Praying for the Priest

Today is a cold rainy day and we made bets on the drive out to clinic about how many patients would show. Gaspar (the pessimist) won--guessing 4. So we were pretty bummed about that. But, one of the patients (a regular) who came in is an interesting guy. He is a neighbor of the family that hosts the clinic, very nice guy with a good family. But he says he doesn't worship in any of the churches in town. He is actually a priest in the Mayan tradicional religion. I asked him if he would like to visit and maybe learn a little about the word of God, and he said that he has been invited numerous times by several churches and prefers not to get involved in the problems he has seen in them. He pointed out that many so-called "christians" that he knows are people who steal on the side or preach a good sermon and have 2 or 3 mistresses behind their wives backs. He then said he tries to be a good man and provide for his family and feels like that is good enough. So we talked some more about how we are all sinners, that no one is perfect and must all answer to God for our sins, but that God offers to forgive our sins by accepting Christ's death as payment if we choose to believe and accept that forgiveness. He then went on to tell us about how many times God had spared his life and that of his family, at which point we quickly pointed out the mercy and patience God has had with him in desire for him to turn to God and that one day there will not be another chance. That without Christ, we will have to answer for our sins here on earth. He was willing to talk and said he agreed with several points but he would have to think about it and he was still watching the church members here to see how they conduct themselves.

The moral of the story is our actions speak so loudly, and people are watching what we do and comparing our words to our deeds. Please pray for this man (Diego) and his family as they struggle spirtually that God will continue to be patient and that they will come to know the Lord. And pray that the church shines brightly in the community as the body of Christ and the example of God's love.

Band Practice

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's that time of year again--Independence Day is just around the corner. And what is it that reminds us of the upcoming holiday? The weather? The decorations in the stores? No.....its the never-ending band practice that begins at 0500 hours and continues until dark. Every school in town has its drum corp working up its songs and dances! Kemmel is convinced they are all playing the same one song over and over again! There is also lots of torch-running races and water balloon throwing. Last year we had the pleasure of driving to Antigua (normally a 2 1/2 hour trip) on the day before Independance day when everyone was running the race. The entire trip was met with water balloons being thrown at us by kids along the highway (actually pretty fun) and then we got to the mother of all traffic jams in one of the cross roads towns where we sat for 4 hours watching water soaked teams of runners go by. Good times!

So, because we will be out of the country this year for Independence Day, here's to all the bands and runners and water balloon champions out there. Happy 15th of September!

Tick tock

Conversation today on the phone to change a hotel reservation in the States:
Hotel Desk: "XXXX's Hotel"
Kemmel: "Hello....I would like to cancel a reservation....." As Kemmel tries to give more information, receptionist interrupts:
Hotel Desk: "NAME?"
Kemmel: "Kemmel Dunham"
Hotel Desk: Okay, its canceled.
Hangs up.

Conversation today in the Health Department to arrange a seminar for midwives:



Staff nurse: "Hey, it's Dr. Lisa! How are you? (kiss cheek) We sure have missed you. How did your time in the city go? "
Lisa: "Hi, how are you (kiss cheek)? It's so good to see you again. It was great. Just getting back to work."
Staff nurse: "Is it good to be back?"
Lisa: "Yes, wonderful. I really missed being here. And how has everyone been around here?"
Staff nurse: "Great, but we have missed you a lot. When are you coming back to work here at the health department?"
Kemmel and Lisa: Other pleasantries.....
Staff nurse: Other pleasantries... for about 20 minutes before we get to the issue at hand.
1 1/2 hours later we finish arranging a meeting for a midwife seminar.

Today we spent about 3 hours just making reservations and getting things scheduled on the calendar for the midwife seminar. Tomorrow we will take the official letter to the health department and probably spend another hour exchanging pleasantries with various staff. While we often joke about the 3-times rule here in Guatemala (everything takes 3X as long to do here as it does in the States), we have decided that sometimes we like the hospitable/friendly way people interrelate and conduct business with each other here (except when we are in a hurry to get things done!!!).

Pictures from our latest Health Pomoter class

The reason we have not had any pictures lately is our camera has disappeared (code for maybe stolen). So we received these pictures from one of our co-workers, Marcos Lux, who is the dentist that works with us. I do not know if we have told his story but it is good and maybe for another day. To make it short he is a very compassionate caregiver and a great person.




These pictures are from our latest health promoter class and help demonstrate how much it has grown. We started with a few people and now we have this group which represents 17 communities including our phyisicians. We are very excited to see how this group has grown. For those who have visited you may recognize some of the faces from the communities and maybe if you have a keen eye, one of the table waiters at Hotel Santo Tomas. His name is Roberto and he is the brother of one of the ladies who normally comes and attends church in Chichicastenango.

