Well, as mentioned in the past blog, the MET program started this last week with the students in language school. They arrived at Clinica Ezell on Friday and started a few days of orientation on Guatemala, missiology, medical evanglism and information regarding the areas we work, what we do, what are our objectives, etc. On Monday the team from Chichi (Dr. Josefina, Dr. Marcos and Sheri K. RN all arrived to have some extra time with the MET students and our other professional team from Clinic Ezell - Drs. Walter, David, Silvia and Jessica and Carlos, our director here in Guatemala. This year we have 10 students and strange enough 5 who write left handed. Pretty amazing to see so many left handers and a small group. We enjoyed the time together and hopefully helped ease some of their nervousness of moving in with families, etc.
Tuesday morning everyone headed out to their families with the Chichi folks getting to the homes around 4 or 5pm. Check out Sheri's blog for more info - www.sheriinguate.blogspot.com. She has some good pictures of the group. Unfortunately, I was not able to join them as I had to return to the Capital to pick up Lisa from her surgery call.
Also on Tuesday we had a visit of some Biomed Techs that Dennis from Vine International helped us coordinate. These folks, Monte, Dennis 1, Dennis 2 and Dennis' 2 daughter (feel bad I cannot remember her name) provided us an excellent service of repairing 2 autoclaves (and showing our local fix it guy how to repair another), a couple of patient monitors, a bunch of blood pressure cuffs (and showed our staff how to fix in the future), revised our surgical equipment, including providing maintenance to all of the anesthesia machines. We are extremely grateful for the help they provided. Dennis 2 is the director of MedEquip Missions and Monte came with them from Samaritans Purse. What a great service! Today they are off to visit Dr. Sergio Castillo in Chocola who used to work with HTI as well.
Also, today is a big day for Dr. Marcos Lux, the dentist who works for us. He is getting honored as a new member of the Dentistry Association today here in Guatemala City. During this program he receives a pin that is very special to the profession here. We are extremely proud of his accomplishments and even more proud of his commitment to our Lord and our ministry.
Lisa is counting down her surgery rotation - just 5 days left and one call night! Pray that she gets assigned a good rotation for June when she starts internal medicine. Specifically we are praying for "consulta externa" which is a clinic based rotation and in reality will be the best place she can offer her diagnosing and treatment skills.
God bless and have a great week!
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
MET - Medical Evangelism Training
This week marks the beginning of the MET program for 2008. The students arrived on Saturday and are currently in Quetzaltenango in language school for 1 week. Of course you cannot learn a language is a week but you can learn some basics that will make you life easier.
MET is a program directed at college students who are interested in a field in medicine or dentistry and who are also interested in mission work. This program has been designed to give the students a small experience of 6 weeks to work with Health Talents International in the various ministries of medical evangelism. During this 6 week period, the students live with local families so that they can be immersed in language and culture. Then they work daily with the 6 different physicians and dentists that work with HTI in the areas of Montellano and Chichicastenango / Quiche. For Chichicastenango / Quiche this means living with families in the country which is a ricj experience that cannot be replaced. Lisa and I have stayed with families and always look forward to the next time we are honored to do so. The students will have an oppurtunity to learn basic medical skills including vital signs and will also learn how to use a book called "Where there is no Doctor" to help them interview patients. They will participate with the physicians in the physical and spiritual healing that we provide to our patients through medical care and the offering of prayers and/or counseling to our patients. Above all they will have the oppurtunity to experience serving people and showing them the love and compassion of Christ as they work and live with people here.
This program has existed now almost 20 years. I was part of the program in 1989 in Honduras and returned again in 1990 to help as a coordinator here in Guatemala in the area of Quetzaltenango. Lisa was also in the 1990 class and this is where we met - on MET. The experience we both had was incredible and has always been an important part of our life and one of the defining moments for us to decide to enter into medical missions full time. We are very honored and humbled that God has lead us here and continue to hope that we can serve in way that honors Him.
MET has also touched the lives of many other medical missionaries who have served in Africa and other places and we hope to see the number of medical missionaries increase in the years to come. Of our class in 1989 2 of us have become full-time medical missionaries (well one physician and one administration type), one serves on the board of HTI and serves in short term missions and another had returned to his home country of Honduras to serve the under-priviledged, but unfortnately was killed a number of years back.
