Today was a great day at clinica Caris. It was one of our twice monthly pap smear and procedure days, and we had 12 come in. We are especially glad that one of our patients, who has had her first-ever pap smear come back with early cervical cancer, showed back up today for her biopsy. She was very nervous and came in with her husband, who was more than supportive. We prayed together and discussed the possible treatment options depending on the results. I let her know that having that pap smear helped save her life.

We also saw a 40 year old woman for a pap smear that in addition had been suffering from a chronic cough and fevers, and weight loss for more than 10 years. Today she weighed 81 pounds and looked like a skeleton. I did the pap smear, but tried to stress the importance of investigating her more chronic illness further. Her husband was also very supportive and we agreed that she would start at the health department with sputum samples to rule out TB. Next week our team from Eastside Church of Christ will be bringing HIV screening tests, which will be a big cost savings for this patient. They appreciated the prayer time and promised to come back for follow up.

Today, Sheri saw a woman whose baby has died inutero. She said she hadn't felt any movement in 3 weeks--the same time her little boy died from complications from parasites. They prayed with her and she agreed to talk to her husband this evening to go in to the hospital for treatment.

It is hard, but also a priviledge to be alongside people when they are scared or sad or in desperate situations, to be able to stop and say, "lets pray about this and ask God to help you through, or to give you wisdom or peace." And when they are facing the possiblity of death, to share with them the hope we have in Christ.

I sought the LORD, and he answered me;

he delivered me from all my fears.

Psalm 34:4

Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary!

Happy Birthday to my brother Kriss. No matter how old you feel, just remember, I'm older!

We love you.

Also, Happy Anniversary to my sister Anna and her husband Charlie. Congratulations! We love you.

Furniture Re-arranging

Please forgive the recent burst of color changes on the blog background. I get in furniture re-arranging moods and have to test out all the options! It may still be in transition....

We are enjoying our day off today, doing stuff around the house and planning for our friends from our sponsoring congregation of Eastside Church of Christ in Colorado Springs, who get here next Saturday! It will be a fun week of work and fellowship. It's one thing to read our blog about what we do, but another to get to experience it for yourself, and we are proud to get to have them down and meet our coworkers and partnering congregations.

Today I am also making lasagne and doing a little gardening. I am trying my hand at propagating plants like fushias, begonias and geraniums. I also planted some green chile but it hasn't sprouted yet. Probably too cloudy. The basil seems to be poking it's head out so there may be something there. Now if I can find some oregano and thyme seeds. Poco a poco.....

Junk Men

Mario and Fernando

So we have been looking for a replacement driver's side rearview mirror, and unfortunately it is an electric unit, so you have to buy the whole piece. Anyway, on Monday we were running errands in the City and checked around the usual parts stores. One guy told us about Zone 8 of the city where you can find just about anything you could ever want in a car parts. So we headed that way, without any particular store name in mind. Well, we happened upon one garage/shop driveway and asked a guy named Mario where we could find such a part. He quickly asked us the specifics and then called his buddy Fernando who ran off to some obscure "huesera" (boneyard) to turn up the exact part we needed. He then went on to tell us the advantage of buying a genuine-certified-preowned part designed specifically for our vehicle, over a Chinese reproduction piece sold at most retail parts stores. It was a good price and a pretty good color match, so we said, "why not?". They even posed for a nice picture for us. We asked the guy if the crime rate was pretty bad in the area, and he said, "Not so much during the daytime." So Kemmel asked, "So pretty bad at night?" And he said, "Wow" (in English), Not even I come down here at night!" We will try to keep our visits to daytime hours. :)

On Ephesians

The Ladies' Seminar was held this weekend in Paxot II and taught by Mary Beth McCown with our co-worker Rosario Poncio translating into K'iche'. The spoke on the letter of Paul to the Ephesians using stories, activities, and listening to the Word in K'iche' on CD. What a rich message, focused on our new lives in Christ which transform our relationships with God. She spoke on the gifts of forgiveness and our receiving of the Holy Spirit which gives us unlimited access to God the father. They also studied the attitudes we should take on in our marriages, familes and work. Everyone actively participated and seemed to be enjoying their time. We want to thank everyone who contributes this event through Health Talents, and especially the Brentwood Church of Christ in Tennessee for their faithful support in the church leadership conferences.

Sheri has some great photos to share on her blog, and I can't outdo them!

www.sheriinguate.blogspot.com

Carry Your Candle

Here is a terrific video produced by the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Edmond, OK. It features some of our very own staff and patients!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOfQYLGYjow

Anyone Feel Like Striking?

