Another Difficult Month Finished

June has now passed and this is Lisa's last month in service at Hospital Roosevelt. Last month was a little better than surgery, but still a very difficult month with long days and difficult patients. This last month of July we were hoping for Lisa to be assigned to the hospital clinic but instead she was assigned to men's ER. This is not as good as the clinic but better than women's ER and some of the other options. The word is during this month you get off earlier - around 4:30pm so that will be a nice change for her.

For those that read the blog before 2pm today, please say a quick prayer for her as she has a midterm exam today. She was pretty nervous this morning as we were driving to the hospital.

On the Chichi front, this week we are expecting a group to come work in some mobile medical clinics. We are also beginning the trial phase of a school program we are starting for the schools that surround the clinic in Lemoa. In this program we will provide medical and dental exams for the children of the school and will also look for opportunities to provide education on health topics. The schools have been very open to the idea so hopefully we will also have good responses from the parents. We hope to encourage parents to seek treatment when needed and preventatively, especially for dental care.

The MET students are now back home after a great month living with families, experiencing culture and experiencing serving in medical missions. We hope and pray this month has helped each one develop an idea and desire to serve in the future.

Just one month left.........Praise God! A familiar term used here in Guatemala for this physician service is that the experience is "bonito" (would be translated as a good, special experience); however, we are still not convinced we would consider any of it "bonito". It has potential of being a very good program, but the killer is the demand on time which takes away any good experiences that could happen.

We are looking forward to August and even more so to September when we get to go back to the US and visit family and October when we will be back full-time in Chichi. Oh how we miss Chichi - home.

Thank you for all you prayers.