Please pray for the students during this month that God will continue to provide them direction in their lives.
The new airport look and below some picture of them packing up ready to head to Xela for language school.
By the way ...... The electrical problems at the house have been fixed. Now just the water.
MET is a program directed at college students who are interested in a field in medicine or dentistry and who are also interested in mission work. This program has been designed to give the students a small experience of 6 weeks to work with Health Talents International in the various ministries of medical evangelism. During this 6 week period, the students live with local families so that they can be immersed in language and culture. Then they work daily with the 6 different physicians and dentists that work with HTI in the areas of Montellano and Chichicastenango / Quiche. For Chichicastenango / Quiche this means living with families in the country which is a ricj experience that cannot be replaced. Lisa and I have stayed with families and always look forward to the next time we are honored to do so. The students will have an oppurtunity to learn basic medical skills including vital signs and will also learn how to use a book called "Where there is no Doctor" to help them interview patients. They will participate with the physicians in the physical and spiritual healing that we provide to our patients through medical care and the offering of prayers and/or counseling to our patients. Above all they will have the oppurtunity to experience serving people and showing them the love and compassion of Christ as they work and live with people here.
This program has existed now almost 20 years. I was part of the program in 1989 in Honduras and returned again in 1990 to help as a coordinator here in Guatemala in the area of Quetzaltenango. Lisa was also in the 1990 class and this is where we met - on MET. The experience we both had was incredible and has always been an important part of our life and one of the defining moments for us to decide to enter into medical missions full time. We are very honored and humbled that God has lead us here and continue to hope that we can serve in way that honors Him.
MET has also touched the lives of many other medical missionaries who have served in Africa and other places and we hope to see the number of medical missionaries increase in the years to come. Of our class in 1989 2 of us have become full-time medical missionaries (well one physician and one administration type), one serves on the board of HTI and serves in short term missions and another had returned to his home country of Honduras to serve the under-priviledged, but unfortnately was killed a number of years back.
Please pray for the students during this month that God will continue to provide them direction in their lives.
The new airport look and below some picture of them packing up ready to head to Xela for language school.
By the way ...... The electrical problems at the house have been fixed. Now just the water.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Chichi
Lisa went on call on Sunday morning, so I took the opportunity to go to Chichi. The missionaries in the area have an English service so the day started off with visiting and worshiping in English. It is always a treat to be able to worship in your mother language, especially when you are used to mostly kiche and some Spanish and trying to pick out what we can from the sermons. Today we discussed the Pentecost, the birth of the church and the filling of the Holy Spirit. The sermon was given by Bill Vassey, one of the pioneer missionaries to the Quiche area who translated the bible into one of the local dialects. He is a very dynamic speaker and is good at making you think.
After the service I went by the house to check on the electricity problem and the house had actually been re-wired. I was thrilled to see that it had actually gotten done. Before arriving I was pretty pessimistic about it being fixed and was ready to pay for a hotel. We still have a little more work but at least I could stay in the house for the night. I even had water! (city water, water pump still out) That was a special treat. In the morning I could not use the shower as the outside connections were only temporary and it was suggested to not overload the energy use until we had a permanent connection. So back to the heated up bucket of water, but it works. I met with another electrician from the electrical company early Monday morning and he will come and put the finishing touches on the connection and he will also add in a copper tube in for grounding since there does not seem to be any grounding at the house. (this was another one of the causes of the problem). Pretty scary huh? The good news is so far we are only out Q500 which is less than $70 for the wiring and electrical work, plus some extra work he did on the water pump. Maybe another Q500 and we will be done with this problem.
After checking on the house I headed out to Xepocol to worship with our friends and brothers and sisters there. In contrast to our English sermon, this sermon was all in kiche this time so it was hard to follow and I hate to say it, but also hard to stay awake. I found myself struggling and not having Lisa there to poke me. Luckily I did not get poked with the stick they use to wake up folks. I enjoyed worshiping in Xepocol and taking time to visit with the members. This is a great bunch of people who love our Lord and serve Him wholeheartedly. They have recently had some growth with about 4 new people and then another new family has also started to attend the church this past week. I noticed this time that many of the young men (15-19 years old) in the congregation have taken more responsibility in the service and participate with the communion devotional and also in leading singing. Xepocol is the home of our first health promoter Gaspar Chan and it is great to see the growth they have experienced and continue to experience. Today Gaspar's oldest, Tomas, lead the communion devotion and singing. He did a great job.
