Before and After - Tomasa Chicoj Salvador

We cannot help but share this little miracle with you all. Meet Tomasa Chicoj Salvador, she is 9 years old. She came to us back in January or February of 2007. She has a recurring retinoblastoma tumor. Her first tumor occured over 2 years ago and was removed surgically along with her eye. This recurring tumor started to grow 3 -6 months earlier. She had already had a CT scan when they came in to see us and another physician had referred her to the cancer treatment hospital in Guatemala City, but they had not been yet. They asked us for some assistance to pay for travel and the consult so we agreed to do so and off they went to the consult in Guatemala City. At this point we sent out prayer requests on her behalf and also started to pray for her.

They came back with very sad news that the tumor was recurring and growing aggressively, and the cancer hospital in the city agreed to only give her paliative treatment and she had a life expectancy of about 6 months. After many tears and many prayers together, we agreed to continue to assist them with the cost of travel, food and lodging to receive her paliative treatment as the cancer hospital agreed to provide her treatment free of charge. She began her treatment with her eye looking like this.


Then after 1-2 months of treatment, she looked like this.

Her improvement was so dramatic that the physicians in Guatemala City decided to put her on an aggressive treatment of radiation therapy and chemotherapy. After her radiation therapy treatment they continued to see the tumor decrease in size and there was only a small portion left in her brain. She is now continuing chemotherapy so she is not out of the woods yet; however, she now looks like this. They have been positive enough to encourage them to purchase an eye prosthesis to help maintain the structure of her face!

Incredible what alot of prayer can do. Please continue to pray that God will demonstrate his power in the complete healing of Tomasa. She has been a great patient and has a wonderful spirit about her.

!Rejected!

Well, we were off to clinic today in Las Trampas which is off the highway to Guatemala City somewhere around kilometer 115. That probably does not mean much to you, so anyway it is down the hill from Los Encuentros and the rest stop that looks out over Lake Atitlan. In order to get to clinic we have to pass through Los Encuentros where the Chichi highway meets up with the main highway. This is where we were rejected. On the way we received a call from the people of the church that there was a demonstration in Los Encuentros and we may not be able to get through. The teachers of Guatemala were staging a demonstration today that we were not aware of; thus, by the time we got to Los Encuentros the highways were already closed. They close the highways with people and with boards and nails lying in the streets. So we got out to see what was going on and heard they would be demonstrating for at least 3 hours. We promptly got back in the truck and turned around before we got stuck in a pile up of cars trying to get through. We ended up spending the day at Clinica Caris arranging a few more things, counting pills, catching up on paperwork and preparing our mobile medical boxes for the next week.





We missed being able to get through by about 3o minutes.

The traffic as we were leaving. The vehicles will start filling both lanes closing everyone in. Thus, the reason to get out while you can. :)

Tomorrow, Thursday, we have our first clinic in Clinica Caris.

Chimente Clinic

To acquainte everyone with the work we are doing in Guatemala we thought we would introduce the various clinics that we attend and who helps us in those communities. The first is Chimente. Chimente is a town in the neighboring department of Totonicapan and we have clinic here once a month. The number of patients (40-50) in this town normally requires the presence of 2 physicains so both Lisa and Josefina work in this clinic. This clinic is a special as there is no church in this town so we have volunteers that help us from 2 of the neighboring towns of Mactzul V and Patzite. From Mactzul V we have 2 volunteers - Sebastian Yacom and Tomas Tecum and from Patzite we have Felipe Chivalan and his daughter Candelaria. Our volunteers help in a variety of ways including meeting with the people, doing vital signs, translating and praying with patients. By having local volunteers the patients are able to relate with people they recognize or even know.

From Left to Right: Volunteers Sebastain (standing) and Felipe with the auxillary mayor of the town.

Our last clinic in Chimente was on Monday, April 23 and we were able to treat and pray with 50 patients. Even had someone ask if we charge for prayers - well of course not! Please continue to keep the town and clinic of Chimente in your prayers so that God will continue to work in the lives of the people from that community.

Volunteer Candelaria helping Lisa translate to kiche.

Josefina praying with a family.

Inauguration Day

This is Clinica Caris located on the border of the towns of Sepela and Lemoa in the department of Quiche of Guatemala. Both of these pictures are taken from close to the highway that passes about 50 meters in front of the clinic. There is a more open porch and land on the other side of the building that you can see in other photos below or on our photo site.

The inauguration of Clinica Caris was held Sunday, April 22, 2007. The day started very early for those who were prepping for the day, but it turned out to be a great day and extremely blessed by God. We had a worship service at 9am hosted by some of the local leaders with congregation singing led by Voces Acapella (watch for a future blog entry about Voces Acapella, they are a local acapella group from one of the churches we work with), Martin Turquiz (a local man dedicated to evangelism and worship) and the message being brought by the president of the Talentos de Salud International board in Guatemala, Nery Castillo. Of course, I could name many, many people to thanks for their assistance and support but will not bore you with all the names. After the worship service which included communion complete with drinking the wine with medicine cups, we enjoyed words from Carroll Osborne of the Caris Foundation which provided the funding for the clinic, Nery Castillo and the mayor of Chichicastenango followed by the oficial cutting of the ribbon and entrance into the clinic! See the pictures below.

Picture from the porch looking out to the crowd and the land of the clinic. We have about a 7th of an acre.

Board members, local church leaders praying that God will bless the work of the clinic.

Carroll Osborne (left) from the Caris Foundation and Roger McCown (right) from the Health Talents board. Roger is translating for Carroll.

