New Year's Eve

I'm sitting here on the couch at my parents' house waiting to ring in 1-1-11.  We started with 20 people and are down to me and my 14 year old nephew watching Pawn Stars on the History Channel.  We did make a toast to the new year earlier and  thanked God for the blessings of the past year as well as ask him to protect our nephew Zach who was deployed to Afganistan 2 days ago.  We are trying to get our Skype connection to work well enough to call each other. 
Happy New Year to everyone.  Don't forget your resolutions!

ABC Water Filters

We have been focusing on nutritional education with the children in the ABC Sponsorship program this year with some great classes in the month of November (see Sheri's post on education http://sheriinguate.blogspot.com/2010/11/abc-nutritional-class-in-paxot-ii.html).  Also, this year we started offering water filters for our patients and others who are interested at cost.  Since we have been so impressed with the water filters and we are very interested in providing clean sources of water to the children in the program, we are promoting a program to provide water filters to the ABC families. 

Water is accessible, just not necessarily clean of all bacteria and most importantly amoebas, so these water filters provide a very cost effective, pratical and quick way to provide clean drinking water to families.

These water filters are made available by Helps International (http://www.helpsintl.org/), a development aide organization in Guatemala who has also developed a smokeless stove and made them available for other organizations and individuals at affordable prices.  Prior to offering the filters we have tried it for around a year now and have not gotten sick, so if a north american with a weaker stomach can make it with no sickness, then we know it is good.  :)  These filters use a ceramic purification element that only has to be replaced every year as long as it is maintained correctly. 

Here is a brochure regarding the program.  For more information about the ABC Child sponsorship program, please see http://www.healthtalents.org/index.php?page=programs#anchor6146 or feel free to contact us as we see first hand the success of the program.

Please watch for more information regarding the positive results of the ABC program in the area of keeping kids in school and furthering their education.

Paseando

We have finished up most of our ministry duties for the year and are just wrapping up some loose ends before heading to the States for a holiday visit.  Today we headed up to town, paseando (walking around) and running some errands.  The fair starts today and aready the streets are jam-packed with vendors and snake oil salesmen. We saw three smooth talkers demonstrating their natural remedies, two of them with snakes as side kicks to spice up the presentation.  One guy was praising the intelligence of the Chinese and their knowledge of natural medicine, and looked up and saw us and said, "See, even the gringos want to learn about it!"  Then he went on to show pictures of surgical specimens,diabetic wounds, tumors and diseased livers--all of which could have benefited from his products.  The last guy had a similar sales presentation, but it was hard to understand his message.  When he got out his knife and started holding up his pet snake, we decided we didn't want to see how that ended.  We kept walking down the endless row of roscas (dry, toasty bread/cookie-type snack to eat with coffee), sacks of peanuts and chiles and barbecue grills and hair barrettes and shoes and snack bars and roscas and pirated movies (4 random movies on one DVD!) and roscas and tortilla baskets and crazy pizza and roscas and ..............You get the picture.  Thankfully, tomorrow we head out of town before traffic becomes impossible! 

Scholarship Student Spotlight- Sebastian Chan Sen

Sorry, we have not written in awhile.  We have had a busy couple of weeks, but good weeks with one day hosting the ABC Celebration which we will blog about later (you can also see Sheri's blog for more ABC Celebration information and pictures - http://sheriinguate.blogspot.com/). 

Today is our last day of clinics for 2010.  Some of our staff finished up on Friday and we are hosting one more clinic with Marcos to finish up some dental patients and to get in another clinic before we close. 

Originally we were going to stay in Guatemala over the holidays: however, plans have changed and we are excited to be leaving to spend some time with family on the 18th of December.

This year we only had one student graduate from the Sherman Scholarship program here in Chichicastenango - Sebastian Chan Sen from Xepocol.  We have a another graduate Juan Rafael Leon who is a pre-medicine student who graduated from a school in Santa Cruz del Quiche.   Sebastian is the third student to graduate from the Sherman Scholarship program in this community.  The first was Gaspar's son (HTI Health Promoter), Tomas, who is now working part-time as a teacher and part-time as a data manager in a local health department.  The second is Ana Maria Canil who graduated as a bookkeeper and is a mom of 2.  She is currently seeking employment.  We are very appreciative of the scholarship program sponsored by Health Talents International and it's donors as it is making a difference in the communities. 

Sebastian with his parents, Juan and Maria.

Sebastian's father, Juan, has only a 1st grade education, barely speaks any spanish and only works as a day laborer and farmer in their community of Xepocol.  Mom only has a 4th grade education.  Through the scholarship program, Sebastian has graduated as a teacher and has aspirations of heading to dental school in the future. 

Sebastian has 4 brothers, of which 2, Tomas and Julio, will start high school this year.  Tomas will be starting high school this year as a Sherman Scholarship recipient and Julio is sponsored through the ABC program.  Julio looks like he is about 13 years old, but he is 16.  Mom and dad wanted to keep him from starting high school since he is so small, but he would have none of that idea and is ready to start along with Tomas.  The other 2 sons, Esteban and Emilio are both in middle school, also with aspirations of continuing to high school.  Julio, Esteban and Emilio all excel in school with averages in the 80's which is very good for Chichicastenango where an average in the 70's would normally be the norm for high grades.  Imagine, how this can change the environment and oppurtunities for this family, their community and their church.

Julio is on the left and Tomas on the right

Many have heard us speak highly of the story of the church in Xepocol.  It is because of families like this who are looking for oppurtunities for their children and then see the importance of applying their gifts to the service of the local community and the church that will help the churches grow and the communities develop.  The church of Christ in Xepocol currently has more than 10 students either in high school or entering high school.  5 years ago they had 1 student in high school and with no other candidates thinking it would be possible.  Not all of these students are on a scholarship, nor in the ABC program, so that could mean that the families in the church are dedicated to helping others also finish school.  God is good....

Please continue to pray for this family as they continue to work in the church and in their community.

Our week has been flying by.  We started with an end-of-the-year meeting and family get together with our staff here at our house on Tuesday.  Thankfully we had lots of sun as we enjoyed the backyard.  Our choice of cookout fare was hamburgers and corndogs with pasta salad, pineapple (good one, Sheri!) and chips and followed up with ice cream cones that the Lux family brought us.  We thought the corndogs would be a hit, especially given the love affair in this country with the hot dog and all things corn.  Let's just say that it was a little too foreign a flavor sensation for most taste buds present.  But a good time was had by all we think.