On other church news, I have heard from 3-4 other congregations where we have clinics that are continuing to experience growth with new members or with people who used to attend church but have now returned to reconcile themselves to Christ. This is very exciting. I cannot say there is a direct correlation of the new growth to the clinics but the churches we work with continue to report that this ministry continues to provide them with positive feedback from the communities. One community, Mactzul V has seen growth of about 15 - 20 people in the last month, many of these all from one family who returned to reconcile. Sebastian from Mactzul 5 called me Wednesday night with the great news and to see how we are doing. The church was having a celebration. They have officially outgrown the building and many people sit outside during the service. The other communities that we have heard from are Chuchipaca, Chuguexa, Santa Cruz, Chichicastenango and Xepocol. We know other churches are continuing to grow as well and we are excited to see God work in this area. Just the other day Sheri saw a young man in clinic who they referred to the Chichicastenango church for follow-up. They promptly followed-up with this young man who has now been baptized and started to attend church in less than a couple of weeks. People are searching for Christ and we hope that this ministry will continue to be used as a tool to further God's kingdom.
After the service I went by the house to check on the electricity problem and the house had actually been re-wired. I was thrilled to see that it had actually gotten done. Before arriving I was pretty pessimistic about it being fixed and was ready to pay for a hotel. We still have a little more work but at least I could stay in the house for the night. I even had water! (city water, water pump still out) That was a special treat. In the morning I could not use the shower as the outside connections were only temporary and it was suggested to not overload the energy use until we had a permanent connection. So back to the heated up bucket of water, but it works. I met with another electrician from the electrical company early Monday morning and he will come and put the finishing touches on the connection and he will also add in a copper tube in for grounding since there does not seem to be any grounding at the house. (this was another one of the causes of the problem). Pretty scary huh? The good news is so far we are only out Q500 which is less than $70 for the wiring and electrical work, plus some extra work he did on the water pump. Maybe another Q500 and we will be done with this problem.
After checking on the house I headed out to Xepocol to worship with our friends and brothers and sisters there. In contrast to our English sermon, this sermon was all in kiche this time so it was hard to follow and I hate to say it, but also hard to stay awake. I found myself struggling and not having Lisa there to poke me. Luckily I did not get poked with the stick they use to wake up folks. I enjoyed worshiping in Xepocol and taking time to visit with the members. This is a great bunch of people who love our Lord and serve Him wholeheartedly. They have recently had some growth with about 4 new people and then another new family has also started to attend the church this past week. I noticed this time that many of the young men (15-19 years old) in the congregation have taken more responsibility in the service and participate with the communion devotional and also in leading singing. Xepocol is the home of our first health promoter Gaspar Chan and it is great to see the growth they have experienced and continue to experience. Today Gaspar's oldest, Tomas, lead the communion devotion and singing. He did a great job.
On other church news, I have heard from 3-4 other congregations where we have clinics that are continuing to experience growth with new members or with people who used to attend church but have now returned to reconcile themselves to Christ. This is very exciting. I cannot say there is a direct correlation of the new growth to the clinics but the churches we work with continue to report that this ministry continues to provide them with positive feedback from the communities. One community, Mactzul V has seen growth of about 15 - 20 people in the last month, many of these all from one family who returned to reconcile. Sebastian from Mactzul 5 called me Wednesday night with the great news and to see how we are doing. The church was having a celebration. They have officially outgrown the building and many people sit outside during the service. The other communities that we have heard from are Chuchipaca, Chuguexa, Santa Cruz, Chichicastenango and Xepocol. We know other churches are continuing to grow as well and we are excited to see God work in this area. Just the other day Sheri saw a young man in clinic who they referred to the Chichicastenango church for follow-up. They promptly followed-up with this young man who has now been baptized and started to attend church in less than a couple of weeks. People are searching for Christ and we hope that this ministry will continue to be used as a tool to further God's kingdom.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
When all else fails - "Strike!"
I just found out today that most of the distribution trucks of Guatemala have been on strike since Monday. I guess this is what happens when you do not have TV or radio. This means that no gas and many other items that are imported from the port are not making it around the country or Guatemala City. And items to be exported are not making it to port. To get to either coast one must pass through Guatemala City, there is not good highway that bypasses Guatemala City.
