatment for their son. Without proper treatment he could have some serious complications.

Lisa continues her work at the government clinic in Chuabaj and is seeing around 15 patients per day. Please continue to pray for her in this transition.

Clinic Ezell Surgical week / Weedeater

On Saturday of the previous weekend, we (Lisa, Kemmel and Sheri) headed to Clinica Ezell in Montellano to participate in a surgical week. We hated to give up the nice cool weather to wither in the sweltering heat of Montellano but providing a needed service for our wonderful patients makes it worth it. Luckily, this week was not too hot as the rain cooled some of the days down to the point we had to use a sheet and cover while sleeping! That does not happen much. To see picture of Clinica Ezell go to http://www.healthtalents.org/ and select the Clinic Ezell link.

Patients in pre-op, patiently waiting.


This is the recovery room. We can house 40-50 patients at one time.

Here are some of the nurses discussing a few patients or just enjoying talking.

The surgeries performed during the week were general surgeries such as hernia repairs (lots of hernia repairs) and smal cyst removals and GYN surgery to correct prolapsed uterus' and remove cysts or tumors. The week essentially begins on Sunday when patients arrive after church service for thie initial consult and we schedule some surgeries for Sunday afternoon. Sunday is always the longest day as it starts slow and we normally over shoot our abilities on what we can do before 7pm. However, the teams are great and flexible and it normally turns out great.

During the week, the surgeons and nurses do surgery on about 15-18 patients per day. In addition to the surgeons and the OR nurses we have a number of other people involved, such as pre-op nurses, post-op nurses and nurses aides, chaplains, translators, sterilization staff, and even a fix-it person. Each team that comes consists of about 30 - 40 north american volunteers from the US and/or Canada and 20-30 local guatemalan employees or contractors who come to help in nursing, cooking, cleaning, etc.

Lisa suited up and assisting with a GYN surgery with Dr. Elder.

Sterilization, a much needed and important role!

One of our first patients on Sunday was an elder lady in end stages of cervical cancer, so the day started out difficult, but we prayed with her and her family and she stated she was a christian and ready to meet her Lord.

Lisa and I stayed at the clinic through Monday and had to leave early Tuesday to take Lisa to a seminar she was to attend with her overseeing professor during her incorporation to the University of San Carlos for her medical license. On the way we ran across an accident where the helper of a bus lost control and fell off the top off the bus while in motion along with a basket he was trying to secure. We stopped to help and took him to the closest clinic where they would try to stablizie him some and send him in an ambulance to the closest hospital, about 1 hour away. This day was not a shining day for the healthcare system of Guatemala and we later learned that the man died and that some of our staff at Clinica Ezell actually knew him. We do not know the extent of his injuries other than they were pretty bad and he was unconscious from a head injury.

Of course, this was not a shining day for the bus system here either as they tend to take unnecessary risks which result in devasting results such as this.

We finished up the week by returning to Chichi on Wednesday for clinics on Thursday and Friday and then made the trek to Antigua to meet up with the group for our last supper and a relaxing weekend. This time it was a trek! The normal 2.5 hours to Antigua became 7 hours due to traffic related to the Guatemalan Independence day. We ran into a traffic jam in a large town called Chimaltenango and spent about 5 hours there inching along or just sitting. The traffic jam was a result of everyone cramming into made up lanes and then small fender benders and taking up lanes that would normally be for people coming from the opposite direction. It was messy!!

Our other recent excitement was the purchase of a weedeater to cut the weeds / grass at the clinic and to show Manuel and Tomas how to use it. Tomas was a natural as he works with a chain saw cutting trees into wood planks.

Have a wonderful week!

Friday night blues!

Well, Lisa has survived another week of being "part of the problem". She has been assigned to a Puesto de Salud (Rural Health clinic) in Chuabaj which is a town 20 minutes from Chichicastenango along the highway to Guatemala City. She works with 2 nurses right now but soon will just be one. The one nurse is new and she is being trained by another nurse from the main office of Chichicastenango. So far she has been able to see more than 10 patients per day and yesterday she got to suture a man's finger that he cut off so that was a good day for a physician. Today she had a baby about 3 weeks old with a major case of diaper rash, poor little guy!