Wednesday Sheri, Gaspar, Juan, Marcos and Martina and I (Lisa) went to Xeabaj, a new site for us. This is a town where one of our cleft lip patients lives, and they had been wanting us to have clinic there for some time.  This is a great town to start a regular clinic, if we can get some collaboration from a nearby church to do evangelism.  The area is not as evangelised as the other areas we serve, and we saw many patients that did not claim any church fellowship. So, we are praying about moving ahead in that direction, and hope to get some interest from nearby churches to help out.

Today, we did some pick up and delivery of several furniture items as gifts for the ABC kids who have earned prizes this year.  We drove around the capital ending up in Zone 3 which is apparently the unfinished furniture district evidenced by undending display of curbside furniture for about 4 square blocks.  We drove around the block from where the "showroom" was to pick up our 10 dressers and 2 bookshelves at another house. As we waited for the young kid to bring out our merchandise, we were serenaded by Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree, Mus-ac style, streaming from the neighbor's place--a drug rehabilitation service called "The Carpenter's Son".  

We made it back and are now chilling and about to have meaball soup and sourdough bread for dinner--yum!  It's been a good week.

Happy Thanksgiving

We are back home after a week of staff meetings and planning for the year to come.  The last few years we have had our staff meeting over Thanksgiving, and it has become a tradition now that we have Turkey dinner.  This year we had both turkey and ham with sweet potatoes, veggies, and several pie choices, including pumpkin!  It was good and good to see everyone.  Our trip to Clinica Ezell on the coast started out uneventful, but the normally 2 hour trip took 7 hours due to traffic nightmare after a collision between two trucks.  Sheri and Gaspar and Juan, who were ahead of us all actually saw the accident and stopped to help, but realized there was nothing they could do and got through before the highway shut down.  We all made it finally and were grateful.
This week we start wrapping up the last 2 weeks of clinics and getting ready to have our end-of-the-year party for our ABC kids.  Should be a busy and fun end of the year. 
We want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving weekend, and give thanks to God for the many blessings he gives us daily. 

It's been cold here the last week or so, and was especially chilly while our visiting medical/dental team was here.  Our November team, made up of several from Memorial Road Church of Christ in Edmond, OK as well as some Texans, Alabamans and Tenneseens, is used to the cool damp early November weather that usually accompanies All Saints Day.  But this time, it was harsher than expected and we all found ourselves shivering through clinic and hovering over fires whenever we got the chance.  But, we enjoyed each other's company and that of the local churches as we ministered to their communities. One thing that stands out about this trip is, despite the cold weather, people in the towns were willing to stand in line patiently, all day just to get in for a consult.  I can't imagine doing that myself.  But, as someone pointed out at devotional one night, working together we are the body--the hands and voice of Christ in this world.  And this is what must be attractive to people.  It is humbling to think that people see Jesus in us.

After the hustle and bustle of the big clinics, we got back to our routine schedules this week. Kemmel has been busy reviewing the ABC program here in the Highlands area, gathering information on grades, behavior and participation at church, and helping the ABC director calculate how many will receive prizes.  On one side we are seeing more kids earning prizes this year (better grades, etc) but  we also have more kids who have failed this year.  We hope to be able to analyze the information and  give a report back to the program coordinators to help parents encourage and discipline their kids in thier studies for next year. It's also good information for us to know if our efforts are productive, and where we can improve.
For now we will honor and reward those kids and families who have put forth the extra effort. We talked with one dad today who has two honor students.  He said he is so grateful to Health Talents and the sponsors who make it possible to send more kids to school.  He made mention of the cost of education and the financial difficulty educating kids past grade school.  It felt good to have that kind of positive feedback and encourages us to keep motivating parents and kids to stay the course.

Mobile Medical Team

Just a note that we are still here!  We just have not had much time to write.  All is well and we will post a blog over the next day or so.  Please see Sheri's blog for what has been going on   and keep checking in with us http://sheriinguate.blogspot.com/ .

It is cold here right now - back to sleeping with hats and sweats.

God bless and thanks for checking in.

Marriage Arranged

So yesterday we went out to take part in a marriage arrangement.  Although young couples today have the ability to choose their own mates or accept or decline proposals of marriage, the enagagement process still looks similar to that of yesteryear. 

We arrived at the house of the bride-to-be, greeted by loads of family members--50-60 from her side.  The grooms family arrived in a bus from a town about 1 1/2 hours away.  The arranging consisted of the bride and groom-to-be, their parents and a "Witness" for each side, in addition to other prominant family entering into a specially prepared room. The room had been completely vacated of beds, dressers, knicknacks and others odds and ends stored there normally.  Instead was a large rectantgular room with fresh pine needles spread on the floor, a table at the front for the Witnesses(a church elder or other respected family member), parents and couple, and chairs all around the perimeter for guests.  Guests were allowed to come and go, allowing others to come in and listen.  The two Witnesses act as brokers for the families, first giving advice and premarital counsel, and then arranging the details of the gifts to be delivered by the groom's family and length of engagement period required by the bride's family.  Gifts traditionally consisted in a monthly delivery of meat and vegetables and tamalitos alternated with a basket of bread and chocolate or bags of sugar or soft drinks.  Some just agree upon an amount of cash.  Engagement periods can last from about 3-12 months.  After the famlies agree upon the terms, the couple goes around the room on their knees, kissing the hands of their elders in the family.  We were told that this is to show respect, and also to ask forgiveness of the bride's family for leaving her family.  (Also, if by chance the bride is already in the family way, this is the opportunity to publickly show remorse and ask forgiveness of her family).
The couple, Maria and Sebastian agreed upon 6 months (some say 7 as the deliveries will be made every 4 weeks).  They are an older couple, both 30 years old, and they seem very happy.   The groom is not from a Christian family, but they seemed very respectful of the biblical counsel offered during the half-day ceremony.
 