Apparently there are some complaints about the times the trucks can enter the city and since there has been no resolutions, the owners of the trucks have stopped service. According to the national paper there are multiple lines of trucks up to 5 kilometers long where they have stopped on the side of the highways living little room for regular travelers to pass as well. It states there are around 3,100 containers that ship out of port daily and most of those are affected by the strike - with over 300 containers of fruit that are just rotting on the highway.
For the casual observer this seems trivial and is causing all kinds of problems; however, for the drivers and owners of the trucks I am sure they are concerned for their safety traveling at night, etc. Hopefully this will come to resolution soon.
Today in Guatemala City everyone flocked to the gas stations to fill up. I was out around 11am and noticed all of the 100's of people at the gas stations and wondered what was happening and that is when I found out. I did not feel like braving the gas stations but now thinking that was a bad decision. All of the gas stations I passed this afternoon are out of gas. I am hoping that outside the city is not too much of a problem as tomorrow I head to Chichi and my vehicle was in the shop until this afternoon. I think I may have enough gas to either make it to Chichi or most of the way - so just hope the problems does not extend everywhere.
Of course this will now cause most of the daily needs to increase - food, gas, clothing, you name it which will probably cause another strike. Another day in the life of a Guatemalan. Pray for quick resolution and that it does not affect the vast majority of the population very much.
Here are some photos of the highways.
Here is a gas station photo from yesterday - today was worse:
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Surgery
Lisa is on her second call schedule for surgery. While on call she works in the crazy ER of Hospital Roosevelt. Just picture people everywhere and total chaos and you will get the picture. There is not much if any triage so people just hang out until someone takes care of them. As a result you have people just trying to get your attention so you can attend to them. The other day I went to pick her up and she called me and told me to wait as a nurse had grabbed her to deliver a still birth baby from a mother that had been shot. Here is a blurb from an email she sent me today:
"I got your call this AM, but thought is was my alarm and hit the button too fast. We had a bunch of gunshot victims come in about midnight 5 in all, but then it quieted down. I slept about an hour and a half. "
Basically she would rather have malaria right now. Please keep her in your prayers. We have indicated in previous blogs that she is on call every 3rd night and I think that she also has to be at the hospital 7 days a week for at least 6 hours doing rounds, etc. Yesterday to top it off they were assigned a bunch of reading, case studies and some presentations they have to do.
Thanks for the prayers you continue to offer on our behalf.
As for the thyroid tests we mentioned before, everything is good. Also, all of the cars are now operational and I told the mechanics we did not want to see them for awhile!
God bless!
"I got your call this AM, but thought is was my alarm and hit the button too fast. We had a bunch of gunshot victims come in about midnight 5 in all, but then it quieted down. I slept about an hour and a half. "
Basically she would rather have malaria right now. Please keep her in your prayers. We have indicated in previous blogs that she is on call every 3rd night and I think that she also has to be at the hospital 7 days a week for at least 6 hours doing rounds, etc. Yesterday to top it off they were assigned a bunch of reading, case studies and some presentations they have to do.
Thanks for the prayers you continue to offer on our behalf.
As for the thyroid tests we mentioned before, everything is good. Also, all of the cars are now operational and I told the mechanics we did not want to see them for awhile!
God bless!
Saturday, May 3, 2008
First Surgery Call
Lisa started her first surgery call on Friday. During her regular work day which is 6am or so to 3pm she is working in the female post op ward. I had thought it was gyn but mainly postop general surgery for females. After her regular day she started call where she is assigned to surgical cases that present to the emergency room. As you can imagine her call is pretty crazy. Let's just say there are a lot of gun shot wounds and car accidents here. I think she told me about 6 different gun shot wound patients. On her rotations in the states, they may see one gun shot wound every 3 days or so.
In this new rotation, Lisa must also go to the hospital daily for patient follow-up and rounds. So on weekends she will be at the hospital each morning for 4 to 6 hours. Please pray that God continues to provide her the strength and endurance that she needs to keep up. This was much easier to do when she was in her early 20's. She is post call today so went to sleep around 4pm and must be back at the hospital by 5am tomorrow. That will allow about 12 hours of sleep in 3 days.
