Graduation and Church Conference Season

We have entered into the graduation and church conference season here in the area of Quiche.  Many days are filled with either attending a local conference, a graduation ceremony or a graduation celebration lunch.  No dinners here, all is during the lunch time in the afternoon.

The other day Gaspar, Tomas and Kemmel attended the graduation ceremony for some of the ABC students and scholarship students graduating as elementary school teachers.  We had 4 graduates this year, 1 only in the scholarship program, 1 only in ABC and 2 in the ABC program and Scholarship program.  329 students graduated and Gaspar told me that 14 graduated from his community of Xepocol.  That is pretty amazing, that 10 years ago, it would have been 0 and now it is up to 14 this year, 8 last year, and more in the years to come, all from the same community.

Here are some pictures (most are not very good which means I should not look for a job as a photographer!)

 

Pretty large crowd, by the end all of the seats were full.

 Tomas, scholarship student receiving his diploma

 

 Marvin on the right with his diploma.  First in the family to graduate.

 

 Brothers Julio and Tomas graduating together.

 

 Santos David on the right

 

Julio



 

 Juan Sebastian

 

Juan Sebastian and his proud parents - This is child # 2 to graduate from this family.

 Santos David (he always looks so excited!)  Also # 2 graduate for this family.  Santos David hopes to continue to medical school and is waiting to take one more exam.

 

 Marvin with his proud family - His dad Pedro was one of the first to begin the churches of Christ in the area.  Mom and dad were both in tears.

 

 

Another picture of brothers Julio (left) and Tomas (right)

 Party at Julio's and Tomas's house - Julio in pink shirt

 

 Julio and Tomas with mom and dad on left and

a friend of the family (Tomas has the grey t-shirt)

 

Receiving council from the elders of the family

 

All in all a good week!



New Territory

We had clinic out in the town of Chicua II today.  Our new brother in Christ, Manuel is on the town counsel and has wanted us to come out and use the clinic/hospital facility that they have in their town, which has been sitting empty for several years.  After several dry runs due to competing activities we finally had a decent showing of patients.  We suspect there will be more in the future as there was a school meeting today and continued murmurings of unrest regarding the sacking of the mayor in Chichi.  Apparently people are leery of walking around town when manifestations are forming for fear of being forced into joining the crowd of protesters.  But we did have a nice group of patients including one of my regulars from Clinica Caris who lives out there.

 

We are praying for this clinic to grow and for our presence to be well accepted so that we will have more opportunities to visit and share the gospel with folks in the area. 

Lisa and Kemmel with long time Caris patient, Maria.  We are now in her town - nice..

Sandra and Maria setting up dental extraction area

Marcos and Martina ready for cleanings and dental restoration

Sheri in one of the equipped clinic rooms

Manuel, Ceci and Cesar prepping for vitals, lab and pharmacy.  Cesar was our radio announcement writer today..

Manuel, new brother in Christ and community leader.  We were also hosted by 2 ladies from the women's committee.  Very helpful and great hosts and extremely interested in what can happen in the future.

 

"I do" -- Quiche style

We were honored to be invited to the wedding of Manuel Sut's son Tomas to Cristina on Monday.  It was a good day for soaking up some local culture!  It started with sitting around the table and enjoying some bread and coffee, sitting some more before being served breakfast, visiting and walking around then bread and hot chocolate and after more sitting and visiting, lunch!  Basically we hung out at Manuel's house with some other relatives waiting for the wedding nuptuals to finish up at the bride's house.  The ceremony consists of the gathering of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and church leaders to give wise counsel to the couple.  After several hours of that, they all came over to Manuel's house where the new couple will live, towing all the new presents they got and  to receive presents from the other guests. There was a lot of visiting, sitting, cooking and waiting going on, but overall a beautiful day for a wedding!

Guests of honor Brittany, Jonathan, Amanda, Maggie, Weston, Carly and Kemmel

Equal opportunity KP duty! 

The meat was served with a plastic fork...Roger decided cheating was in order!

Fresh pine needles being sprinkled around

Tomas and Cristina escorted to their home after the ceremony,

Family hauling all the goodies they got--there was a long line of guys carrying loads like this.

Check out the loot on the back table!

Kemmel, Lisa, Maggie and Roger.