Favorite people

Yesterday in Xepocol, we were sitting around waiting for patients to arrive (we were the back burner event to the Government subsidy delivery and the big party down the hill).  Finally people started to roll in, including one of my favorite sisters in the church there.  Micaela is 90 years old and has children, grandchildren and great grandchildren who are christians in the same church.  Her blood pressure was up after running out of meds--making her a little dizzy, but her blood sugar was close to normal, which is great.  Her son asked me in a loud voice, "She's not supposed to drink cokes, right?"  So I affirmed that and congratulated her on watching her diet.  I am always a little reluctant to put a 90 year old active person on too much medicine, so I kept her on the blood pressure meds and gave her vitamins and acetaminophen for her varicose vein pain.  I told her if she keeps the diet under control, we won't have to use diabetic meds.  She patted me on the chest and thanked me and asked God to bless me.  When you meet her in heaven you'll like her too!

Micaela Salvador and her son Juan Chan Salvador

Happy Anniversary!

Today is our 19th wedding anniversary--it is really hard to imagine that we have been married that long.   I think I speak for both of us in saying that our marriage has been a blessing beyond anything we could ask, and that we are grateful to God for allowing us to work togther in this ministry.

From the words of The Preacher:
Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:
If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
Ecclesiates 4:9-12

We wrapped up our time with our MET interns over the weekend, enjoying a great time in Antigua Guatemala.  It was good to the the other students that had spent the last half of the trip down on the coast at Clinica Ezell.  Everyone seemed so glad to see each other and compare stories.  Kemmel and I enjoyed a great tour of Antigua and some general vegging out. 

Wow, this crew cleans up nice!

(l-r Lisa, Kemmel, Michelle, Andrea, Caleb, Amanda, Jay, Garrett, Nate

Carrie, Sarah, Amy, Kate and Andrea)

We just have to say that we were blessed a very mature group of students this year.  We usually do have great students, but this year presented some especially difficult challenges (mudslides, lack of water in the homes, very infrequent bathing and laundering, bug issues and GI parasites), and everyone rose to the occasion and remained flexible and good natured.  All of you parents out there should be proud!  We try not to make this into an initiation-style camp for future missionaries, but there are definitely some out-of-your-comfort-zone moments.  We were impressed by their Godly attitudes and humble acceptance of the stituations. 
This week we get back to regularly scheduled clinics and make preparations for our visiting teams in July. 

Winding down

Today was the last day of clinic for our students.  We went out to Sacapulas, which is our big diabetic clinic.  Josefina and I saw 40 patients and 5 others came for dental cleanings.  We have really tried to work on diabetic education there, taking time to show the patients how to adjust their diets.  The big challenge (other than limiting carbs) is conveying nutrition information (protein, carbohydrate, etc) in verbal and pictoral form for the majority of patients that don't read or speak Spanish.  But it's coming along nicely, and the patients keep referring other friends and neighbors to us.  We also are trying to reach the many non-Christian patients that we have there, praying with them, giving thanks to God when their sugars start coming under better control, and inviting them to worship with the local church.

On the way back I sat in the back of the pickup holding Tomas' new kittens he bought from the family that hosts our clinic there in Sacapulas.  They were tied together and bagged up in a grain bag, with just their head sticking out.  We just kind of vegged together on the 1 1/2 hour ride back, listening to soft hits of yester-year on the radio (think Neil Sedaka and Partridge Family singing in Spanish--the DJ psyched us out with an ABBA song that turned out to be just the intro music to the station identification break). 

Tomorrow Kemmel and I get to take the interns to Antigua and enjoy a long weekend.  Kemmel has graciously offered to take me on the Antigua historical walking tour for my birthday (definitely a sacrifice on his part!).  It will be a good weekend.  We are both ready for a little pampering and rest after a busy month!