We continue to meet nice people and the residents / interns she works with are very good people. Today I met some local people who own radiology equipment that is part of a small private clinic and they offered to assist with patients that need CT scans. They would either reduce the price to Q350 (under $50) or could even lower it more for patients who are unable to pay. This is great news and I am sure we will have some patients to send their way. It turns out that this couples brother works with another medical ministry here in Guatemala that we have heard of, so they are very willing to help as they can.
On the Suzuki, the problem was not too expensive to fix - about $130. What happened was the battery lost it's cover and touched the top of the hood which is metal, causing a short circuit that fried the accelerator cable and the clutch cable. At first we had a bit of a scare as we thought we would have to change the clutch which involves quite a bit of labor. However, we were much more pleased when we found out all we had to do was change the cables. The short circuit that fried the cables is what caused all of the smoke. I am glad I turned the engine off as it could have continued to fry the starter and other parts. So now we are going to strap in the battery better and put some tire rubber above it that it never rubs against metal. :)
It turns out that this mechanic we work with was one of the founders of motocross in Guatemala back in the 1980's. This was interesting as my brother Gary, now passed away, use to race in the motocross back in the time when it started here in Guatemala. So he had some crazy stories he remembered that were not related to Gary but still brought back wonderful memories.
Have a wonderful Lord's day on Sunday and God bless!
In this new rotation, Lisa must also go to the hospital daily for patient follow-up and rounds. So on weekends she will be at the hospital each morning for 4 to 6 hours. Please pray that God continues to provide her the strength and endurance that she needs to keep up. This was much easier to do when she was in her early 20's. She is post call today so went to sleep around 4pm and must be back at the hospital by 5am tomorrow. That will allow about 12 hours of sleep in 3 days.
We continue to meet nice people and the residents / interns she works with are very good people. Today I met some local people who own radiology equipment that is part of a small private clinic and they offered to assist with patients that need CT scans. They would either reduce the price to Q350 (under $50) or could even lower it more for patients who are unable to pay. This is great news and I am sure we will have some patients to send their way. It turns out that this couples brother works with another medical ministry here in Guatemala that we have heard of, so they are very willing to help as they can.
On the Suzuki, the problem was not too expensive to fix - about $130. What happened was the battery lost it's cover and touched the top of the hood which is metal, causing a short circuit that fried the accelerator cable and the clutch cable. At first we had a bit of a scare as we thought we would have to change the clutch which involves quite a bit of labor. However, we were much more pleased when we found out all we had to do was change the cables. The short circuit that fried the cables is what caused all of the smoke. I am glad I turned the engine off as it could have continued to fry the starter and other parts. So now we are going to strap in the battery better and put some tire rubber above it that it never rubs against metal. :)
It turns out that this mechanic we work with was one of the founders of motocross in Guatemala back in the 1980's. This was interesting as my brother Gary, now passed away, use to race in the motocross back in the time when it started here in Guatemala. So he had some crazy stories he remembered that were not related to Gary but still brought back wonderful memories.
Have a wonderful Lord's day on Sunday and God bless!
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Leadership Meeting and Woes 2
Rick traveling Guatemala Style in the Suzuki Boogie Boogie!I, Kemmel, just noticed this is our 100th post! Took us awhile to get here but we did make 100. When we first started blogging we did not think we would be very great at it and would just let it die. However, we have and do enjoy blogging although we could still do it more. :)
These last couple of days Kemmel has been involved in a leadership meeting of the staff of Health Talents International here in Guatemala City. This is a time when all of the physicians, dentists, nurses, evangelist and administrative staff comes together to evaluate where we are and also make some plans for the future. We had a good meeting and also got to spend some time with others that we do not see very often anymore. We now have a leadership team of 18 people and it is great to see the flow of ideas of how we can continue to improve the ministry of physical and spiritual healing in the communities and churches where we serve. We discussed a number of topics including management styles, evaluation of employees and processes, evaluation of clinic effectiveness, team work, and plans for future development of education programs. One such educational program discussed was the topic of sexuality as this is a rising problem in Guatemala with more teen pregnancies even among the churches. We will continue to see about developing some programs that we can use in conjunction with the partner churches and programs we can introduce to schools who are interested. Please continue to pray that God will provide us guidance and that we will continue to seek Him for this direction and guidance. It is always easy to come up with ideas, the hard part is putting them into practice. It is much easier for us to focus on curative care, but we need to make progress in providing preventative education.
Meeting in action.
