Chichi

Lisa went on call on Sunday morning, so I took the opportunity to go to Chichi. The missionaries in the area have an English service so the day started off with visiting and worshiping in English. It is always a treat to be able to worship in your mother language, especially when you are used to mostly kiche and some Spanish and trying to pick out what we can from the sermons. Today we discussed the Pentecost, the birth of the church and the filling of the Holy Spirit. The sermon was given by Bill Vassey, one of the pioneer missionaries to the Quiche area who translated the bible into one of the local dialects. He is a very dynamic speaker and is good at making you think.

After the service I went by the house to check on the electricity problem and the house had actually been re-wired. I was thrilled to see that it had actually gotten done. Before arriving I was pretty pessimistic about it being fixed and was ready to pay for a hotel. We still have a little more work but at least I could stay in the house for the night. I even had water! (city water, water pump still out) That was a special treat. In the morning I could not use the shower as the outside connections were only temporary and it was suggested to not overload the energy use until we had a permanent connection. So back to the heated up bucket of water, but it works. I met with another electrician from the electrical company early Monday morning and he will come and put the finishing touches on the connection and he will also add in a copper tube in for grounding since there does not seem to be any grounding at the house. (this was another one of the causes of the problem). Pretty scary huh? The good news is so far we are only out Q500 which is less than $70 for the wiring and electrical work, plus some extra work he did on the water pump. Maybe another Q500 and we will be done with this problem.

After checking on the house I headed out to Xepocol to worship with our friends and brothers and sisters there. In contrast to our English sermon, this sermon was all in kiche this time so it was hard to follow and I hate to say it, but also hard to stay awake. I found myself struggling and not having Lisa there to poke me. Luckily I did not get poked with the stick they use to wake up folks. I enjoyed worshiping in Xepocol and taking time to visit with the members. This is a great bunch of people who love our Lord and serve Him wholeheartedly. They have recently had some growth with about 4 new people and then another new family has also started to attend the church this past week. I noticed this time that many of the young men (15-19 years old) in the congregation have taken more responsibility in the service and participate with the communion devotional and also in leading singing. Xepocol is the home of our first health promoter Gaspar Chan and it is great to see the growth they have experienced and continue to experience. Today Gaspar's oldest, Tomas, lead the communion devotion and singing. He did a great job.

On other church news, I have heard from 3-4 other congregations where we have clinics that are continuing to experience growth with new members or with people who used to attend church but have now returned to reconcile themselves to Christ. This is very exciting. I cannot say there is a direct correlation of the new growth to the clinics but the churches we work with continue to report that this ministry continues to provide them with positive feedback from the communities. One community, Mactzul V has seen growth of about 15 - 20 people in the last month, many of these all from one family who returned to reconcile. Sebastian from Mactzul 5 called me Wednesday night with the great news and to see how we are doing. The church was having a celebration. They have officially outgrown the building and many people sit outside during the service. The other communities that we have heard from are Chuchipaca, Chuguexa, Santa Cruz, Chichicastenango and Xepocol. We know other churches are continuing to grow as well and we are excited to see God work in this area. Just the other day Sheri saw a young man in clinic who they referred to the Chichicastenango church for follow-up. They promptly followed-up with this young man who has now been baptized and started to attend church in less than a couple of weeks. People are searching for Christ and we hope that this ministry will continue to be used as a tool to further God's kingdom.

When all else fails - "Strike!"

I just found out today that most of the distribution trucks of Guatemala have been on strike since Monday. I guess this is what happens when you do not have TV or radio. This means that no gas and many other items that are imported from the port are not making it around the country or Guatemala City. And items to be exported are not making it to port. To get to either coast one must pass through Guatemala City, there is not good highway that bypasses Guatemala City.

Apparently there are some complaints about the times the trucks can enter the city and since there has been no resolutions, the owners of the trucks have stopped service. According to the national paper there are multiple lines of trucks up to 5 kilometers long where they have stopped on the side of the highways living little room for regular travelers to pass as well. It states there are around 3,100 containers that ship out of port daily and most of those are affected by the strike - with over 300 containers of fruit that are just rotting on the highway.