We provided lunch for all those who attended and finished the day with more worship and praise led by Voces Acapella. The inauguration was attended by members of the board of Health Talents International from the US and , members of the board of Talentos de Salud International from Guatemala, staff members of Talentos de Salud in Guatemala, and most importantly by the many church leaders and volunteers in and around the areas of Chichicastenango and Santa Cruz del Quiche in which we work and also hope to work in the future. Without them we would not be able to provide a ministry that reflects the love of God and provides Him the glory and honor for the work he allows us to do.

Oficial ribbon cutting by board members from HTI - Charles Campbell, TSI - Nery Castillo and Carroll Osborne from the Caris Foundation.

For more pictures, please click on the photo link at the top of the blog page.

Coming Soon!! Clinica Caris, Aldea Lemoa

We have been busy trying finalizing the move and the construction of the clinic and had the inaugaration yesterday. We had around 250 people in attendance for the service and then it grew to around 350. Unfortunately we ran out of chicken! However, gracias a Dios, we have a Pollo Campero within 20 minutes, so we were able to recuperate and get everyone some chicken. Anyway, we are off to clinic today so no time to post pictures. Please check back tomorrow evening and we will have an update with pictures, etc.

Elvis? - Who is he?

Have you ever thought that someone would not know who Elvis is? Especiallly with how close we are to the states and all of the immigration between here and there. Well, so far in the area we live we have not found anyone who knows who he is. We met a little boy the other day named Elvis and they did not know. It is good to see that not all of our western culture makes it to other countries.

Yesterday we were invited to a birthday party at a neighboor house close to the clinic (where Elvis lives, but it is not Graceland!). It was a good break from moving and cleaning. This was a party for a 16 year old boy. This was the first really big party we have been to. For birthdays, the definition of a big party is to have a big church service, praising and worshiping God for the gift of a son or daughter and another year of life. As you can tell, teenagers here also get real excited....

This brings up the topic of a cultural lesson.... In this culture physical life and spiritual life are very intwined. Birthdays, successful business ventures, new add-ons to the house, etc. are always celebrated with a Thanksgiving worship service and meal. You also run into sayings like "primero Dios" (Lord willing) after promising to do something or be somewhere; and "gracias a Dios" (thanks to God) when you ask someone how they are and they say "Fine--thanks to God.

Today we "primero Dios" finish up setting up the clinic and then we have a health promoter class this afternoon followed by the arrival of the Health Talents board of directors who will be here through the weekend.

We have also included some other pictures - one of the clinic from the field, one of our health promoter, Gaspar, with a sheep that kept trying to say hi to him, one of the concrete drainage pipes we purchased for the road into the clinic and the community and one of Rick presenting a

Bible to Gaspar for all of his assistance in the completion of the clinic.

Feliz Dia!

Poppin' the clutch

You know you have a wife who can live anywhere when she pushes your truck out of the driveway to try and start the car with a dead battery. We have mastered the pop the clutch starting mechanism of a standard transmission when the battery is dead! Had to do it about 4 times today, well those are the successful trys. Add in the failed attempts and you would be tired just reading about it. The battery would die if we left the car for more than 2 hours. Now we have a new battery with a 12 month guarantee - miss those 3-5 year free replacement deals. Thank God for auto parts stores. The US has coffee shops on every corner, we have mechanics and auto parts stores. No lie, we should take some pictures of that phenomenon. If you ever owned a Toyota or Nissan and sold it and thought it ended up in a dump somewhere, it is probably here. It would have been resurrected and delivered to Central America.

We have included a picture of the truck pushing; however, this is not from today. Lisa was on her own part of the day. This was from an unsuccessful truck pushing as the truck would not start for another reason - the plug in the deisel engine was not working.

Just so you know you do not have to go that fast... The trick is second gear.

That was the excitement and frustration for today. However, we have learned a very important skill. We have also learned how to change flats very quickly. Part of the life... Here is a picture of one of our typical roads. This would be in the worst category. Most roads are just bumpy - very bumpy.

Have a great day!

Moving Day

We moved into our new clinic today! It is interesting how much stuff accumulates in one year. But we were able to get a truck to come by and hired two guys off the street to help haul all of our gear downstairs. These guys were real pros--carrying file cabinets on their backs with their head straps. It cost us $10 and cokes. The guy with the truck wouldn't accept pay because of the help we have given to his community to open a new road from the highway. To make a long story short, we and everyone of the families behind our clinic, lost the road leading in from the highway, and we helped to open a new road that everyone can access. It does pay to be neighborly around here!

The clinic looks great, and we got to see the new letrines going in (back up plan for days without water!) The inauguration service is this Sunday--we are expecting 300 people, both Guatemalan and U.S. visitors! We praise God for a productive day today. There is also a picture of our green pila. Not quite what we had imagined, but what can you do.... We do have great porch views!

After moving in we stood around and talked with some of our neighbors who have help get us established in the area. Manuela asked if we would come over and pray for her because she has been sick. We spent time in her home and chatted for a while afterward. And we got invited to to grandson's birthday party tomorrow!

Welcome

"Gloria......gloria.....gloria a Diosssss..........." That's chichicasteco for "testing, testing 1-2-3!

We are proud to present our new website/blog. We always have a lot of things going on and find it hard to fit them all in a Newsletter. This way you can see what is happening around here--the exciting stuff and the day-to-day life. It is an honor to be able to do this work and realize that not everyone gets the opportunity. We hope you enjoy a taste of our life here in beautiful Chichicastenango.

We are still working on the link to our photos, so please check back soon. Right now it only goes to www.healthtalents.org.

God bless