Rick traveling Guatemala Style in the Suzuki Boogie Boogie!I, Kemmel, just noticed this is our 100th post! Took us awhile to get here but we did make 100. When we first started blogging we did not think we would be very great at it and would just let it die. However, we have and do enjoy blogging although we could still do it more. :)
These last couple of days Kemmel has been involved in a leadership meeting of the staff of Health Talents International here in Guatemala City. This is a time when all of the physicians, dentists, nurses, evangelist and administrative staff comes together to evaluate where we are and also make some plans for the future. We had a good meeting and also got to spend some time with others that we do not see very often anymore. We now have a leadership team of 18 people and it is great to see the flow of ideas of how we can continue to improve the ministry of physical and spiritual healing in the communities and churches where we serve. We discussed a number of topics including management styles, evaluation of employees and processes, evaluation of clinic effectiveness, team work, and plans for future development of education programs. One such educational program discussed was the topic of sexuality as this is a rising problem in Guatemala with more teen pregnancies even among the churches. We will continue to see about developing some programs that we can use in conjunction with the partner churches and programs we can introduce to schools who are interested. Please continue to pray that God will provide us guidance and that we will continue to seek Him for this direction and guidance. It is always easy to come up with ideas, the hard part is putting them into practice. It is much easier for us to focus on curative care, but we need to make progress in providing preventative education.
Meeting in action.
Team building / leadership activity - the non blindfolded people had to guide the blindfolded people through a maze without touching anything to show the importance of communication, organized decision making, focus and close relationships. On the left is Dr. Josefina, RN Rosario, Dr. Marcos (dentist) and Dr. Jessica (dentist) who volunteered for the activity. They did great!
Marcos reaching the finish line without having to start over.
Lisa finished her OB rotation yesterday so just 3 months to go! We have said it many times but we are ready to get back to Chichi! This month she will be in her surgery rotation which we have heard is pretty grueling. She has been assigned to the surgical gyn ward which we hear is good news. This is one of the less stressful wards which compared to so-called gang warfare ward sounds pretty good. The gang warfare ward is all of the gun shot wounds, etc. so we thank God she was not assigned there. Unfortunately a friend of hers, Roy, was, so please pray for safety for Roy. In this surgical month you are at the hospital 7 days a week and on call every 3rd night so this will be a taxing month for her. During the days that should be your days off such as holidays and weekends, they must still present at the hospital to do rounds and make sure the other medical school students complete the assigned orders, change wound dressings, etc. Today is labor day in Guatemala, so hopefully she will get off around 10am. As she is an intern, the word is she will spend most of her time on the floor and will not have to enter the surgery suites, so we pray this is true. Our goal is she does not even know where the surgery suites are. :)
Woes 2.........
Well, last evening we experienced Woe #2 on the saga of owning vehicles. We think this is only a minor issue but nonetheless, stressful and irritating. Kemmel was working his way to the bank during peak hours of traffic to make some deposits to finish out the month. The bank is open until 8pm so I headed out around 6:30pm hoping the traffic had lighted, but it had not probably due to the holiday that is today. On the way I started to smell smoke and thought someone has a problem and quickly discovered it was me. The car was smoking where the battery is, so the first thought is oh no, the fire extinguisher is in the other car. :(. So I had to stop the car in the middle of traffic (at least in the far left lane) in an area that has the heaviest traffic. That was a bummer and I felt real bad for being the person stuck in the road causing more traffic. Anyway the car started to act funny as well and when I turned it off it did not turn off which was weird. I opened the hood after the smoke stopped and notice that the battery came loose and the plastic covering came off. Turns out the battery cable had contacted the metal hood and caused some sparks and part of the battery cable burned, but not bad. So, I fixed that and tried to start the car. The engine came on and just started to accelerate like I as flooring the gas and it would not stop so I quickly turned the engine off. This continued to happen and I was not sure what to do and was going to find someone to help me push the car onto the sidewalk (it is small so would fit) to at least get out of traffic. About that time a Police 4 wheeler came and hooked up a tow cable to take me to a safer place. I always wondered why they had the 4 wheelers - now I know. Once at a safe place, I called Lisa to come and get me and called the insurance to send a tow truck. Since there was a lot of traffic the waiting began and the tow truck arrived about 1.5 hours later. In the meantime, I had a couple people offer assistance and then leave with the hmmm.. maybe this but not sure. Then my favorite part, 2 of the friendly local fork lift drivers (yes they were driving fork lifts in the road during peak traffic) came by to offer their help. At first I though they were going to offer me a lift :) as the car is so small, but they were just going to tow me to the closest gas station thinking I was out of gas. So I said thanks but the tow truck was on the way. We eventually dropped off the Suzuki at the mechanic shop and I will go speak with them on Friday since today is labor day and a holiday. The good news is the insurance is paying off as they cover the tow truck, so I may have just made the insurance worth the cost.
We think maybe the acceleration cable is stuck or fried or something of the sort, but will find out on Friday. Pray for low cost and quick repairs! We always take it in for preventative work so do not think it can be anything to serious.
Needless to say, I never made it to the bank to complete the last deposit for the month.