For the casual observer this seems trivial and is causing all kinds of problems; however, for the drivers and owners of the trucks I am sure they are concerned for their safety traveling at night, etc. Hopefully this will come to resolution soon.

Today in Guatemala City everyone flocked to the gas stations to fill up. I was out around 11am and noticed all of the 100's of people at the gas stations and wondered what was happening and that is when I found out. I did not feel like braving the gas stations but now thinking that was a bad decision. All of the gas stations I passed this afternoon are out of gas. I am hoping that outside the city is not too much of a problem as tomorrow I head to Chichi and my vehicle was in the shop until this afternoon. I think I may have enough gas to either make it to Chichi or most of the way - so just hope the problems does not extend everywhere.

Of course this will now cause most of the daily needs to increase - food, gas, clothing, you name it which will probably cause another strike. Another day in the life of a Guatemalan. Pray for quick resolution and that it does not affect the vast majority of the population very much.

Here are some photos of the highways.

Here is a gas station photo from yesterday - today was worse:

Surgery

Lisa is on her second call schedule for surgery. While on call she works in the crazy ER of Hospital Roosevelt. Just picture people everywhere and total chaos and you will get the picture. There is not much if any triage so people just hang out until someone takes care of them. As a result you have people just trying to get your attention so you can attend to them. The other day I went to pick her up and she called me and told me to wait as a nurse had grabbed her to deliver a still birth baby from a mother that had been shot. Here is a blurb from an email she sent me today:

"I got your call this AM, but thought is was my alarm and hit the button too fast. We had a bunch of gunshot victims come in about midnight 5 in all, but then it quieted down. I slept about an hour and a half. "

Basically she would rather have malaria right now. Please keep her in your prayers. We have indicated in previous blogs that she is on call every 3rd night and I think that she also has to be at the hospital 7 days a week for at least 6 hours doing rounds, etc. Yesterday to top it off they were assigned a bunch of reading, case studies and some presentations they have to do.

Thanks for the prayers you continue to offer on our behalf.

As for the thyroid tests we mentioned before, everything is good. Also, all of the cars are now operational and I told the mechanics we did not want to see them for awhile!

God bless!

First Surgery Call

Lisa started her first surgery call on Friday. During her regular work day which is 6am or so to 3pm she is working in the female post op ward. I had thought it was gyn but mainly postop general surgery for females. After her regular day she started call where she is assigned to surgical cases that present to the emergency room. As you can imagine her call is pretty crazy. Let's just say there are a lot of gun shot wounds and car accidents here. I think she told me about 6 different gun shot wound patients. On her rotations in the states, they may see one gun shot wound every 3 days or so.

In this new rotation, Lisa must also go to the hospital daily for patient follow-up and rounds. So on weekends she will be at the hospital each morning for 4 to 6 hours. Please pray that God continues to provide her the strength and endurance that she needs to keep up. This was much easier to do when she was in her early 20's. She is post call today so went to sleep around 4pm and must be back at the hospital by 5am tomorrow. That will allow about 12 hours of sleep in 3 days.

We continue to meet nice people and the residents / interns she works with are very good people. Today I met some local people who own radiology equipment that is part of a small private clinic and they offered to assist with patients that need CT scans. They would either reduce the price to Q350 (under $50) or could even lower it more for patients who are unable to pay. This is great news and I am sure we will have some patients to send their way. It turns out that this couples brother works with another medical ministry here in Guatemala that we have heard of, so they are very willing to help as they can.

On the Suzuki, the problem was not too expensive to fix - about $130. What happened was the battery lost it's cover and touched the top of the hood which is metal, causing a short circuit that fried the accelerator cable and the clutch cable. At first we had a bit of a scare as we thought we would have to change the clutch which involves quite a bit of labor. However, we were much more pleased when we found out all we had to do was change the cables. The short circuit that fried the cables is what caused all of the smoke. I am glad I turned the engine off as it could have continued to fry the starter and other parts. So now we are going to strap in the battery better and put some tire rubber above it that it never rubs against metal. :)

It turns out that this mechanic we work with was one of the founders of motocross in Guatemala back in the 1980's. This was interesting as my brother Gary, now passed away, use to race in the motocross back in the time when it started here in Guatemala. So he had some crazy stories he remembered that were not related to Gary but still brought back wonderful memories.