After the ceremony, the famlies share a large meal together.  We enjoyed beef and vegetables in a traditional red sauces thickened with cornmeal and complete with tamalitos.  Most everyone ate without spoons, working on the sauce first with their tamalitos and then picking out the veggies and meat with their hands.  But the hosts kindly brought us out two spoons.  Either they are just really sweet to us or they think we're spoiled, or both. :) 

It was a great day, learning more about this interesting culture we live in.  Today, at lunch after clinic in Mactzul I, we asked a few questions about the whole wedding thing, clarifying what we didn't understand from yesterday and them asking about what we do in the US.  Then we asked everyone around the table how long their engagement was, and if they knew their brides before hand or if they were arranged by parents.  Even Gaspar who is our age, said he only knew Juana by sight, and his dad and mom arranged the wedding--as mom needed help in the kitchen not having any daughters of her own.  The younger guys chose their own wives. The older guys said they had been purely arranged marriages--one said his mom found him a wife--probably time for kitchen help there too!  Engagements ranged from 3 months to a year with many of the men with shorter engagement (or waiting periods) less than 3 months laughing about not sure they could hold out for a year.  It was a great conversation that brought out the human side of everyone, great laughs and discussions of cultural differences in different places in Guatemala, the US and around the world, good ones, bad ones and just interesting ones.

The happy couple - Maria and Sebastian.  Maria is the sister of Manuel Sut Gonzalez, one of the health promoters that works with HTI.  We have about 7 pictures of Maria and Sebastian and Maria has the same exact pose in each one, minus the one below as we finally got a smile out of her!  Typical guy going casual and girl putting on her new digs - guys are the same everywhere!

Cute little cousins.  The boy in the green shirt is Tomas and we hope his dad gets to check out the blog since he is away.  :)

Cooking of the stew.

Of course lots of kids who warm up to us more and more every time we are around.

Thanks for checking in and God bless!!

Levi Lisandro Tomas Quino Salvador - Paxot 2

Well, we have not posted any pictures of Juan and Aura and their son Levi.  Many of you know Juan and some know Aura.  Levi was born in towards the end of August.  Juan and Aura are great and Levi is very cute and healthy.

Today we head out to Paxot 2 to join Manuel Sut's family in an engagement party for his sister Maria.  This will be our first engagement party so we will get some up front experience on how the courtship works.  This is kind of the local method of marraige counseling where many of the elders of the church and family meet with the couple and give them suggestions and encouragement for their future life together.  Will be very interesting and a great time to spend in Paxot 2.

We would almost move to Paxot 2 if we knew we would not have someone on the door step all of the time needing something.  :)   That is our US culture coming out, we like our privacy.  :)

We spent the weekend in Guatemala City, trying to knock out some errands and get in some sushi!  One of the errands was hand delivering my petition for credit for continuing education I earned in the States--they will honor them here, but you have to send a letter (and make sure it's received!).  That turned out to be a pretty quick trip down to Zone 1 (or downtown) Guatemala City.  Then we headed over to the International Bible Society to check on any special deals.  We picked up 4 boxes of Reina Valera Bibles at a good rate, just in time for tent meeting season.  They had a lot of resources there and even a reading area for kids.  One of our dreams is to have a Resource Room/Library here in our area where people can come and check out books and supplies and print out class material at cost.  We keep getting more ideas about how to make it user friendly and inviting.
Finally we worked our way over to the HELPS International office to buy some more ONeil WATER FILTERS.  These filters store 5 gallons of water and eliminate bacteria, viruses and parasites.   We have been selling them at cost, and little by little word is catching on.  Last week a patient and her husband came in for a consult and he said, "by the way, Dra, I want to thank you for selling my wife the water filter.  We have all been drinking so much water, now that it's easy to have around.  It even tastes better than the bottled stuff!"  We always try to break down the cost savings for them, and most people recognize how much they will save in time, firewood and upset stomachs--not to mention the huge difference if they are buying bottled water.
We rounded out the day with a trip to the grocery stores and picking up a few favorites like sharp cheddar cheese and Pace Picante sauce.  Mmmmmm.....

Clinic in Xepol

Today Lisa, Juan and I headed off to Xepol for clinic.  Xepol is about 1 hour + from Chichicastenango towards Guatemala City.   Once there you would never think it but it is only about 15 minutes off the highway provided there is no mud around.  Today we gained a new respect for Sheri as this is normally her clinic and the roads are shall we say "less than good".  At least on one occasion they had to hike in to the church building due to the muddy, slippery hills.   So today we decided we will remind ourselves each month to prepare some backbacks of medicine just in case we or Sheri and team has to walk.  The walk is about 1 mile but not so easy when slippery and muddy and carrying medicine boxes, etc.  Kudos Sheri!!!

Church building in Xepol.

Maybe hard to see but this is the back of the church where the mudslide is after they cleaned it out. There is a hole that goes back about 4 feet with roots and such still handing on. The road is not far above that. :(

This is above the church on top of where the hole is looking over the roof of the church - great view of the valley and mountains.

While stateside we got a laugh or actually a few laughs out of highway signs that say "bump" or "primitive road" as we went over the bump and thought, "was that a bump??"  We get our own daily exercise on the bumps we go over, but it is fun and an adventure most of the time.  As one student said once, "you have the best job, as you get to do what you do and 4 wheel everyday!".

So back to Xepol.  Today, gracias a Dios, the roads were mostly clear, minus the obstacles, but no mud, so easy going.  We were met by one of the leaders of the church and local promotor / translator, Tomas Salvador and he immediatley showed us where a mudslide took out a wall of the church and was proud that they already fixed the wall, but are pretty concerned about how to prevent future problems.  The land that this church sits on was carved out of the mountain by shovels, pics and hoes, so no small feat.  Not sure they have much hope without a bunch of rock and cement to create a retaining wall and I am not convinced that would work, but took some pictures to show some others and see what they think. 

This is a community that we started last year and it has been slow going; however, as we see the need and as Tomas is excited about having this ministry in his church and he annoucnes each time, we are finding it hard to let it go.  Plus, we have had some great contacts in this clinic.  We have had a number of patients whose lives have been changed forever in this clinic, including a boy with seizure disorders that Sheri has written about -
  .  http://sheriinguate.blogspot.com/2010/09/lemoa-and-victor.html . 

We have had days with 15 or so patients, but most of the time we have less than 10 and today was no different, we had 6 patients; however, this was after Tomas announced on 3 different occasions, at church, on the radio and at a community meeting.  We noticed upon entering that a large group of people was gathering around the center of the town for some meeting, so that could have affected us today.  The benefit of a small clinic is the time we and the local church members get to spend with each patient.  Today Lisa and Tomas spent about 20-30 minutes with each patient reviewing their physical complaints but also discussing their lives and praying with them. 

