First Fruits

These are the first fruits from the orchard of one of the volunteers at the church at Mactzul I. He gave us two bags of peaches and plums---yea!!!! The only thing as great as the rainy season is the plum season--they are like big Bing cherries.

Clinic in Mactzul I was good today. Several non-christians came, giving us a chance to minister to them and pray with them. I also talked to the father of the little boy that we sent to the ER with a severe pneumonia. He said they took him in and indeed put in a chest tube. He appreciated our prayers saying that his son was scared being in there.

Our favorite little monkeys were at clinic today and as always asking for a "foto" and a "calcomania"--a sticker! Here are a couple of good shots.

Happy Birthday, Claire!

Happy 3rd Birthday to our niece Claire! Thursday was her big day. We love you.

Let It Rain!

We have felt kind of sluggish the last couple of days and we attribute it to the barometric blues. Today was really bad, and as we walked up to town to buy a few groceries we felt like we were dragging sand bags on our feet. The skies have been heavy with medium grey clouds and this afternoon they got to looking like they would produce. Sure enough, we heard a clap of thunder and then it started pouring! Yea, rainy season! I know I'll be complaining about the mud soon, but right now we are enjoying the smell, the dust-free cool air and the thought of shades of green that will show themselves soon.

Who's Next?

It seemed like we would never finish saying "who's next?" yesterday. The patients were plentiful and clinic was bustling as we had rheumatology and general medical consults. But things went relatively smoothly and people were patient, wainting all day to be seen in some cases. We finished around 7:00pm. It is humbling to know that people will wait that long to get help from us. We pray that God used us to touch hearts and relieve some suffering.

One of Kemmel's happy patients showing off his new glasses

Standing room only

Are we finished yet? Martina (left) and Mauri (right) waiting as we lock up on the way out.

We saw one 7-year old boy, Santos Elias, back today who is a patient of Sheri. He has neumonia and probably a pleural effusion with very distant breath sounds in one lung. Sheri had tried to convince the family to take him to the hospital but they were not willing. Yesterday he came back, "improved" but still breathing quickly and not strong enough to play. He still had distant sounds in that lung and looked pretty weak. We laid out the situation for them and (hopefully) convinced them that he would not improve with out surgical intervention with a chest tube. The little boy started crying, but the dad agreed to take him to the ER. We prayed with them and sent them on their way with a referral note. It's so hard to convince people that they will get good attention at the National Hospital, but we trust God to be with them and always pray for the medical professionals to have wisdom and compassion.

Today we are doing catch up administrative work as our Xejox clinic got cancelled. Monday we make a run to the city for another nudging of the old medical diploma along the beaurocracy trail and turn in our paperwork for our sanitation license for the clinic (and maybe a sushi run!).

Rheumatology Clinic

It's good to be back in our cozy home, in our own bed and drinking our favorite coffee at breakfast! And it feels great to be back to work. We are blessed to have a rheumatologist and brother in Christ, Dr. Ricardo Alvillar visiting with us. We stamped out all kinds of aches and pains today and picked up some good joint aspiration/injection techniques as well as some examination pointers. He is a good teacher and the patients are very pleased. We had 35 scheduled for appointments, but only 20 showed. Tomorrow should be crazy with regular clinic and rheumatology consults, but it will be fun. Word will have gotten out that the arthritis doctor's in town!

Where does it hurt?

Belated Birthday Wishes and Ciao to Chile

We are heading home to Guatemala tomorrow on the 0600 flight out of Santiago. It's been a great visit with Kemmel's dad, and we are so grateful to God for giving him a successful surgery. Thanks to everyone who has been faithful in prayer.

During our time in Los Angeles, I didn't get out our birthday hellos to my Dad, Martin Paschall (April 17th) and our brother-in-law Charlie Ferrell (April 19). So here is a shout out to you guys. We love you lots and wish you a great year to come!

Being (a) Patient

Kemmel's dad is doing great after his surgery, and we want to thank everyone for your prayers. It was a really long procedure that started at 1:00 pm and finished up at 9:00pm. We were told at 7:00 last night that all was good and that he would be taken to his room in the intensive care in half an hour, so we all left. Then come to find out that they were still working and ended up tweaking things for two more hours. But, we saw him today and he is his same old feisty self. He is confined to bed until tomorrow, but at least he is getting to eat. Today he was squirming around in the hospital bed trying to get comfortable, unable to sleep and no t.v. to occupy time, and asking for a hamburger or Taco Bell. It's hard to be a patient patient! The doctor says he may let him out tomorrow if he can stay in a hotel close by until Thursday. Thanks to the Lord for the good outcome!

