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Today is our anniversary--we are celebrating 20 great years together! It's pretty hard to believe we've known each other that long.  It is the biggest blessing to be married to your best friend--thank you Lord for our life together!

We just finished a six-week period with our Medical Evangelism Training students which is always an introspective time for us, inspiring us to evaluate our own work and evangelistic efforts.  It's humbling to be the ones teaching people to work in medical evangelism. 
One the successes side we see the clinics running well and the recent addition of a young doctor going smoothly.  We hear patients say that they come to our clinics because they recognize that God is working there--something that is encouraging to all of us.  The churches are still growing, and maturing.  This year our plans didn't work out to sponsor a women's seminar with the churches.  But, we found out that the church in Paxot II decided to host a small one, inviting a local young lady who has been studying at a Bible Institute in the city, to come and give some classes.  This is a great step forward, especially since four years ago there wasn't even a women's class meeting.
But, there is always room for improvement. We want to grow into new areas, especially areas with potential for church planting.  This of course requires the involvement of near-by churches who would be interested in evangelizing the new towns.   So, we are praying for God's guidance, planting ideas with our partner churches and always looking for opportunities to talk to others about their relationship with Him, forgiveness of sins and the gift of life after death. 
Be praying for the ministry here, and thanks to all of you who always support our work. There are many souls to rescue still!

Public Health

Today was an exercise in public health work for us and the students. We have received a sizeable number of antiparasitic meds for preventive use and decided to offer them to the local schools in the communities where we have clinic. Today was Mactzul I and we decided to take the Sheri's hygeine talk to each class. At first they said there were 7 classes (K-6th) but we realized that 2nd and 3rd grade each had two sections. But it all worked out well. Sheri and Juan and Phillip did a great job talking about hand washing and the perils of bacteria. The teachers and director of the school were very supportive and hospitable--even sharing their mid-morning snack of animal crackers and hot cereal with us. It was a good way to practice our teaching skills on the different age groups.

 Getting into character--"Dirty Felipe"--Phillip and Sheri working on just the right look.

 Captive kindergarten audience--as Sheri said, "were we ever this little?"

Attentive 3rd graders--and MET students Lindsey and Becca!

 These two had patio-mopping duty, but it didn't keep them from having fun!

 "How many want to have good health?"

 The de-worming brigade--Mara and Dra. Lisa.....

 ...Michaela and Elizabeth handing out the chalk-flavored tablets--yum.

 Space is at a premium in these classrooms--"where 3 fit, 4 fit"

Lesson learned!

Week in Review

This last weekend we got to go to Austin, Texas to celebrate the wedding of Kemmel's brother Ron.  It was a quick trip, and we were not planning on going, but we really wanted to be with family and get to know his wife Regina.  We really had a great time and also got to spend a day and a morning walking around the downtown trails and the UT campus as well as go swimming in a local swim hole and eat yummy food!  We made the most of our time and our one-day city bus pass for sure!

When we got home, we and Sheri hosted the students over for hamburgers. They all seemed to be doing well with most GI upset behind them...... I joked that I'm always afraid that they'll eat at our house and get sick... sure enough we got a call in the wee hours from one to-remain-unnamed student, that she not feeling at her best so to speak.  Surely it wasn't our food??!!

Today, everyone headed out to their regularly scheduled work.  Kemmel worked on plans for the July mobile team  (50 people!!), our pharmacy orders and banking errands and even took time to buy us all some fried chicken for lunch out at the central clinic.  Ruben and Josefina and Sheri and Marcos and I worked the clinics with our students helping us with labs and patient flow--so nice to have apprentices!

After clinic, Gaspar and Martina and I went on a home visit to see a 36 year-old man with a mass on his head. He has a tumor growing out of his skull, obviously growing from the inside as his headache began months before his tumor was visible and has gone blind and started having seizures over the last two months.  We were all pretty affected by his situation and prayed with him asking God to heal him or at least relieve his pain. The chances of curing this are slim;  even if he could afford to find out the specific diagnosis, it would take more money than any of us have to pay for the treatments in Guatemala City, should it be treatable.  He is a Christian so we encouraged him to continue praying and to talk to his young children about his faith and hope for eternal life.  We will soon know what God's plan is for him--be praying for comfort and unity in faith for his family.

It's been a good week.  We have been busy in clinics, giving us a good chance to involve the students.  They are getting really good at vital signs and especially height of weight of squirming kids.  Sheri and I also had a couple of days each to work on education materials--Sheri on her diabetic class series and  for next week's school visit with anti-parasite meds for the kids.  I have been preparing a class on the anatomy and physiology and illnesses of the skin.  (Did you know, by the way,  that a single hair on our head grows 1 cm per month usually only for 6 years and then falls out--that's a maximum of 72 cm long--interesting).
Kemmel has been tackling the pharmacy inventory and ordering and today got stuck with car repairs--the Toyota truck needs a new clutch--bummer.

Today, we had clinic in Choacaman and the host family there gifted us some fresh greens from their fields.  It's kind of like poke weed--yummy, espeically sauteed, on pizza!  I asked what they were called in Kiche and they said "rax ichaj" --greens. 

After clinic we all came back to Caris clinic for a surprise birthday snack for Dr. Josefina.

Sheri brought cake and ice cream for everyone and we all enjoyed the time together.  Thanks, Sheri!  The local custom is for the birthday person to take a big bite out of the cake--we opted for the hygienic version...