A couple of cases from this week.

Yesterday in Chutzerob a 10 y.o. girl came in complaining of 3 days of lingering headche and episodes of vomiting after falling along the side of the road--avoiding getting run over by a motorcycle.  She had scratches on her face, but on further exam she had a palpable skull frature as well.  Her mom was agreeable to take her to the hospital, but reported that her husband was out of town and wouldn't get home til later in the evening. This of course meant that they would have to wait.  Our volunteer from the church, Sebastian, also an elder in the church offered to talk with dad that night and let him know that we were worried. Be praying for her and her family to make a good decision.

One our diabetics came in today with blood sugars looking better than they had in a while.  Being the week after Holy Week (when everyone is eating specially prepared breads covered in honey) I expected the worst.  She was excited to see her results and joked that she just needed a little honey in her system to get things straight.  She told me she wasn't taking her pain medicine any more because the knee pain had resolved, but that she was faithfully taking the diabetic meds and following her diet.  After reviewing her meds with her, we realized that in fact she had confused her meds and was actually taking the pain meds twice a day and no longer taking her diabetes meds....Yikes!  I sorted out the meds for her and congratulated her on geting her diet so well controlled, rewarding her with a lowered dose of meds. 

Holy Week Road Trip

We have spent Semana Santa (Holy Week) doing a hodge podge of jobs seeing patients and doing administrative catching up.  Since we scheduled to take off a different week for our vacation, we decided to keep our Monday clinic open at Clinica Caris and also help out with post op patients down at Clinica Ezell. Sheri was with us, so we took advantage of the time to go through our work calendar and make plans for education projects.  We also jumped on the opportunity to have Pizza Hut and McDonald's!   Post op clinic was busy, but pretty straightforward with good outcomes for all the patients.  Sheri and I saw all the gyn patients while Dr. Davd Lux and did the general surgery follow ups. Everyone was so grateful for their surgery and the wonderful care they received from our surgery team, and praising God for his healing. 

Thursday, we headed out to the Annual National Conference of the churches of Christ. They were being held in San Basilio, about 45 minutes from Ezell. We were a little skeptical, as it is a small town in the middle of a rubber tree plantation (that spells H-O-T!).  But the church there did a great job setting up a tent site to seat 4000 people in the middle of their town's soccer field.  The clouds had also rolled in, so it wasn't too bad once the breeze kicked up.  There were about 3500 people while we were there--from all over Guatemala.  It was fun to meet and greet people we hadn't seen since last year.  They announced that 30 people had been baptized over a day and half, so we expect several more were added by the end of Friday's services--Praise God! 

Our little road trip was a nice break from the routine and a great view of the abundant beauty in this country.
We are at the end of the dry season now with several  big rains under our belt down on the coast and the start of rain up in the highlands.  It's such a relief from the thick, hot dusty air and the building barometric pressure.  On the coast the big tropical plants are lush and green and the frogs are out every night serenading you to sleep.  In the mountains, the wet pine forrest scents fills the air and put everyone in a good mood.  What a blessing to see tesimony of the resurrection in God's creation every year.

Maltiox chawe***Gracias***Thank you

Our staff and visiting teams have delivered 160 water filters to ABC famlies here in the Quiche area. In addition we've made follow up home visits to 3 of the communities with nothing but good reports from the families.  A couple of weeks ago we were looking through the letters that the ABC kids write to their sponsors (that's not really snooping if they aren't in an envelope is it?)  and thought you would enjoy some of the comments made about the water filters they received.  It really makes you take inventory and appreciate the things that God blesses you with.  Thank you to all who contributed to this project.

"I have never had pure drinking water before in my home, but now I drink 3-4 glasses a day."  Cristina


"I take my water bottle to school every day filled with clean drinking water."  Candelaria

"Thanks especially for the water filter."  Lots of kids said that.

"I drink water everyday after school with my family which is very nice right now as it is the hotter season with lots of sun." Delmi

Last week we hosted a couple from Searcy Arkansas--Klay and Lisa Bartee. Klay gave a two day seminar on marriage and family counseling for local church leaders. Despite some deep subject matter, the attendees enjoyed the time together and working through concepts that will help them in their roles as couselors. Klay's wife Lisa, a nurse, joined me (Lisa) in clinic on Saturday, which was a great help, allowing us to send Gaspar  (one of my team's health promoters) to the seminar.  Our local congregation in Chichicastenango hosted the seminar and were generous to provide cooks and even extra goodies for break time.

On Saturday night we enjoyed dinner out at Los Cofrades after following the procession of Jesus of Nazareth through town.

We tried to hang around to see the procession come back to the church and walk over the sawdust carpet, but they were a ways out still.

 

Sunday, we drove the Bartees to Clinica Ezell on the coast, stopping at our favorite Lake Atitlan overlook. 

Usually we use the bathroom facilities at the nearby reastaurant, but they were closed.  A man close by overheard us and offered to let us use his house.  I must say, I'm not sure I would offer a perfect stranger off the street the use of my bathroom (at least not without a quick tidying up), but he assured us it was fine and led us through his living room, kitchen and back to the washroom.  Thanks for the hospitality Samuel--someday you will entertain angels!