Team building / leadership activity - the non blindfolded people had to guide the blindfolded people through a maze without touching anything to show the importance of communication, organized decision making, focus and close relationships. On the left is Dr. Josefina, RN Rosario, Dr. Marcos (dentist) and Dr. Jessica (dentist) who volunteered for the activity. They did great!
Marcos reaching the finish line without having to start over.
Lisa finished her OB rotation yesterday so just 3 months to go! We have said it many times but we are ready to get back to Chichi! This month she will be in her surgery rotation which we have heard is pretty grueling. She has been assigned to the surgical gyn ward which we hear is good news. This is one of the less stressful wards which compared to so-called gang warfare ward sounds pretty good. The gang warfare ward is all of the gun shot wounds, etc. so we thank God she was not assigned there. Unfortunately a friend of hers, Roy, was, so please pray for safety for Roy. In this surgical month you are at the hospital 7 days a week and on call every 3rd night so this will be a taxing month for her. During the days that should be your days off such as holidays and weekends, they must still present at the hospital to do rounds and make sure the other medical school students complete the assigned orders, change wound dressings, etc. Today is labor day in Guatemala, so hopefully she will get off around 10am. As she is an intern, the word is she will spend most of her time on the floor and will not have to enter the surgery suites, so we pray this is true. Our goal is she does not even know where the surgery suites are. :)
Woes 2.........
Well, last evening we experienced Woe #2 on the saga of owning vehicles. We think this is only a minor issue but nonetheless, stressful and irritating. Kemmel was working his way to the bank during peak hours of traffic to make some deposits to finish out the month. The bank is open until 8pm so I headed out around 6:30pm hoping the traffic had lighted, but it had not probably due to the holiday that is today. On the way I started to smell smoke and thought someone has a problem and quickly discovered it was me. The car was smoking where the battery is, so the first thought is oh no, the fire extinguisher is in the other car. :(. So I had to stop the car in the middle of traffic (at least in the far left lane) in an area that has the heaviest traffic. That was a bummer and I felt real bad for being the person stuck in the road causing more traffic. Anyway the car started to act funny as well and when I turned it off it did not turn off which was weird. I opened the hood after the smoke stopped and notice that the battery came loose and the plastic covering came off. Turns out the battery cable had contacted the metal hood and caused some sparks and part of the battery cable burned, but not bad. So, I fixed that and tried to start the car. The engine came on and just started to accelerate like I as flooring the gas and it would not stop so I quickly turned the engine off. This continued to happen and I was not sure what to do and was going to find someone to help me push the car onto the sidewalk (it is small so would fit) to at least get out of traffic. About that time a Police 4 wheeler came and hooked up a tow cable to take me to a safer place. I always wondered why they had the 4 wheelers - now I know. Once at a safe place, I called Lisa to come and get me and called the insurance to send a tow truck. Since there was a lot of traffic the waiting began and the tow truck arrived about 1.5 hours later. In the meantime, I had a couple people offer assistance and then leave with the hmmm.. maybe this but not sure. Then my favorite part, 2 of the friendly local fork lift drivers (yes they were driving fork lifts in the road during peak traffic) came by to offer their help. At first I though they were going to offer me a lift :) as the car is so small, but they were just going to tow me to the closest gas station thinking I was out of gas. So I said thanks but the tow truck was on the way. We eventually dropped off the Suzuki at the mechanic shop and I will go speak with them on Friday since today is labor day and a holiday. The good news is the insurance is paying off as they cover the tow truck, so I may have just made the insurance worth the cost.
We think maybe the acceleration cable is stuck or fried or something of the sort, but will find out on Friday. Pray for low cost and quick repairs! We always take it in for preventative work so do not think it can be anything to serious.
Needless to say, I never made it to the bank to complete the last deposit for the month.
These last couple of days Kemmel has been involved in a leadership meeting of the staff of Health Talents International here in Guatemala City. This is a time when all of the physicians, dentists, nurses, evangelist and administrative staff comes together to evaluate where we are and also make some plans for the future. We had a good meeting and also got to spend some time with others that we do not see very often anymore. We now have a leadership team of 18 people and it is great to see the flow of ideas of how we can continue to improve the ministry of physical and spiritual healing in the communities and churches where we serve. We discussed a number of topics including management styles, evaluation of employees and processes, evaluation of clinic effectiveness, team work, and plans for future development of education programs. One such educational program discussed was the topic of sexuality as this is a rising problem in Guatemala with more teen pregnancies even among the churches. We will continue to see about developing some programs that we can use in conjunction with the partner churches and programs we can introduce to schools who are interested. Please continue to pray that God will provide us guidance and that we will continue to seek Him for this direction and guidance. It is always easy to come up with ideas, the hard part is putting them into practice. It is much easier for us to focus on curative care, but we need to make progress in providing preventative education.