Todays theme in clinic surrounded the results of bad human interpretation of how we should serve God and others.  Some of the patients today were from another local congregation not demonstrating the kind of love and care God would want us to provide.  By charging members of their own church body for prayers, pushing them to fast while they are sick, and refusing as an eldership to pray with sick people in their homes, these patients were not seeing the results they expected and were beginning to lose hope.  The church health promoter Tomas was diplomatic and encouraging as he offered his services and those of his church to pray and council with the family free of charge.  He also encouraged the patients to resume a healthy diet and leave the fasting to fellow brethern.

We were also entertained today by 3 cute kids - Tomas, Ofelia and Sheena (with Hermalinda on her back).

All photos today taken with my computer since we forgot the camera - in a pinch works great.

Between noon and 1pm as no more patients were waiting around and as we were down the side of a mountain with "primitive roads", that could get ugly, Tomas was ready to go home and call it a day.  As there were no more patients and the sky started to look like it was going to rain with hurricaine Paula lurking in the carribean, we headed back to Chichi.  Gracias a Dios, it still is not raining, so maybe God is blessing the area with no more rain for now.

I have been lazy getting back to the blogging habit, but figured a cool date like 10/10/10 was a good enough reason to kickstart it. We have had a good week back and realize how much we missed everyone while we were gone.  It's good to be missed as well, and our Guatemalan friends made us feel welcomed back.  One of the questions we get a lot about missionary life is "What do you miss the most?"  Well, there are a lot of things, but our short list  includes:

#3 the spacious open highways,
#2 endless choices at the stores,
#1 getting to be with family and friends

Really, the thing that makes a place home is feeling welcome and having people that love you and that you love as well.  We are blessed to have families that love us and even support us in this work even though it is hard not seeing each other very often.  It was so good to be back and just be with our parents and brothers and sisters and our church families.  We were treated like  royalty  the whole time (and probably overfed just a little).
The thing we didn't expect, is that when we got back to Guatemala, we realized how much we had missed our family here while we were gone. We were greeted with smiles and hugs and phone calls by our co-workers, church families and patients.  God is good!

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.  Matthew 29:19

Back Home in Chichi

Well it looks like we fell off the earth if looking at our blog; however, we have just been in the states for the last month.  Great month and glad to be back in our home.  We will write some more later - busy cleaning up bug bodies and dust that has collected while we were gone.  :)

We started our morning by jumping a neighbor's car, and then one of our work trucks as well so we could get Sheri off to work (covering for Dr. Josefina after her appendetomy--thanks Sheri!) Then we spent our day off today with our usual walk up to town, stopping in market to look for some basil and tomato paste for some spaghetti sauce. We made our tour around town and ran into lots of friends from Paxot and Mactzul. While knocking out the shopping, Kemmel headed over to Buen Samaritano hosptial to pick up some lab results for me, but turns out they weren't in because Dr. Hoak the surgeon, who was bringing them from the Capital, was stuck in traffic on the highway due to a mudslide. So we headed on home to get to get a jump on the yard work and relaxing.


As I didn't find any fresh basil, we decided to check out the local Natural Medicine shop to see what kinds of herbs he sells(they use a lot of common culinary herbs here for their medicinal effect as well) . We were greeted by a 10-year-old counter clerk who seemed to know his herbs pretty well. I asked for some basil and got handed a bag of dried stems, leaf litter and flower pods. When I said I didn't think it was basil (even though it was clearly labeled so on the shelf) he smelled it and said yeah, it is. I went ahead and bought a Q10 bag of it for kicks and also a bag of rosemary. The rosemary actually looks like rosemary and is stem free.

After Kemmel set out to sculpt our lawn, I got to work on my spagetti sauce. To my surprise, one of the little pouches of tomato paste turned out to be ketchup, so I had to quickly spoon that out and rinse off the tomatos and find a (almost identically packaged) tomato paste pouch. It turned out pretty good despite the trace amounts of ketchup still cliniging to my sauted onions. We decided against the dried basil addition to the sauce due to the high twig and stem content, but I did manage to harvest 6 fresh basil leaves from my tiny potted plants.

About 2:00 in the afternoon, all the buses that must have been stuck in traffic earlier came racing by, one after another, making up for lost time. It sounded like a speedway in the backyard. Now we are hanging out listening to the rain and the local marching band practice their monotonous salsa-style parade ditties. I'm pretty sure our Nocona High School band practices had to have sounded much better!

We'll be coming around the mountain

On Friday of this last week we traveled to visit a new church in the area of Cubulco, Baja Verapaz, in a town called Pachajop.  The title is "coming around the mountain" as we literally had to drive to the far end of the mountain range and then come back to be able to get to the community of Pachajop.  Manuel and I(Kemmel) traveled with a group of others from Chichicastenango, Patzite, and Xesic to join this church in celebrating its formation 1 year ago.   Lisa and I visited this church in September of 2009 or somewhere around that time.  This church has a great story as people from Santa Cruz del Quiche started evangelizing this area over 6 years ago, and a man from the church in Zacualpa has been continuing the efforts for a number of years as well.  Over time a man by the name of Tomas was baptized and discipled to be the christian he is today.  Over this last year 30 other people have been baptized and a church has formed.  What an excellent example of how God can work and bring so many christians together to grow his kingdom.  In the last year, Cruz and his family has continued to visit the area often with the support from the churches of Zacualpa, Xejox and Chuchuca and also through the support of the Bible Institute in Guatemala City, BICA. 

The people here are very vibrant, hospitable and willing to serve one another which is always a lesson for us and inspires us to want to be better. 

Here are some pictures from the trip.

I do not have a picture of Cruz by himself, but he is in this picture of the group of church members who come to Clinica Caris for health education classes.  Cruz is in the back row far right with beige or yellow shirt.  This is a great group of people representing around 15 communities. 

Here is a pitcure of Tomas and the new members of the local church in Pachajop.  Tomas is the man with the microphone and the church members are too his left with his son and granddaughter closest to him.  The picture is red as everyone is under a red tarp with the sun shining through. 

Here is a picture of the crowd who came in support of these christians to worship with them, to pray for them and to show their support.  The dedication to each other is awesome as no one just gets in a car and travels individually, it is a community event, having to plan, hire a bus, pay for the bus, and travel 2-4 hours to get there and most likely deal with bus trouble on the way - we passed one community, Xejox, whose bus had a flat tire.

On other news we celebrated Sheri's birthday on Monday - here is a pictire of her enjoying her cheesecake.