So we are at Clinica Caris today about to have our education time with our team and we get a call from Josefina's team, that they can't make it out to their clinic because of groups of people blocking the highway for a strike. Kemmel invited them back to the clinic to have education time with us, but they called back saying that they got cut off in both directions and were forced out of the truck to join the protests. What were they protesting? We aren't sure, but come to find out, there were demonstrations throughout the country, blocking all of the major crossroads. The paper reported on several causes: the Anti-bringing-in-the-cement-plant-to-our-town Group, the Anti-bringing-in-the-mining-company-to-our-town Group, the We-demand-a-raise-for-the-Judicial-Department Group. All this going on while the ousted Honduran president Zelaya lunched at the Guatemalan President Colom's casa. I'm sure there were other groups sounding off as well, taking advantage of the situation.
Anyway, we decided it would be better for everyone to head on home, before getting cought between demonstrations. We were worried about our co-workers Dany and Rosario who were coming up from Ezell, but they snuck around the back roads and made it in okay. Dany headed home right after, having to take another highway home because of the roadblocks.
Good times!

Weekend Update

We wrapped up our visit with our medical team yesterday with a communion service and later with lunch at the Hotel Santo Tomas. They have a buffet there with lots of varieties of everything. Even stewed tongue--YUMMY. Seriously, it's not bad! After we got the team on the bus (we waited a little bit for a few to straggle back in from their fierce bartering in the market), Kemmel and Sheri and I picked up a few groceries in the market and then headed home for a much deserved nap.

Of course while in the market it started raining like crazy, so I pulled out my trusty rain jacket and sauntered through market feeling proud of myself. Unfortunately, I happened to walk right under an overhead tarp just as it gave way to the weight of the water pooled on top of it and got my legs and shoes soaked. One little kid got a good laugh out of it.

Today we were invited to a 1st Birthday party for a little girl from Paxot II. She was born with spina bifida and has done well post-op. The family invited all of the elders of the church and family to give thanks to God for her health and one year of life. It was a great way to spend the morning.

View from above as we walk down the hill to the house. Ready for fun and RAIN!

Dad and Granddad welcoming guests

Birthday kisses and presents

Passing out the birthday cake--we had cake first, then lunch!

Emilia Aracely Yacon Sut

More Road Work

The day started out with a misty fog again, and we drove through the clouds to to our clinic sites of Paxot II and Mactzul II. Thankfully the sun peeked out and it began to warm up and clear away the clouds, leaving us with a great day for hosting large crowds of people.

Long hard day at the office!

My sidekick Sarah Stanley

We saw 98 dental and 35 medical in Paxot, with a busy physical therapy department as well. In Mactzul there were over 200 children screened at the school with a class on Trust and Confidence. In clinic they saw 70 medical and 80 dental patients. The church members were out in full force to help out and provide reception/secretary services, lunch and help out in translating. It was a long, busy but very fun day of fellowship and service.




It seems like sometimes we see large crowds of people and I feel myself cringing inside thinking, "how will we get through them all?" But, I have been praying specifically lately asking God to give me patience and a joyful endurance when we have days that are hectic. I think it is getting easier sometimes, although we always have our frustrations and hectic moments, I keep praying for us to be more like Jesus when he saw the crowds and had compassion on them.

Hittin' the Road

Well, we have a group visiting us right now--several from Alabama, Arkansas and also Texas and Colorado. We hit the road today like a caravan of circus clowns crammed in to a bus and 6 trucks. I'm not sure how we all squeezed in, but thankfully we didn't have too far to go. One team was with us in central clinic where we offered general medical and dental consults and physical therapy. Our physical therapist even made a home visit to a local man with partial paralysis from the waist down but with signs of some recovery of function. He left some excercises and we will be sending Sheri and Juan out each week to check his progress.

Another group went to a local school and did well child checks and an educational video and activity on Respect. It was a hit and the teachers were very pleased with the service, asking when we could come back.

Finally, the Xatinap group landed at their destination, and after sending out an announcement party, pulled in a net full of patients for medical and dental. They left kind of late but made it in without trouble.

Now we are sitting around the hotel checking internet, sipping coffee and tea and trying to ward off the cold dampness from the rain. Tomorrow we're off to Paxot II and Mactzul II for more fun. Wish you were here!