These last couple of days Kemmel has been involved in a leadership meeting of the staff of Health Talents International here in Guatemala City. This is a time when all of the physicians, dentists, nurses, evangelist and administrative staff comes together to evaluate where we are and also make some plans for the future. We had a good meeting and also got to spend some time with others that we do not see very often anymore. We now have a leadership team of 18 people and it is great to see the flow of ideas of how we can continue to improve the ministry of physical and spiritual healing in the communities and churches where we serve. We discussed a number of topics including management styles, evaluation of employees and processes, evaluation of clinic effectiveness, team work, and plans for future development of education programs. One such educational program discussed was the topic of sexuality as this is a rising problem in Guatemala with more teen pregnancies even among the churches. We will continue to see about developing some programs that we can use in conjunction with the partner churches and programs we can introduce to schools who are interested. Please continue to pray that God will provide us guidance and that we will continue to seek Him for this direction and guidance. It is always easy to come up with ideas, the hard part is putting them into practice. It is much easier for us to focus on curative care, but we need to make progress in providing preventative education.
Meeting in action.
Team building / leadership activity - the non blindfolded people had to guide the blindfolded people through a maze without touching anything to show the importance of communication, organized decision making, focus and close relationships. On the left is Dr. Josefina, RN Rosario, Dr. Marcos (dentist) and Dr. Jessica (dentist) who volunteered for the activity. They did great!Marcos reaching the finish line without having to start over.Lisa finished her OB rotation yesterday so just 3 months to go! We have said it many times but we are ready to get back to Chichi! This month she will be in her surgery rotation which we have heard is pretty grueling. She has been assigned to the surgical gyn ward which we hear is good news. This is one of the less stressful wards which compared to so-called gang warfare ward sounds pretty good. The gang warfare ward is all of the gun shot wounds, etc. so we thank God she was not assigned there. Unfortunately a friend of hers, Roy, was, so please pray for safety for Roy. In this surgical month you are at the hospital 7 days a week and on call every 3rd night so this will be a taxing month for her. During the days that should be your days off such as holidays and weekends, they must still present at the hospital to do rounds and make sure the other medical school students complete the assigned orders, change wound dressings, etc. Today is labor day in Guatemala, so hopefully she will get off around 10am. As she is an intern, the word is she will spend most of her time on the floor and will not have to enter the surgery suites, so we pray this is true. Our goal is she does not even know where the surgery suites are. :)
Woes 2.........
Well, last evening we experienced Woe #2 on the saga of owning vehicles. We think this is only a minor issue but nonetheless, stressful and irritating. Kemmel was working his way to the bank during peak hours of traffic to make some deposits to finish out the month. The bank is open until 8pm so I headed out around 6:30pm hoping the traffic had lighted, but it had not probably due to the holiday that is today. On the way I started to smell smoke and thought someone has a problem and quickly discovered it was me. The car was smoking where the battery is, so the first thought is oh no, the fire extinguisher is in the other car. :(. So I had to stop the car in the middle of traffic (at least in the far left lane) in an area that has the heaviest traffic. That was a bummer and I felt real bad for being the person stuck in the road causing more traffic. Anyway the car started to act funny as well and when I turned it off it did not turn off which was weird. I opened the hood after the smoke stopped and notice that the battery came loose and the plastic covering came off. Turns out the battery cable had contacted the metal hood and caused some sparks and part of the battery cable burned, but not bad. So, I fixed that and tried to start the car. The engine came on and just started to accelerate like I as flooring the gas and it would not stop so I quickly turned the engine off. This continued to happen and I was not sure what to do and was going to find someone to help me push the car onto the sidewalk (it is small so would fit) to at least get out of traffic. About that time a Police 4 wheeler came and hooked up a tow cable to take me to a safer place. I always wondered why they had the 4 wheelers - now I know. Once at a safe place, I called Lisa to come and get me and called the insurance to send a tow truck. Since there was a lot of traffic the waiting began and the tow truck arrived about 1.5 hours later. In the meantime, I had a couple people offer assistance and then leave with the hmmm.. maybe this but not sure. Then my favorite part, 2 of the friendly local fork lift drivers (yes they were driving fork lifts in the road during peak traffic) came by to offer their help. At first I though they were going to offer me a lift :) as the car is so small, but they were just going to tow me to the closest gas station thinking I was out of gas. So I said thanks but the tow truck was on the way. We eventually dropped off the Suzuki at the mechanic shop and I will go speak with them on Friday since today is labor day and a holiday. The good news is the insurance is paying off as they cover the tow truck, so I may have just made the insurance worth the cost.
We think maybe the acceleration cable is stuck or fried or something of the sort, but will find out on Friday. Pray for low cost and quick repairs! We always take it in for preventative work so do not think it can be anything to serious.
Needless to say, I never made it to the bank to complete the last deposit for the month.
As Sheri always says, another day, another adventure!
1 comment:
Sounds like you two are having your share of woes lately. We really enjoy reading your blog. It's so nice to see your pictures and hear about all the good things you are doing there. Do you still need Tylenol, Advil, and Ranitidine (sp)? Is the generic brand okay? Please send us the address and we'll get some rounded up for you.
By the way, do you know our ABC kids? One is Brenda Marisol Lapop Barreno (11 yrs) and the other one is Joel Tino Chingo (7 yrs). We love them and think of them often. They're so precious to us. We lost our first ABC child from illness, so their health and well-being is always on our minds.
On a side note, thank you for all that you do. You both are shining examples and we are humbled by your faith and your example of service to others in His name. May you keep the faith and not lose sight of your gifts which you are so graciously sharing with the world. We miss you and we love you!
Rodney and Shelly
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