Company

 We are coming to the end of  North American summer, which is still winter around here. Our visiting groups love our cooler weather and rainy days. Even on the coast at Clinica Ezell the clouds and rain give a welcome relief to the heat of the day. We have had several visitors in July and August and are welcoming our September teams right now. Here are a few snaps from our last months' work.

Family Visit

Our nieces Allie and Olivia came down to see us for a week. It was fun to have some teenagers hanging around. They worked hard and cooked for us and made me a birthday pie! 

Watch out world!

Allie and Liv enjoying the beauty at Hospital Ezell

Birthday spaghetti dinner.

Eastside Church of Christ--Clinica Caris

We hosted our friends from our church family in Colorado Springs in July. This is always a fun and creative team to say the least. They brought a reading comprehension team that worked in the area schools, a diabetic and prenatal nutrition class for our patients and Nutrition program mamas, and a construction crew that remodeled our prayer and counseling room at Clinica Caris and did a paint job on the clinic.  They also spring cleaned our house and did some gardening upgrades for us at the house! We really enjoyed the fellowship and the fruits of their labor. We are regularly blessed by this congregation in the way they faithfully support us financially and encourage us spiritually. Thank you, Lord!

Work crew ready!

After a long day, enjoying dinner together.

Kelly and Heather helping catch us up on vitamin packaging.

Jolee inspiring kids to love reading.

Crazy traffic from the Driver's Day holiday for all the truck and public transport drivers.

Heather and I at Clinica Caris

James, Bill and Kevin with Diego working on the Prayer and Counseling room.

Joyce and our translators Ana and Haydee ready for classes

McClain and Bryce on the go!

Kevin and Diego communicating without words haha!

Headed out for a "three hour tour"

Sweet baby from the Nutrition Program class

Richard patiently painting the hard to reach places.

Home visit to set up water filters.

A little stop at the local nursery.

Joyce encouraging a first grader.

Benita showing us how to work the new hemoglobin A1c monitors.

Kelly dusting off her pedi skills

Very warm welcome from the Chuchipaca II Iglesia de Cristo!

Shawna teaching the Nutrition Program moms about prenatal and early childhood nutrition.

August General/Plastics/Urology Surgery--Hospital Ezell

Our monthly surgery teams are going well at Hospital Ezell since re-iniciating services in March of this year. We are grateful for the visiting surgical staff as well as our Guatemalan hospital staff that keep things running mostly smoothly. We are also thankful to God for his provision and protection for our patients during these weeks. 

Happy Birthday, Sheri! You can't hide. 

For the glory of God!

Ready to go back!

Receiving patients in post op recovery area.

Our star general surgery team!

Plastic surgery

Recovery team

Hardworking nursing team

Ready to go back!

Urology

Thank you everybody!

God Provides

In Guatemala, it is customary to say "thank you" to everyone around the table when you finish eating. In the Spanish language you will get a "may it be good for you" in response. In the Kiche language you will get a "God Provides." Corn is considered the centerpoint of the meal in Guatemalan indigenous culture and if there is nothing else to eat, they will say, "I'm happy with just a little salt and chile with my tortillas."

Tortillas cooking on a comal and baskets of fresh tortillas.

The economy here in Guatemala is taking a beating just like it is in the States. People in rural areas make minimum wage ($400) if they have a good job or usually less if they are day laborers. But the food prices, including corn keep going up, making it difficult to feed the family. 

This last Christmas, one of our supporting churches, Meadowbrook Church of Christ in Jackson, MS wanted to help out and  had a fundraiser to buy a 100 lb sack of corn for each ABC child in the Health Talents' program. With God's help they ended up raising enough for two such deliveries for our 650 ABC-sponsored kids!

One of our ABC churches getting their delivery.

This week we were able to get out that second delivery to the families, and they were definitely grateful! Maltiox chiwe (thanks y'all), Meadowbrook brothers and sisters! 

Maltiox ri Dios!