Clinic in Saquilla

Clinic in was held in Saquilla today in the home of one of the members of the Xepocol church because the road was closed for repairs. I thought there would be a low turnout due to site change, but despite the low number of Xepocol folks, we had a bunch of new patients from Saquilla. One lady, a very young newly diagnosed diabetic (24) came back with her blood sugars still running high despite maxing out one medication and her claiming to be watching her diet carefully. Unfortunately, I believe her, as she only weighs 98 pounds and was able to recite to me what she had been eating the last few days. We talked about the possiblity of Type I or juvenile diabetes and sent her for some blood work. Be praying for her, as this would be a very difficult disease to manage around here if she needed insulin therapy.

We also saw a 3-week old for a check up and is doing well. I couldn't resist a quick picture of mom and baby. This is the third child but 1st daughter for Rosalia--YEA! She really appreciated the newborn gift we gave her from Health Talents.

Rosalia and "Baby Girl". We don't have a name yet, poor thing!

On another up note, we saw two prenatal patients--both brought in by the same midwife. I am starting to really respect this woman (she has good taste in doctors!) because she advises her patients to come in for check ups and even brought me one today who was only 6 weeks along, but had had a miscarriage with the last pregnancy. We confirmed the pregnancy, reminding her that the baby was too small to detect on physical exam. The midwife chimed in, "Yeah, the baby is about the size of a bean right now. At 3 months it will be about as big as a large avacado!" I tried out my new fetoscope that Dr. Lesca Hadley sent me and was able to detect good heart sounds on the other 31-weeker.

Tomorrow is Mactzul 6 and should be a good day too!

Dr. Marcos and his 3 Musketeer friends tying up the equipment in the back of the truck.

Happy Independence Day!

We had a great 4th of July yesterday. It started out as a normal work day, specifically an education day for our team. Sheri and I (Lisa) tried out some new material from the Community Health Evangelism program (www.lifewind.org ). This is some of the curriculum we are trying to incorporate into our education program aimed at out staff, church volunteers, and communities. It was a little bit different approach to teaching, but fun and encourages participation. I taught about diarrhea and Sheri did dehydration. It was interesting how our health promoters would try to give the "right" answers to the questions (talking about bacterias, parasites and viruses) , but had trouble coming up with simple definitions for diarrhea and dehydration and concepts of fecal contamination. This gave us a lot of insight into how to tailor our approach and things to focus on when we get out into the community education.

After work we came home and prepared a yummy 4th of July dinner with Sheri. There were barbecue pork sandwiches, potato salad and veggies and of course, Diet Coke and lemonade! We wrapped it up with rice krispi treats (a little on the stale side--don't use reduced-fat margarine!). As we sat around chatting and planning our takeover of the world, we heard some nearby fireworks. It was a festive way to end the evening.

We hope everyone enjoys the holiday weekend, and remembers and cherishes the freedoms we are guaranteed as U.S. citizens.

Happy Birthday Drew!

Happy Birthday tomorrow to my brother Drew. You still look good for an old guy! We love you.

Occupational Hazards

Well, we had a lot of extra help in Clinica Caris today when Josefina, Manuel and Tomas showed up around 9:30 this morning after running into a massive mudslide on the way to Panajxit clinic. They couldn't see any good way around it without risking life and limb and decided to come on back. The rain has been pretty intense the last few days and is supposed to continue for a while. So far no hurricanes on the horizon, but when you wake up to rain every morning you know something is cooking.

We made good use of the together time, seeing all the patients quickly and spending time together getting organized for our team of volunteers coming next week. We have a team of 29 people coming to offer medical and dental consults and well child check ups in the nearby school, so it's worth the effort to have a good master plan in place, making for a smooth trip. Of course we always hope that there are no mudslides to contend with!

Celebrate Good Times

This weekend was busy, mostly celebrating (code for too much good food). We celebrated my (Lisa's) birthday (Sushi lunch, Peruvian ceviche for dinner), went to Carlos and Silvia's wedding(wedding food, and nachos at Mono Loco), and celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary (traditional fajitas--this time at Chili's, where we ran into our friends, Don and Heather Logan, and they picked up our tab--very sweet!) It's hard to believe we have been married that long--we both feel so blessed to have each other.

We also saw off our MET students, although we were sad to see them go. They were a great group to have and we can see what a blessing they are to the Lord's church already.

Also, we made another advance in the medical license saga--I now have an I.D. card from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, although I don't get my actual license for another week or so (still worthy of a celebratory meal--McDonalds!). After that, its to the National Registry office to get added to the books, and then to the "narcotics-prescription-writing-permission-givers (Guatemala's version of the DEA). Ahhh.....so close!