On Saturday Lisa made us some apple fritters!  Yummmm!

Today, Sunday after heading to market we are resting a bit and enjoying the day, finishing off the day with worship services tonight.   We are really getting excited about our visit to the states to see family and our supporting churches in September--won't be long until we are "coming around the mountain"!

Peer pressure is a funny thing, and is present in every society, and we should harness it's power for Good when possible.  Today in San Jorge, our very large diabetic clinic, we saw 26 patients for dental extractions and 36 people for medical visits, which is not bad with two docs working.  In addition to that, we had 11 dental cleanings, which was a huge surprise.  We are alway recommending cleanings, especially for our diabetic crowd, but no one really ever takes advantage of the services.  Today we started out with 4 scheduled for cleaning, but by the end of the afternoon, 11 had stayed for the extra dental attention.  The only thing I can attribute it to is the fact that we are alway mentioning it, and today the first 4 got the ball rolling, encouraging others to step on up and try.  It has been a long uphill struggle to get people interesting in dental cleanings.  Kemmel's hard work in setting up exceptionally good mobile equipment, and getting two of our health promoter staff trained is finally starting to pay off.  Sure we still have towns that have very little interest, but after today's showing in San Jorge, I think we are turning a corner! Now if we can just keep all of the diabetics away from the Fair this week!  Poco a poco.....

We spent the weekend in the city, enjoying a movie and a little shopping.  Yesterday was Sheri's birthday, so we picked up some ribs and cheesecake to celebrate.  Despite keeping the ribs in our thermal bag, we smelled them the whole way back, together with the several pounds of coffee we bought to take back to the States next month.  Despite the continued road hazards from the mudslides in May, we made it in good time and enjoyed a great dessert and dinner together (in that order).  The cheesecake was begging for some coffee company, so we decided for the dessert-first route to avoid insomnia.  (Although the obvious alternative would be to drink decaf coffee at night, there are really no good options here--so we go for the fully caffeinated variety--before 6:00 pm).  We savored our meal while listening to 2 inches of rain falling and catching up on Sheri's week with the plastic surgery team.  It was a good night.
Happy Birthday, Sheri.  You are a blessing to the work here and to us!

It was a good week of clinics with pretty good turnout in most places.  The fair has come to town in several places, so just as in the States, we expect to see a lot of our patients opting to spend extra funds at the fair rather than at the clinic!  But all in all, not too bad.  Some friends of ours (Tomas and Tomasa) from Mactzul III came to clinic on Thursday, a little worried because Tomasa had missed a period last month despite using birth control.  Sure enough, the pregnancy test came out positive.  The problem is she is diabetic and they have had 5 children already.  Well, thankfully she is pretty careful about her diet, and has actually been diet-controlled for a few months, not needing medicine.  I showed them how to use a glucometer and sent them home with a box of strips and lots of prayer. 

Today we rounded out the week with a great clinic in Chuchipaca.  One of my favorite regular patients, an older lady with a bad congenital hip dysplasia and arthritis, brought in her young neighbor who had been sick all week with an ear infection.  After the visit, she hugged me and looked proud to have helped out her friend.

We finished early enough to be able to drive out to Mactzul III to check out the work on the letrine project for the church. It looked good and only lacked a couple of small details.  Thanks to the Donelson Church of Christ for your contribution of time, sweat and funds on this project.  Before we left, we saw our friend Tomas and asked him how his wife was doing with the glucometer.  He said, "well, sister, we were pretty happy yesterday with the fasting blood sugar at 103, but today after eating it shot way up to 125(still normal actually), so I guess she's not doing too well."  I quickly reminded him that we could expect a higher blood sugar after eating, and that I was very impressed with her tight diet control.  That lifted his spirits.  He gifted us some apples, and we headed on our way, greeting all of our friends along the road and waving back at little kids shouting out, "Hermano Kem-mol!" and "Doctora Alicia!"

How about some donuts?

If you have lived in Guatemala very long you have realized that there are no good donuts to be had.  Even in the capital, Dunkin Donuts went under.  We are forever daydreaming about running out to get donuts on the weekend.  Now, some of you will say, "I've seen lots of donut shops around and even fast food restaurants with donuts on the dessert menu."  We've been fooled too--very disappointing.  Not only are they less than mediocre when they are fresh, the product is left on the tray until all are sold--apparently up to 4-5 days later.  Now thankfully, we have visitors from time to time from the States, and they have felt pity for us and brought us really good donuts to enjoy!  (Thanks, Rick, Robert and Donna and Jim and Barbara!)  But, those moments are few and far between. Well, we finally decided that we needed to try making some at home.  I've always been a little intimidated by the thought, but figured we had nothing to lose.  So, I went online and checked out lots of recipes.  I got pretty lucky the first time.  These yeast donuts are great, easy and soft and doughy just like we like.  Hallelujah!  Here is the recipe website if you would like to try them.  Enjoy! 
http://www.secretdonutrecipe.com/index.html

Adventures everywhere today

We have had quite a bit of rain again and has rained about 5 inches over the last 3 days mainly just in the evenings and through the night.  This made for an interesting day today for all of our teams.  

It started out with thinking about how to get to Mactzul 5, as we quickly discovered that 2 roads leading to Mactzul 5 were out due to damage, which meant we have to change plans on how to get there and call Gaspar and Juan to come to Chichi instead of picking them up on the way.  So Lisa, Gaspar and Juan got to take the long way around.  Would have been quicker for Juan to walk from his house to Mactzul 5.     

Josefina, Marcos, Sheri, Manuel, Tomas, Martina, and Mauri headed out for Chuchuca in the mountains over Zacualpa. Manuel made it from Paxot to Chichi early to pick up Sheri, but then about 30 minutes after he passed through a mud slide closed the pass leaving Gaspar and Juan only be able to travel about 90% of the way to Chichi and then walking to an spot Lisa could pick them up.  For the Chuchuca team we thought the trip up the mountain would not be a problem but actually getting to the church would be , so not that bad.  Well, the road up was covered in mud with 6 areas about 20 meters long with 2 feet of mud.  The team was tough and trudged through having to get out an play in the mud a few times to make it all of the way through.  They eventually made it to Chuchuca to hold an ABC clinic and a community clinic.  We decided to skip lunch and get out of dodge before rain came back, which they were able to do.  All are home and safe now and it is raining in Chuchuca again.  Tomorrow we were scheduled for an ABC clinic in Xejox in the same area but cancelled as with more rain it will just get worse.