Funny Things We See

From time to time we see really funny things here. Example:

A sign for a tiny little hotel along a strip of mechanic shops and cafes along the highway in Chimaltenango with a sign showing their (supposedly) elegant rooms and ocean view from the window. (For those of you not familiar with Guatemalan geography, Chimaltenango is a land-locked mountain town). We're on to them! Kemmel is filing a false advertising claim with the Chamber of Commerce--we will let you know how that goes.......

Clinic in Chutzorob I

"Where is Chutzorob I ?", you may ask. Well to be exact, it is 20 minutes down the road (by truck), from Chuchipaca II, and about 10 minutes before you get to Chumanzana! This is a new community that Sheri and the team started doing clinic in, and Saturday was my first time out there. Kemmel stayed back at the house and played computer-repairman for mine and Sheri's computers. He could open his own fix-it-up shop!
The brethren are so organized in Chutzorob, that they have nine members signed up to help with clinic, and are divided into 3 teams of 3 that rotate weeks with us. They even made up some signs to announce when we are scheduled to be out there. This time we worked with Sebastian, Manuel and Tomas who were did a great job praying, counseling and translating for us. We only saw 13 patients this time, but more than half were non church members, and several did not attend church anywhere at all so we felt like we made some good contacts. Afterward, we went to Sebastian's house and did a home visit to see his daughter who has been weak since her miscarriage a month ago. Phyisically she appeared to be recovering, but she was dealing with some depression and issues with her in-laws. So, we spent some time counseling with her and praying for her. The family invited us to have lunch with them, and we enjoyed chicken soup and tamalitos together. When we left, the patient seemed be perked up a little and said she appreciated our visit and prayers.

Today, we slept in (6:30) and went for a walk to town to do some errands. The great thing about living here, is everyone is open on Sunday morning and all the churches meet in the afternoon. So we wandered around town some and saw several friends we hadn't seen in a while. It's good to be back! Then we headed home, got ready for church and walked back to town. We were welcomed back to church by all of our friends and saw how the church had grown some with new faces in the crowd. They told us that they had had 4 baptisms in the last month alone. There had also obviously been a new crop of babies while we had been gone--very cute!

Well, tomorrow we head to the capital to renew our visas and then hurry back to get ready for clinic on Tuesday. Thanks for checking in, and keep up the prayers for this work.

Back in the saddle

As Lisa mentioned we are back in Chichi and took off on full force. Since returning we have been able to attend a few clinics and visit some of the communities we have been involved with for the last few years. It feels good to be back and to have the opportunity to serve with these brothers and sisters.

On Tuesday, we had our education day where we have volunteers come from around the area (up to 1.5 hours away) to spend some time together worshiping, learning about health issues and to catch up on each other. We have been doing this since the beginning of the year and we started out kind of slow. However, the last couple of months we have had 25-30 volunteers come for the classes. The volunteers are coming from 15-20 different communities, most from the communities where we hold clinic which means we have more than a 50% participation. From these promoters we have 2 now seeing patients in their communities and we hope to start many more during 2009. Josefina and Marcos have been teaching the classes this year and have done an excellent job. The promoters take a test each month so that we can monitor how they are doing. At the end of the class the staff had a cake of welcome for Lisa and finished the day with a meeting to review all that is going on.

Today we headed to the clinic in Las Trampas with Sheri, Gaspar and Juan, praying for patients all the way there; however, God had other plans for us today. We arrived to no patients, but had some good conversations with the church member that was present. The volunteer in Las Trampas is man by the name of Diego Tol who used to be an alchohilic who eventually came to the Lord at another church in the area, converted his family, started a church in his community and today is a growing church of more than 60 adults plus children with 2 buildings built with only local funds. This is a very outreaching church but it does not seem that a clinic ministry is a need in the area. There are a few other organizations who host clinics in the area and this may be part of the issue. They announce and normally some people show but not many. So we agreed to finish out the year so that both HTI and the church can fulfill their commitments and then we will probably cease this clinic in 2009. We hope to find other ways to maintain contact and work with this church as they are active in their area.

After waiting for patients, visiting and listening to Gaspar and Diego talk about the Bible, we headed off to visit the home of Tomasa Chicoj Salvador. This is the young girl who had an eye tumor and has been receiving treatment. Notice I mentioned had! She has received glowing reports and now just must present every 2 months to watch for a recurrence. The family has been trying to invite us to visit for a number of months so the opportunity finally presented itself as they live in the community next to Las Trampas called Chujulimul, meaning rabbits and caverns. We arrived to a great welcome in a very humble home and got to spend about 3 hours with the family. They prepared us a meal and we had plenty of time to sit and talk and teach the kids bad habits (just kidding). They are currently looking for a church home so we took the time to invite them to the church in Las Trampas and will see if we can get Diego Tol to visit them. They seem to be a very happy and content family.

Afterwards we met up with Josefina and headed down to Montellano where we will be in some management meetings for the next couple of days.

As always, thanks for checking in and we hope to see you again soon.