Today we were able to present the main health department office of Chichicastenango with some HIV swab tests that will be expiring this month. To our surprise they were very excited to be able to use them as here in Guatemala they have just had a national campaign of immunizations and apparently everyone had there share of needle sticks. As a result, some have been nervous, so in comes the swab test! God even has a plan for HIV tests which are about to expire! So we won some points today which is always good!

So on to the topic for today - we have the Friday night blues - probably started by Kemmel. We used to always have date night with a movie and dinner, in whichever order we felt like doing it that Friday. Well, around here that is kind of hard. These are some of the moments we miss the most, getting away, going on a date and then on Saturday hitting the shopping scene for Lisa or Kemmel hitting the golf course with friends from church. We normally do not get the blues but today it hit us a little more. As they say here "es por la lluvia" - it is because of the rain - it is the answer for all bad things that happen. Anyway enough with the blues for the day.

Tomorrow brings more excitement as we have a group coming for a surgical week down in Montellano at Clinic Ezell. The surgeries this week will be General and GYN so it will be a busy week. We will be with the group until Tuesday morning where we leave early, early to get Lisa to a conference she has to attend Tuesday and Wednesday about 3 hours from Clinic Ezell.

Notes on the clinics - Josefina and Sheri are off to a good start in their individual clinic rotations.
We continue to receive support from the communities and many ask how we are and to let us know they are praying for us. Kemmel has been hanging back from clinics lately to get some things reset back up on the office side and will be heading back out to clinics soon. We hope to start some better education programs in the near future for the promoters and volunteers and patients.

Paxot Women's Seminar and Julisa

On August 24th we had our second annual womens seminar in Paxot II. The seminar was taught once again by Linda Henry and translated into kiche by one of Health Talents employees, Rosario Poncio. As with last year the seminar was a great success and we continue to see increasing interest by the women in wanting to learn more. The topic of this seminar was teaching children and included some hands on pratice with activities as well. As you can see we had a very large turn out this year - over 60 women representing 15 congregations in the area! About 15 women were from the host town of Paxot II.

Here are some more pictures of the seminar.

Women preparing tamales to have with the stewed meat - very good! You can see some of the men in the background as they were serving the women this day.

Lunch in the new kicthen / cafeteria that was built by the church of Paxot II. Amazingly enough, the way construction is done here , probably 70% of the building was done by 2 people.

Review of the different visual aids in teaching children.

This is a picture of Julisa, the curly haired girl, in December of 2006. About 4 or 5 months ago she presented to the clinic very ill and very pale. Lisa referred her for some blood tests and she was diagnosed with Lukemia. She began treatment right away and has continued her treatment to date. So far the treatments are producing positive results, but please keep praying for Julisa as she has 3 years of treatment to go. The number and frequency of treatments will go down but they will still be traveling to Guatemalay City every once in awhile for treatments.

This is Julisa today. She had lost weight, but thanks to God she has gained it back and now weighs 37 pounds. She is beginning to loose her hair but she has regained some of her color back. Again, please be praying for Julisa and her family. Her family is strong and are very active in the church in Pacaja Xesic. The above picture includes her sister Miriam and the bottom picture includes her mother and father. She has other siblings as well.

We had to end the blog with a picture of 2 of favorite little boys from Paxot II. This is Lucho and Edgar and they are the sons of one of our health promoters, Manuel Sut.

God bless and have a great day!

Election Year

This is the last week before the elections here in Guatemala. Although we have a democratically elected government here, there tends to be quite a bit of violent expression of opinion. Pray that the process will go smoothly and pray for the officials elected, that they will seek guidance from the Lord. Election day is Sunday the 9th.

On the work front, clinics are going well, and our co-worker, Sheri will be taking over our clinics this week. We admire her willing spirit and appreciate her experience and wisdom. We know God will bless her work.

I, Lisa am settling in to my work with the government clinic. As my brother Kriss puts it, " Now you're part of the problem". All kidding aside, it is interesting to see the "guidelines" put out by the government and the actual availability(or lack thereof) of resources to accomplish those. Should make for interesting work. The staff is nice, and interested in our work here. Even the anti-American-business, anti-short-term-medical-brigade doctor on staff was fascinated to find out that I am a Christian, and began talking about his lapsed spiritual life. Pray for us to be lights wherever we are working.

Well, have a peaceful Lord's Day, and so long for now.