I (Kemmel) headed to Mactzul 3 on the only open road--sufice to say a normally 45 minute drive turned into 1.5 hour drive in the Suzuki Jeep.  I ran into more mud slides along the way and unfortunatey landed in a mud pit and had a hard time getting out, but after 30 minutes of digging out I made it through and to the Mactzul 3 Church of Christ where we are helping finish up the latrines. 

On other news more great news from the local churches which are continuing to see growth with Chuchipaca celebrating 9 baptisms of a family and a few young people, Paxot II with 3 new families, Choacaman with 2 new families, Chichi with 1 new member and I am sure others we have not heard about.  Please continue to pray that God will continue to use the ministry and the church to grow His kingdom and that we will be willing and will find oppurtunities to help people meet their needs.  

Unfortunately no pics but maybe Sheri will have some on her blog later.

We are enjoying our day off today just taking care of stuff around the house.  Kemmel actually had some errands to run out in Mactzul III on a construction project, as well as meeting with one of our scholarship students.  But he got in a good swim before the rain started. I have been playing chef, whipping up fresh bread and veggies to go with our leftover lasagna and a coffee cake for our afternoon rainy day coffee.  Yum!

Things are pretty quiet around here.  But there have been some recent baptisms in Paxot and Choacaman and one planned for Wednesday at the Chichicastenango church making a total of 11 for June and July.  Yesterday's sermon was a good one about the great commission.  Luis Suy made a great point about not just preaching the word, but also preparing the "soil" by praying specifically for the person you intend to evangelize.  He encouraged us to develop the relationship first and pray for God to remove obstacles from their lives and prepare their hearts to receive the gospel.  Good advice.

Tomorrow we get back to work, but for now we just enjoy some quiet time at home. 

Chuchipaca Church Before and After

Here are some pictures of the church of Christ in Chuchipaca.  This congregation demolished the old church to build a new church, all with local funding.  We had a group help paint the front of the building in July.  Since then the congregation finished painting the inside of the church and put on a second coating in the outside.

Of course, we all know the church is the people which is also exciting here as we hear of new christians and families frequently and within the last 6 months or so they have probably had 10-15 baptisms of new community members.  The church has over 150 people attending and an active children's program.

Old church builing

During Construction - you can see old building in the new building

Before painting

After painting

Slow clinics and New Clinic

This week has been a stream of slow clinics starting with Xepocol which only had one patient and Mactzul 6 with only 7.  Xepocol was the most surprising but not after hearing there were 2 deaths in the community and 1 death in a neighboring community.  How great to live in a community where most of the people respond in support of families who loose a loved one.   Other clinics like Patzite and La Palma were better with 2 of our first teeth cleanings in La Palma, very exciting.  Also, we had our first teeth cleaning in Panajxit last week. 

Today we started our first of many clinics with the church of Christ in Chichicastenango.  We have avoided starting clinics there in the past as it is a more urban area with other options; however, this was a church request as they are attempting to reach more people and have started a second outreach service.  Hard to say no to that idea.  So today Josefina, Sheri, Manuel and Tomas headed to Chichi and had a good first day with 17 patients and 2 teeth cleanings.  Excellent.

Also, this week we have made a solid attempt to start more programs in the way of prevention and education, so please pray that this will be successful and will bring more interest among the churches and the volunteers.  We will start slowly by teaching our promoters and volunteers one on one with patients during prayers and distribution of medicines. 

Church in Chichicastenango

Nothing to do with this blog but a great picture - Rural Guatemala Ice Cream 4 wheeler - someone's dream job

Sellado y Servido (stamped and served) or Test = Failed

We could not decide what to call this post so included both titles.

We realized last week that we actually need to renew our visa before the end of the month, so we had to make another trip to the city to request an extension of our 90 day visa.  We debated going to Mexico but thought we could at least have more fun in Guatemala City (Mexico is hot and not much to do in Tapachula).  This visa renewal was actually a test for us which did not end up in our favor and became a GWA moment(Guatemala Wins Again); however, it was worth the effort. 
Fijese (Well, you see) we went to Honduras in May via plane and had to re-enter the country via the airport where we received a 90 day visa extension.  We were not sure we would get one, but we did .  So we decided to take the chance and see what would happen if we calculated our visa renewal on the 90 days from the time we returned from Honduras in May rather than renewing 90 days from our last re-entry from Mexico in March.  The rule is you must renew your visa every 90 days and you have the choice of renewing in Guatemala City by requesting an extension or by leaving the country (the trick is you must go to any country other than Honduras, El Salvador or Nicaragua which are "open" borders for turism).  We know this but wanted to see if we could get by.......
Well, the result is they will figure it out and realize that your 90 day renewal is not valid (even though they stamped you in at customs with the usual 90-day authorization),  and will deem you as exceeding your 90 day visa and charge you a fine.  We ended up being 30 days over our legal 90 day visa, so we had to pay the fine and then they reduced our next visa extension by 30 days.  The reduction was fine as we leave for the US before the visa expires.  The good news is pay the fine and everyone is happy, which we already knew would be the case from other stories of missionaries, but we needed to know what would happen with the Honduras trip - now we know, although not the good news we were hoping for.  :)  Now we have been stamped and served and we are legal again.

As a result, our visa renewal time turned into a second night in the city but we were able to work out the clinic schedule with our partners in Chichi.  We decided to do a scouting trip on the way back, so left Guatemala City to travel to Joyobaj via San Juan Sacatepequez to Pachalum and then to Santa Cruz del Quiche and then Chichi.  The trip was about 5 hours total with a couple of rest stops.  From Guatemala City to Pachalum, the road was paved the entire way and took about 2.5 hours but due to road conditions between Pachalum and Joyobaj, that trip was about an hour or more.  Defintely driving from Chichi to Los Encuentros to Guatemala is much faster.  The trip was beautiful but very windey and all mountain, think highway from Los Encuentros but much more windey (there would be quite a bit of car sickness on this road!).  San Juan was very interested as this is the place to buy furniture - basic, fancy, you name it, they have it.  We counted at least 50 stores.  If living in Joyobaj, toss up in time to drive to Chichi and then to the capital or going through Pachalum and San Juan Sacatepequez.

We also crossed the river Montagua on a temporary bridge was the water from the rains in May appear to have double the size of the river and taken whole sections of the highway. 