MET - Group 2

We have had the second group of MET interns with us for close to 2 weeks now. We started thier visit here with some exciting and scary 4x4 trouble in our travels up to Xejox. This areas normally provides for some road excitement. We tried to go up a hill to the church (which we probably should not have) and since we did not make it had to back down slipping and sliding. Here is the result. :) Gracias a Dios we got out ok with no one hurt and no trucks damaged. We finished the day with a good clinic in Xejox. We actually had 20 people show for teeth cleanings, but unfortunately we did not have our dental promoters with us as one was in another clinic and the other in a leadership seminar. So we are scheduling another day with 2 dental promoters and offering a discount of Q5 since we were at fault for not having them with us.

We ended up piling rocks under the back tires and backed down while trying to hold the truck steady and not rolling.

While in Choacaman the interns learned some more about patient exam and use of the otoscope. We had no diabetes patients in Choacaman which could be good news, maybe they are learning from the education.




We also enjoyed some time with a group from Oak Hills Church in San Antonio. This is Dr. Luis
Cisneros. He was with the group from Oak Hills and he is from Peru, so we had some Peru moments since I was born there.





Pat Hile came with the Oak Hills group and spent the week before hosting a leadership seminar in Paxot 2. Here Pat is preaching in Xepocol in K'iche.






Pat's wife, Carol, was able to join him this year. This is her picture with Juana, the wife of Gaspar, one of our health promoters.




MET group 2 at Lake Atitlan. We did our Monday trip with this group to Lake Atitlan yesterday. They were not interested in swimming so we headed out to Lomas de Tzununa for lunch. Lomas is a great hotel with some of the best views around the lake - http://www.lomasdetzununa.com/ . If you are ever looking for a relaxing, beautiful place to stay at the lake, this is it.



Missionary dreamin! We could live here! This is a house off the point at Tzununa, not bad living.

Last Week

We started this last week by heading to the capital on Saturday to pick up Dr. Rick Alvillar and Kaitlyn Belyeou. We took advantage of the time and enjoyed our favorite Sushi meal at a small restaurant in Zone 10 - we still do not know if it has a name, but you must get there before 1pm and the crowd. We also stopped to buy some things we cannot find in Chichi such as Sharp Cheddar Cheese. We probably pay more than we should but worth it for a good cheese crisp!


Ric has been down to Guatemala a few times now helping us host clinics for patients with rheumatoid arthritis. He helped us with patients during both of our central clinics and was able to go on one mobile clinic and visit a lady in her home. One mobile clinic was cancelled due to highway problems. Thanks Ric and Kaitlyn!



On Monday we headed to Panajachel with the current MET team and enjoyed some time around the lake. We sent them to the hot springs which were more of a cold spring, but they reportedly still had fun. Here is a picture of the first group and also a picture of us above the lake at the hang gliding and paragliding take off cliff - no, not an approved MET nor missionary acitivty.

This is Jay (Mash), Michelle, Amy, Garrett (Carlos), Kate, and Andrea.

On Wednesday, luck had it that a clinic was cancelled due to highway problems, so the good news was Lisa could travel to Xela with the MET team and Kemmel to do the exchange. We could not go out through the normal highway so we back tracked through the mountains to Totonicapan, picking up a couple of men along the way in case we got stuck. News to us but it is now paved a good portion of the way to Totonicapan. We enjoyed lunch at Wendy's and then turned around and headed back with the next MET team.


Pat Hile arrived on Wednesday and we started the men's leadership seminar in Paxot 2. The topic of discussion was a book called "The Story" which is a overview of the central theme of the Bible. We had over 30 men in attendance which was a pleasant surpise with all of the problems we have had around here in the past week. We even had 3 brothers come for the northern reaches of the Zacualpa area from Xejox and Chuchuca. We still had no water at the church but we were able to contract a water truck to come fill the pila at the church. Thankfully they have a very large pila which acted as a cistern.


Here are pictures of the men and also, the women who served in cooking the meals. Most of the women serving this week were also MET moms, so the students had some if not all of their meals at the seminar.