Have a wonderful Lord's day on Sunday and God bless!

Leadership Meeting and Woes 2

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.

As Sheri always says, another day, another adventure!

Woes

Church in Mactzul VI

The saying when it rains, it pours has been proving to be true lately so I will start the blog with our woes but it end with what is good.

We have had a few unfortunate events happen lately that make life tough, but manageable. First we had some problems with the battery with our Suzuki which all in all is not that bad, but you must consider the 3 times rule for Guatemala. I thought I could just go buy a battery and be good to go in an hour or so. Not so, about 5 hours later I was ready to go. I went to about 4 places before I could find a place to charge the battery and then ended up getting a new one as well.

Next the Pathfinder that we purchased had been overheating some and then when I went to Montellano it started to really overheat. I had to stop about 6 times on the way back to Guatemala City to let the engine cool down. So we took the vehicle into the shop thinking the thermostat is plugged up and it needs to be changed - no big deal and not much cost. Well......, it had no thermostat because the previous owner took it out because the radiator the vehicle has is too small for the engine and was probably overheating on him as well. I guess he never went to the hot weather! So my small thermostat changed resulted in a new radiator, fan clutch and thermostat. Let's just say ouch! Although we paid much less than we would have stateside and is still less than buying a new vehicle. The risk we run purchasing a used vehicle here in Guatemala.

Then we have our water cistern saga. We have the cistern but have not been able to get the pump to work as it is not holding pressure. Probably nothing big, but since we are not in Chichi for more than a day and a half makes it difficult to nail down the problem. The latest is now the pump motor does not even turn, so we are not sure what has happened. We will get a new motor and try it out. Luckily they are relatively inexpensive - less than $40.

Then today, I was in Chichi showering when I heard a pop and the some of the lights went out. the water got cold so the shower ended quickly. I then checked to see what happened and one of the lights had burned out. So I thought no big deal, turned on another light. 2 seconds passed and POP! another light burned out, then thought weird, tried another one, POP! So then I figured something is not right and turned off the electricity to the house. So now I am in the dark (this was all happening about 5:00am before it is light outside). Then I smelled some electrical burning and really thought something is not right. I left the lights out, read by flashlight for awhile waiting for the sun to come up and went outside to check the incoming lines thinking maybe something happened outside. The wires that connect the house to the electrical reader had exploded. Me not being much of a repairman thought, this is still bad, but what do I do. So I left the electricity off and went to find some breakfast in Chichi since we have nothing in the house. Not much open but found a bean sandwich - for those who have not tried you are thinking man, that does not sound good, but let me tell you, they are pretty good but must be refried black beans. :)

Back on point... I was expecting Tomas (local construction guy) early in the morning to see about the pump. He arrived and I told him about what happened and then showed him the wiring. His surprised response was "we are going to have to find someone who knows about that as it does not look good!" And he also pointed out the reader was spinning when the electricity was turned off - also not good. So we were not able to review the pump as no electricity. So I waited for a little more to make sure another friend was up and going and asked him to come over. He is an US electrician by trade and has lived in Guatemala for many years. He looked at it and confirmed it was bad and then I pointed out that the reader was still spinning while the electricity in the house was off. This meant that we also had a short circuit somewhere, so we needed to find it. Luckily we did find it in the breaker box and got it turned off. He indicated it was spinning like we had about 30 1500 watt bulbs on which would really make the electrical bill look scary. So to end the woe, we have to re-wire from the reader to the house as the original cables were not sufficient for the energy usage of the house. Bummer! But since we do not have to stay there for a couple of weeks, hopefully we will get it fixed soon.

So after this I went to check what we lost due to the short circuit and it appears we lost our Internet routers. Possibly also the fridge but it may have survived. We will try it again once we have the new wiring. It smelled bad, but was still operational at the time.

OK, so that is all of the woes. Of course these are the same woes anyone can experience but it makes us feel better to write and complain about them...

So the good.