Now I think we have traveled pretty much every way to be able to get to Chichi from the city.   The last one we traveled was through Chimaltenango to San Martin Jilotepeque which we would not recommend.  It is or at least was passible but bad roads, longer and a scary wood bridge.

Good day, learned something, fun adventure, now back in Chichi.

Other job - curious mechanics

For those who have come to Chichi you can see that driving here can be tricky and unpredictable.  As a result we have random bumps in our vehicles.  Since we have 5 total vehicles here, 3 from HTI and 2 personal, we have to keep them maintained which means extra time with the local mechanics.  Our 2 personal vehicles are a 1987 Suzuki Samari (first vehicle purchase from Gene Luna, a long term missionary to Guatemala) and a 1996 Nissan Pathfinder, both of which hold up well and do not cause us too many problems and to everyone's surprise the Suzuki holds up like a tank and has not found a hill it cannot conquer with ease.  We needed a longer trip vehicle when we moved to the city for awhile but decided to keep the Suzuki which still finds much use with little maintenance (Sheri's favorite vehicle).

Over the past few days I have been spending time with the mechanics checking brakes and changing oil on the Nissan and also, changing the glow plugs and fixing a dent on on of the trucks.  The dent happened a couple of years ago and is starting to rust, so best to get it sanded down and painted.  We did not feel the need to fix it real perfect as dents are a part of life here, so we had it banged out as well as it could be, painted and had the bumper straightened so the tire does not hit up against the frame anymore and had a hole repaired in the back side of the head light with fiber glass (so now no dirt will get in the head light weaking the beam).  All for Q100 or about $13.  With changing the glow plugs and fixing the dent, total cost Q570 or $71, with most of the cost on the glow plugs (Q320 / $40).  At least our mechanic costs are low here.  Here are some before and after pics.

Not perfect, but good enough for Chichi! 

Spending time with mechanics is actually quite fun and a great learning experience as these guys can fix almost anything and are very creative in their methods.  They are also very curious about the big gringo and why we are here which gives us plenty of opportunity to talk to them about what we do and why we do it and to slowly invite them to clinics and to invite them to local church services.  A couple are now even interested in stoves and water filters to take a step in bettering their living environments and possibly allowing us to visit with them in their homes.

When time permits and funds permit we will be visiting again to paint some other rusted dents. 

Last week we enjoyed a great visit from a team from the Donnelson Church of Christ in Tennessee.  They were a great group to work with, and included a medical/dental team as well as a construction team.  On the healthcare side, we were able to see our regular patients as well as check off some well-child exams for our ABC kids.  It was good to see all the children gaining weight approriately and most everyone passing their classes. 
Kemmel worked with the construction team each day getting some bathrooms put in for the church in Mactzul III.  We don't usually involve ourselves in construction, as it is not our forte, but this church has raised a lot of money on their own to build their first church building, and we had a team wanting to help out.  So, lets just say the construction team worked hard, sweated a lot, and got home late most days.  They were pretty worn out each night!  It was a good week, and we really appreciate not only those who came down to work, but also the church back home who helped finance the project, and who have been involved with HealthTalents. 

Saturday, we headed out to clinic in Chuchipaca. We really didn't expect to see anyone as we had been there the week before with the group, but we decided to stay on cycle so no one would be confused.  After seeing 9 patients, we pack up our equipment and construction scaffolding we left the week before,  and got back early enough to make it to the capital before nightfall.  We enjoyed a weekend of togetherness, laziness and movies and good food.  Monday, we went to pay my medical license, which turned out to be quite easy.  So I am legal for another year--whew!

This week, back to regularly scheduled programming.

We just said goodbye to our visiting team from Arkansas, Alabama and North Carolina, and Texas.  It was very large team, and to be honest, we were a little worried about logistics.  But, after much prayer and pre-game planning (thanks, Kemmel and Rick!) we enjoyed a very productive and fun week.  I got to spend time with my friend from medical school, Dr. Lesca Hadley, who is now on our board of directors--she is such an encourager and fun to work with. There were also several young 'uns on the team, helping with construction/maintenance projects, and I we must admit that we were impressed with their mature behavior and great work ethic.  Our medical and dental clinics were very busy, but orderly, and we got home each night tired but satisfied.   The great thing we noticed this time was the increase in participation by the church members as we ministered in each town.  We had so many volunteers helping to translate, direct patient traffic, work on construction, and feed and serve us lunch.  We thank God for allowing us all to participate in such a rewarding work.

As seeing off this team, we hung around the hotel watching the World Cup Final while our new team from Donnelson Church of Christ in Tennessee arrived.  We were rooting for Holland over Spain (we are big underdog fans).  Although I must admit my ignorance to the fact that the Netherlands is a.k.a Holland, even though Holland really only refers to two of the many provinces in that country.  I had to do a little Googling to figure out who we were supporting! So, despite our team losing the final, I am now a little more geography-savvy.

Tomorrow we head out with our new team, to share some more of the great work that we have here.

July Mobile Medical and Dental Clinics

See Sheri's blog for updates on the team and the clinics.  http://sheriinguate.blogspot.com/

Happy belated Independence Day to everyone.  We were able to enjoy some holiday fellowship with fellow patriotic expatriates.  At lunch we had a cookout with Sheri and our MET intern Nate and narrowly escaped a good-food coma during afternoon worship services.  After church, during the cold rain, we enjoyed another cookout with some of the local missionaries in the area.  It was good to sit and share memories and American food and fireworks.  We thanked God for the liberties and opportunities given us through our U.S. citizenship, for the uniformed men and women that defend us every day,  and also the freedom He gave us through life in Christ.

Today we are catching up on laundry, yard and house work and last minute details before our medical/dental team arrive this week. We'll have some folks working clinics, including well-child checks on our ABC program kids; and also a work team that will be busy helping some of the local churches and doing some painting at Clinica Caris.  It's been a good, relaxing weekend and we are ready hit the trail running!

Mactzul V - Before and After

Today I went out to Mactzul V and Mactzul III to visit with some of the brothers, see how they are doing on their church projects, and to check the situation of the running water in the homes.  My first stop was Mactzul V.  This is a church that 5 years ago had around 60 baptized members and has grown to over 120 baptized members and has over 50 families active in the church.  The entire community has around 130 families, so the church has reached over 40% of the families in the area.  Pretty incredible.  We have big churches in the US, but how many churches can claim more than 30% of the local neighboorhood attending the church. 