Meanwhile we have checked out a few sights around town--today, the fish market where we ate great seafood for lunch (Bob was jealous!) and walked for a couple of hours around downtown before heading back to the hospital.

Here's some photos of the last couple of days. Thanks for keeping up with us.

Bob with his game face on, before surgery.
Mmm, Mmm good! Hospital food! Not quite Taco Bell. We will treat him to something good when he flies the coop.

Us at the top of Santa Lucia hill with Santiago in the background.

Santiago de Chile

Cool castle-fortress building on the top of Santa Lucia Hill in downtown Santiago.

Donde Agusto's Restaurant in the Mercado Central--good food but a little pricey for eating in a fish market.

Hot and heavy chess games in the park at Plaza Las Armas

Chile via San Jose, Costa Rica and Lima, Peru

After a long day of travel yesterday, we arrived in Chile about 2:30am and made it to the hotel we will be staying without any problems. We passed through San Jose and Lima on the way. I (Kemmel) was born in Peru, so it was exciting to step foot on Peruvian ground again after over 35 years of never returning since our family left when I was 5. We only had a short layover, but enjoyed some Peruvian Cehiche and Palta (avocado) - excellent. If you have never tried Peruvian Ceviche, you need to add it to you list.

We are happy to here in Chile and to be able to spend this time with my dad and our extended family here in Chile. The one bad thing about Chile (and the Chileans would say the bad thing about the US) is the fee you must pay for a visa. In Chile, they have a visa fee which is called a Reciprocity Fee - meaning since your country charges it, so will we, so there! Anyway, we entered the country with no problem after paying our $260 for both visas. Ouch, but we con only pray it is put to good use. :)

We will be staying at the same place that my dad stays at which is only around $20 per night which is nice on the budget, is clean and has hot water and wireless internet. What else do you need.....

His surgery is scheduled for tomorrow, so please be praying for a good day of rest today and a good outcome tomorrow. Thank you for your prayers.

Heading South

We are enjoying the beautiful scenery of Costa Rica through the plate glass of the airport in San Jose, while waiting for our next flight to Lima, Peru ( and then Santiago, Chile). There are a LOT of people here. And we are noticing that children from around the world are all the same! You have your a) incessant talkers, b) jumpers, c) cry babies and those that d) sing everything and all the time (sometimes they are the normal variant of Species A.

We debated wandering out to the city for a look around, but that would involve hauling our carry-ons around and having just enough time to find a quick bite to eat before rushing back through security. So we are chilling here and people watching, eating junk food and taking advantage of the free wireless internet.

Well, hope everyone has a great weekend and joyous Easter Sunday.

Prayer Requests

Our prayer life has been full of requests lately. We found out that Kemmel's dad is scheduled for repair of an aortic aneurysm this coming Monday. He lives in Chile and will have surgery in Santiago. We decided to book a trip to Chile to be with him during and after the procedure. We will leave on Saturday morning and arrive in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Thank you for your prayers for Bob and for us as we travel.

Like many of you we have family members and friends who are looking for work and/or experiencing economic struggles and we don't have any wise words of advice or comfort, so we lift them up to our Lord to comfort and provide for their needs. It's one thing to see the news and reports of falling markets and unemployment, and another to feel the hit to your own family.

The scriptures tell about a cure all for all of the problems that plague us:

James 5:13-16 Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. 14Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

Fun in the Sun

Here are some pictures from our fun little trip to the Lake Atitlan this weekend. We enjoyed great views, peace and quiet, swimming, kayaking and hiking. We also watched almost the entire 4th season of Lost! We will spend the next few days working around the house. Tomorrow we are invited to some friends' house for Holy Week bread--they are bakers, so should be good!

View from our cabin on the ridge

There are 360+ steps (approximately) from the dock to the hotel--straight up 100 meters! Our count isn't exact, as it's quite the challenge to start over when you miss a couple.

Great views!

View from the road above the lake. That is San Pedro Volcano and town below, with the Toliman and Atitlan Volcanos to the left.