Meeting in action.
Team building / leadership activity - the non blindfolded people had to guide the blindfolded people through a maze without touching anything to show the importance of communication, organized decision making, focus and close relationships. On the left is Dr. Josefina, RN Rosario, Dr. Marcos (dentist) and Dr. Jessica (dentist) who volunteered for the activity. They did great!Marcos reaching the finish line without having to start over.Lisa finished her OB rotation yesterday so just 3 months to go! We have said it many times but we are ready to get back to Chichi! This month she will be in her surgery rotation which we have heard is pretty grueling. She has been assigned to the surgical gyn ward which we hear is good news. This is one of the less stressful wards which compared to so-called gang warfare ward sounds pretty good. The gang warfare ward is all of the gun shot wounds, etc. so we thank God she was not assigned there. Unfortunately a friend of hers, Roy, was, so please pray for safety for Roy. In this surgical month you are at the hospital 7 days a week and on call every 3rd night so this will be a taxing month for her. During the days that should be your days off such as holidays and weekends, they must still present at the hospital to do rounds and make sure the other medical school students complete the assigned orders, change wound dressings, etc. Today is labor day in Guatemala, so hopefully she will get off around 10am. As she is an intern, the word is she will spend most of her time on the floor and will not have to enter the surgery suites, so we pray this is true. Our goal is she does not even know where the surgery suites are. :)
Woes 2.........
Well, last evening we experienced Woe #2 on the saga of owning vehicles. We think this is only a minor issue but nonetheless, stressful and irritating. Kemmel was working his way to the bank during peak hours of traffic to make some deposits to finish out the month. The bank is open until 8pm so I headed out around 6:30pm hoping the traffic had lighted, but it had not probably due to the holiday that is today. On the way I started to smell smoke and thought someone has a problem and quickly discovered it was me. The car was smoking where the battery is, so the first thought is oh no, the fire extinguisher is in the other car. :(. So I had to stop the car in the middle of traffic (at least in the far left lane) in an area that has the heaviest traffic. That was a bummer and I felt real bad for being the person stuck in the road causing more traffic. Anyway the car started to act funny as well and when I turned it off it did not turn off which was weird. I opened the hood after the smoke stopped and notice that the battery came loose and the plastic covering came off. Turns out the battery cable had contacted the metal hood and caused some sparks and part of the battery cable burned, but not bad. So, I fixed that and tried to start the car. The engine came on and just started to accelerate like I as flooring the gas and it would not stop so I quickly turned the engine off. This continued to happen and I was not sure what to do and was going to find someone to help me push the car onto the sidewalk (it is small so would fit) to at least get out of traffic. About that time a Police 4 wheeler came and hooked up a tow cable to take me to a safer place. I always wondered why they had the 4 wheelers - now I know. Once at a safe place, I called Lisa to come and get me and called the insurance to send a tow truck. Since there was a lot of traffic the waiting began and the tow truck arrived about 1.5 hours later. In the meantime, I had a couple people offer assistance and then leave with the hmmm.. maybe this but not sure. Then my favorite part, 2 of the friendly local fork lift drivers (yes they were driving fork lifts in the road during peak traffic) came by to offer their help. At first I though they were going to offer me a lift :) as the car is so small, but they were just going to tow me to the closest gas station thinking I was out of gas. So I said thanks but the tow truck was on the way. We eventually dropped off the Suzuki at the mechanic shop and I will go speak with them on Friday since today is labor day and a holiday. The good news is the insurance is paying off as they cover the tow truck, so I may have just made the insurance worth the cost.
We think maybe the acceleration cable is stuck or fried or something of the sort, but will find out on Friday. Pray for low cost and quick repairs! We always take it in for preventative work so do not think it can be anything to serious.
Needless to say, I never made it to the bank to complete the last deposit for the month.
As Sheri always says, another day, another adventure!
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