Friday was our adventure day as we went to clinic in Xejox and had some excitement with getting a truck unstuck as it veered off the road and off an embankment just above the main highway. People were jumping out of the truck, but we had some great help and were able to get the truck on the road with no problems or dents :).


This is the second MET Team here in Chichi - Caleb, Carrie, Amanda, Nate, Sara and Andrea, enjoying time on the hammock after feasting on hot dogs and peanut butter cookies at the gringo house yesterday, Monday. Sorry team 1 as we were not able to have you all over.


We also had a visit from Juan and Aura and Juan's mom, Manuela. Good times....

Here is Caleb hoovering over our visitors.

Sheri's blog

Just a reminder to check out Sheri's blog as well as she has some more updates about the area, the clinics and the MET interns.

http://sheriinguate.blogspot.com

This week we have Dr. Rick Alvillar and a friend of his, Kaitlyn, joing us in clinics to attend to patients with chronic pain and reumatoid arthritis. We will also be transfering MET interns from Chichi to Montellano and vice versa and having a men's seminar in Paxot 2 with Pat Hile. Will be a good week. This evening we went to church and forgot to get the car out of the parking garage at the hotel and after dinner at 10pm, had the surprise that the office did not leave the gaurd the key. So instead of waking Dona Inez, we opted for the quick walk home. Gracias a Dios no problems!

Progress

Yesterday a transformer blew in our neighborhood, leaving us in the dark until about 9:00 pm. We always say we would rather live without electricity than without water, but now that there is no city water, we need the electricity to pump the water out of our cistern! At least we can still pull it up with a bucket if needed. I think a letrine would be handy about now.

But the lights came back on last night and are stable. Yea! Nothing like a good flushing toilet!

Things are moving slowly here in the way of repairs. We have seen several commuities trucking in pipes for water projects, so there's hope. We keep hearing about the woes of the water committees going to talk to the people in the region where the mountain springs are (in the bordering department of Totonicopan). Apparently, those towns are not very nice, and traditionally try to gouge prices for land and water rights. Well, they too suffered an awful lot of damage from the storm and haven't had any help from their departmental government(Totonicopan) or local mayor. So, they came to a meeting with their heads down asking forgiveness for treating everyone so badly and asked the Chichicastenango towns to ask our mayor for help with machinery to dig out their roads. The committee members were Christ-like in their behavior and agreed to help them instead of giving them what they deserved. I'm sure God was proud of them.

Today we head to the capital to pick up Dr. Alvillar. We will get a first-hand view of the highway situation. Buses have been passing through, but it is down to one lane in many places. They hold traffic from one lane as the others pass for 10-15 minutes. Just like the good old days before our superhighway!

After four days of bright sun, the roads are finally looking better. It is incredible the power that water and gravity have on a landscape. What were previously lazy little creeks have become wide sweeping rivers tearing down trees and carrying homes and boulders downstream. Lush green mountainsides are scarred by the massive slough of earth all along the drive out of town. More than 35 people have died in this municipality alone with several still missing. Yesterday, four members of a community water committee went to check on their spring project and were killed in a mudslide. People are nervous about the number of homeless familes and lost crops. Now, the big worry is the lack of water. All of the water projects that came from mountain springs, were destroyed in the storm. Even those who can find the pipes to repair report that the springs were covered up or completely hidden/lost. Even Chichicastenango proper (that's us) has nothing. There are families dragging water bottles, jars, coke bottles, and 5 gallon buckets to get water out of broken pipes, local springs and rivers. Estimates from town officials for fixing or finding new water projects vary from 2-6 months and tens of thousands of dollars each. Imagine no running water in your house; now imagine having to haul water for 10-15 family members. We are all just half-way praying for more rain, so we can have water to collect from the rooftops. Of course we also don't want anymore rain, because that will mean more damage in the compromised areas. I guess we'll hold on the personal hygeine classes for now...