Gate to the Lomas de Tzununa Hotel where we stayed.

Path we hiked to the town of Jaibalito. The bread crumb trail seems to end here!

I'm in the middle of the trail here. That's my dog stick, by the way. I left my illegal (in the U.S.) Mexican expanible friction lock baton night stick at the house.

More of God's creation.

How would you like this row of corn to hoe?

Okay, we were driving back today, and we saw what looked like a forrest fire at first, but the "smoke" was going straight up. It was a really cool dust devil--Happiness is Lubbock, Texas......

Friday!

We all scooted off in different directions yesterday. Kemmel and Sheri headed to Antigua where she will stay the night and head back to the States for a week. Kemmel then went to run errands in the City and made it back, thankfully, without any problems. Things have been a little dangerous in the city lately and we are always thankful when we get back home.

Josefina, Manuel, Tomas (medical team) and Marcos and Martina (dental team) headed out to La Estancia. Hopefully they were able to attend patients. As this is Semana Santa season, that area is normally very involved in the activities. The brothers of the church where we hold clinic are also bakers, so this is a very busy part of the year for them baking semana santa bread.

Juan and Gaspar and Mauri and I went to Paxot II for clinic. It started out slow, but picked up quickly. We seemed to be running a special on ear washing, so the guys got a lot of practice today! One 17 year old girl came in with her mom reporting that on Tuesday she heard a sudden loud noise in her ear and fainted for several minutes. She was fine after, but they were afraid it would happen again. I did a full exam on her and found no cardiac or neurological abnormalities. But, I did find something in her right ear; so I sent her to the ear-wash specialist (Gaspar) and a small beetle came out! Another patient, about 60 years old told us he hadn't been able to hear for about 3 months. No ear pain, but could feel something in the ears. Sure enough he had a serious ear wax impaction in both sides. I referred him to our other ear-wash specialist (Juan). Our patient left very satisfied!

No wonder she fainted!

We also got to see our patient Jaris, 7 years old, with cerebral palsy. The last time I saw him was over a year ago and was pretty much inactive, just carried around by him mom (grandmother, actually). Yesterday, he was sitting on the floor, crawling around and even pulled himself up to a chair. He even walked with assistance! His mom said he had been doing this for about a year now. He can only say mama and papa, but he seems to respond when you talk to him. Let's keep this family in our prayers, as it is a hard job taking care of a child with these special needs, and very few resources to help.

Jaris, with his sisters, having a hearty laugh.

Today is the first day of our Holy Week break--YEA. We are planning a trip to Lake Atitlan at a place that has cabins on the side of the cliff and spectacular views of the lake and volcanos. We will be there for a couple of nights and and then back home to work around the house. I made cinnamon rolls and we are taking our coffee maker so we can enjoy the view of the lake in the mornings with our coffee.

A Productive Day

We started out with a really slow day at Clinica Caris today. It is my once-a-month pap smear and procedure clinic and obviously no one was interested in preventive health today. All week we have had low turn outs and we are attributing it to the upcoming Holy Week. It is a big holiday for most people and a time of the year to take off with the family and find a lake or beach or even a small waterfall to enjoy. Also, a lot of people have the tradition of making, or contracting with the local baker to make a special semana santa bread (think pound cake trying to make itself into biscotti) to gift to friends and family. It is kind of funny, because you just go around exchanging bread and eating bread for about 2-3 weeks. And everyone claims that theirs is the good kind and will keep for several weeks.

Anyway, since we were not busy, we started inventorying the pharmacy and organizing. Early in the afternoon we got a call from the Health Department that they were coming to do our inspection for our certificate for our clinic license. We hopped-to it and tied up loose ends while waiting for them( tossing expired meds, cleaning bathrooms, making sure all hazardous waste bags were where they are supposed to be). When they arrived, they checked the dental clinic, our bathroom, asked if we had a septic tank, and asked for our hazardous waste removal contract and left. They especially liked the cute hanging stuffed animals in the dental clinic. We were completely surprised, because we have a copy of the report they have to fill our on our facility, and it's extensive. But, Short and Sweet is much better than the Spanish Inquisition-style meeting we were expecting. If we get the certificate from them tomorrow, we can turn in our license paperwork in the city this Friday. God is good to us!