Medical Evangelism Training

 This is our first year since the pandemic to receive summer interns for our Medical Evangelism Training (MET) program. This program has been in existence since 1989 when the first team went to Honduras to work with Predisan ministry and Dr. Robert and Doris Clark. The following year,  two teams went out--half to Honduras and half to Guatemala with Dr. Mike and Julie Kelly. Our very own Kemmel Dunham was part both classes in 1989 and 1990. I joined the team in 1990 to Guatemala where Kemmel and I met--on MET! 

Since then, there have been between 8-12 college student come to Guatemala every summer to learn about health care and evangelism and foreign missions. When Covid came along, the MET program went the way of all of our other groups. But this year we are pleased to have 3 students with us again. Asiah Powers, John Howard Hassman and Will Grogan.  They have been to language school for a week, had their orientation camping weekend and now will split their time between Chicaco in the Hospital Ezell area and Paxot II in the Clinica Caris area. Definitely some differences in cultures! 

Most of our interns find out about our program through word of mouth from our former interns, visiting teams and promotional visits to campuses. So its a small team this time. But God has always used common people, weak people, and small armies to carry out his plans--we are excited to see what God will do with these three mighty servants!

Asiah Powers, John Howard Hassman and Will Grogan our star interns!

Time at language school in Quetzaltenango

We camped together for a weekend in the Sunday School room at the Church of Christ in Paxot II!

MET orientation--learning about language and culture and evangelism.

Juana graciously preparing meals for us during our orientation weekend.

This is a tuj--a family sauna. Manuel and Juana who hosted our meals offered us an evening of sauna style bathing on Saturday night. 

Our morning view from the church terrace.

Asiah's fan club at church.

Happy Spring!

I love Spring! So many new plants and flowers growing back after a long cold winter or a dry season. And the different birds visiting the area or coming back home. It gives us a reminder of the new life we  believers will experience when Jesus raises us up at the last day.

Beautiful orchid of the coastal area that blooms in the dry season--Encyclia cordigera var. rosea

In the "Land of Eternal Spring" we still have some seasonal changes that mark the calendar for us. Right now we are in the dead of dry season still, so it's hard to see much going on in the plant world, but our butterflies and bees are busy, and bird activity is very high with visiting migrators and nesting resident birds. And we can't forget the sompopos-- the flying ants are nesting and will soon start swarming and be eaten by the locals!

Crimson Patch butterfly

We also welcome our Spring Break teams from the Christian colleges back home. This year we hosted Harding University Physician Assistant program and Lipscomb University for two weeks of well-child checkups on the kids in our ABC child sponsorship program. A big thanks to our visting health care providers who donate their time to help our patients and teach future medical and dental professionals!

Nicole and Megan with a healthy family.

Our welcoming committee at the Chichicastenango Iglesia de Cristo

Harding PA program stars!

Mactzul II Iglesia de Cristo hosting several congregations' ABC kids for their check ups.

Julie, Olivia and Megan getting the warm welcome.

Olivia turned 21 with us--great age for a first birthday cake face plant! 

First one since before the pandemic!

Loralei becoming a pro at pediatric blood pressures.

Nour multitasking at the vital signs station.

Hannah showing everybody how it's done.

Lipscomb Unversity team

Gracias, Nicole Mount PA-C, Sarah Tipton, PA-C, Julie Copeland, PA-C, Alan Bradshaw, PhD., Nathan Russell, DDS, Andrew Marshall, DDS, Tim Silvas, DDS, Eric Lander, MD, Brian Cress, MD, and Elizabeth Bernard, PA-C! 

An added bonus with this team was a visit from Ken P'Pool from Meadowbrook Church of Christ who came to see the delivery of 100-lb bags of corn to each of the ABC children's families. The church had a great Christmas campaign through their children's and youth ministry to raise the money to help families with one of their main food expenses. It was a long, tiring week of delivieries and home visits, but they were met with lots of thankful smiles and coffee invites. Gracias Meadowbrook Church!

Ken and I after a long day at clinic.

One of the many truckloads of corn that went out to the ABC families, thanks to Meadowbrook Church!