They pointed out another church in the community that has pretty much closed its doors which we are not too sad about, as the it was a church more concerned about required tithing than the spiritual development of its members. 

So as the church has grown, so must the building!  Here is a before picture:

And another:

This the status of the building now.

Here is a side view to better see the size.  This building is 27 meters by 18 meters.  3 or 4 of the old building would fit inside.

Of course the most exciting part is not the building but the growth and maturity of the church.  The church has raised Q250,000 (Q4000 each family which would be around 1/3 of a families yearly income) from it's own members to take on this project and have been saving for 2-3 years.  Now they are running out of funds which is a whole other situation, but they continue to find ways to keep pressing on and providing for the future of the church.

Please say a prayer today for the church in Mactzul V that they can continue to effect change and spiritual growth in their community.

Favorite people

Yesterday in Xepocol, we were sitting around waiting for patients to arrive (we were the back burner event to the Government subsidy delivery and the big party down the hill).  Finally people started to roll in, including one of my favorite sisters in the church there.  Micaela is 90 years old and has children, grandchildren and great grandchildren who are christians in the same church.  Her blood pressure was up after running out of meds--making her a little dizzy, but her blood sugar was close to normal, which is great.  Her son asked me in a loud voice, "She's not supposed to drink cokes, right?"  So I affirmed that and congratulated her on watching her diet.  I am always a little reluctant to put a 90 year old active person on too much medicine, so I kept her on the blood pressure meds and gave her vitamins and acetaminophen for her varicose vein pain.  I told her if she keeps the diet under control, we won't have to use diabetic meds.  She patted me on the chest and thanked me and asked God to bless me.  When you meet her in heaven you'll like her too!

Micaela Salvador and her son Juan Chan Salvador

Happy Anniversary!

Today is our 19th wedding anniversary--it is really hard to imagine that we have been married that long.   I think I speak for both of us in saying that our marriage has been a blessing beyond anything we could ask, and that we are grateful to God for allowing us to work togther in this ministry.

From the words of The Preacher:
Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:
If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
Ecclesiates 4:9-12

We wrapped up our time with our MET interns over the weekend, enjoying a great time in Antigua Guatemala.  It was good to the the other students that had spent the last half of the trip down on the coast at Clinica Ezell.  Everyone seemed so glad to see each other and compare stories.  Kemmel and I enjoyed a great tour of Antigua and some general vegging out. 

Wow, this crew cleans up nice!

(l-r Lisa, Kemmel, Michelle, Andrea, Caleb, Amanda, Jay, Garrett, Nate

Carrie, Sarah, Amy, Kate and Andrea)

We just have to say that we were blessed a very mature group of students this year.  We usually do have great students, but this year presented some especially difficult challenges (mudslides, lack of water in the homes, very infrequent bathing and laundering, bug issues and GI parasites), and everyone rose to the occasion and remained flexible and good natured.  All of you parents out there should be proud!  We try not to make this into an initiation-style camp for future missionaries, but there are definitely some out-of-your-comfort-zone moments.  We were impressed by their Godly attitudes and humble acceptance of the stituations. 
This week we get back to regularly scheduled clinics and make preparations for our visiting teams in July. 

Winding down

Today was the last day of clinic for our students.  We went out to Sacapulas, which is our big diabetic clinic.  Josefina and I saw 40 patients and 5 others came for dental cleanings.  We have really tried to work on diabetic education there, taking time to show the patients how to adjust their diets.  The big challenge (other than limiting carbs) is conveying nutrition information (protein, carbohydrate, etc) in verbal and pictoral form for the majority of patients that don't read or speak Spanish.  But it's coming along nicely, and the patients keep referring other friends and neighbors to us.  We also are trying to reach the many non-Christian patients that we have there, praying with them, giving thanks to God when their sugars start coming under better control, and inviting them to worship with the local church.

On the way back I sat in the back of the pickup holding Tomas' new kittens he bought from the family that hosts our clinic there in Sacapulas.  They were tied together and bagged up in a grain bag, with just their head sticking out.  We just kind of vegged together on the 1 1/2 hour ride back, listening to soft hits of yester-year on the radio (think Neil Sedaka and Partridge Family singing in Spanish--the DJ psyched us out with an ABBA song that turned out to be just the intro music to the station identification break). 

Tomorrow Kemmel and I get to take the interns to Antigua and enjoy a long weekend.  Kemmel has graciously offered to take me on the Antigua historical walking tour for my birthday (definitely a sacrifice on his part!).  It will be a good weekend.  We are both ready for a little pampering and rest after a busy month!

MET - Group 2

We have had the second group of MET interns with us for close to 2 weeks now. We started thier visit here with some exciting and scary 4x4 trouble in our travels up to Xejox. This areas normally provides for some road excitement. We tried to go up a hill to the church (which we probably should not have) and since we did not make it had to back down slipping and sliding. Here is the result. :) Gracias a Dios we got out ok with no one hurt and no trucks damaged. We finished the day with a good clinic in Xejox. We actually had 20 people show for teeth cleanings, but unfortunately we did not have our dental promoters with us as one was in another clinic and the other in a leadership seminar. So we are scheduling another day with 2 dental promoters and offering a discount of Q5 since we were at fault for not having them with us.

We ended up piling rocks under the back tires and backed down while trying to hold the truck steady and not rolling.

While in Choacaman the interns learned some more about patient exam and use of the otoscope. We had no diabetes patients in Choacaman which could be good news, maybe they are learning from the education.




We also enjoyed some time with a group from Oak Hills Church in San Antonio. This is Dr. Luis
Cisneros. He was with the group from Oak Hills and he is from Peru, so we had some Peru moments since I was born there.





Pat Hile came with the Oak Hills group and spent the week before hosting a leadership seminar in Paxot 2. Here Pat is preaching in Xepocol in K'iche.






Pat's wife, Carol, was able to join him this year. This is her picture with Juana, the wife of Gaspar, one of our health promoters.




MET group 2 at Lake Atitlan. We did our Monday trip with this group to Lake Atitlan yesterday. They were not interested in swimming so we headed out to Lomas de Tzununa for lunch. Lomas is a great hotel with some of the best views around the lake - http://www.lomasdetzununa.com/ . If you are ever looking for a relaxing, beautiful place to stay at the lake, this is it.



Missionary dreamin! We could live here! This is a house off the point at Tzununa, not bad living.