Yesterday we went to Mactzul VI to start up the ABC children's program. We took the names of 40 children to enroll in the program which focuses on keeping children in school and in church by creating a partnership between HTI, the sponsor, the churches, the parents and the children. HTI has about 500-600 children in the program and most are young children less than 13 years old. This last year we did have 13 graduate from high school or vocation school as teachers, computer technicians and secretaries. 2 are continuing in Central American Bible institutes and others have a desire to continue to college. To put this in perspective - None of the parents we met with in Mactzul VI continued past 6th grade. Of the 5 families I met with, most did not make it past 3rd grade. So now for the children to finish high school provides the parents and the kids more hope for the future.

Violeta and Pedro discussing program with congregation.

This church has around 40 families total and 23 or so with families in the ages to qualify for the ABC program.


Here are some of the local camera hams...

Took 3 photos to finally get them to smile. Use the word "wiskil" and it works everytime.

Tomasa Chicoj Salvador - this is the young girl that had the retinoblastoma and started chemotherapy and radiation therapy this last year. Her progress is still good and the other night her and her brother decided to just call us to say hi. That was a treat.

Today in Clinica Caris we had our 4th education class for all of the promoters we work with and had a great turn out - 17 promoters, 6 paid and 11 volunteer. They had their first tests and did well and helped us discuss potential new areas for clinics. We continue to be extremely blessed with participation in the churches and great leadership with Josefina, Marcos and Sheri.

Last week HTI hosted a surgical team in Clinica Ezell providing surgical care for patients with hernias, cysts, tumors and other ailments. They had a great week with one difficult case where the patient is recuperating well. One young lady from the Chichi area had a fibroid tumor removed that weighed 12 pounds. She is doing great.

Many of the clinics, including Caris, continue to develop and we continue to see positive outcomes both physically and spiritually. Of course there are always the tough patients so we ask you to pray for Pedro who has been confined to the bed and we are not sure what the problems are, Marta who as a blood disorder that we are waiting for the outcome on, Tomasa our retinoblastoma patient and Julisa our lukemia patient. The churches continue to report continued growth through connections with patients. See Sheri's blog for more updates - http://www.sheriinguate.blogspot.com/.

On the Lisa front, she continues to work in OB this month. Her calls are not as bad and she is getting a little rest each night. Please pray for May, this is when she starts surgery and will be on call every 3rd night. The word is no sleep and no time for much else so this will be a hard month on her. She has also been a little ill, so please pray that her energy will remain strong. As always, she has a great attitude. Many of her fellow students are interested in what we are doing which gives her opportunity to explain why we are here.

For another prayer request, please pray for a friend whose father is talking about going to the US to work and the family is really struggling with this decision. Please pray he will decide to stay with his family and find other means to provide for his econimic situation.

God is always GOOD! He just never said life would be easy.

God bless and please keep checking in!

Check-up

Today after Lisa got off her shift we went to a scheduled doctor's appointment for a checkup on her thyroid. The physician here is extremely nice and does not charge for his consult which of course is a great blessing for us. She also had to get some lab tests and a chest xray. Afterwards, we were walking out of the building thinking, man, we spent alot on those lab tests and chest xrays today - around Q1000. So then we started thinking, man that was cheap! We got out with a specialist Dr. visit, 5 lab tests and a chest xray for less than $140. Helps us realize how much we acclimate to the environment we live in!



On a patient note, Sheri had a little girl the other day in Choacaman whom we suspect to have some kind of blood disorder. She was admitted to the hospital on Friday and we still do not know much about what is wrong with her. Her name is Marta and her granddad's name is Diego. Please pray for Marta and her family so that they can get some more information and we can determine if there is a plan for treatment. Pray for healing and pray for patience and peace with the results of the diagnosis.



For anyone wondering what you can do to help us in this ministry, we can always uses many prayers. Prayers that we will continue to keep our faith strong, that we will have high spiritual and physical energy and that God will continue to mold us and guide us. Of course, it is a 2 way street and we must seek guidance through prayer and study as well.



We can also use your help with donations of some of the items listed on the bottom right of this blog. We use a bunch of ibuprofen 200mg, acetaminophen 500mg and ranitidine all of which are pretty inexpensive at locations such as Sam's club, Walmart, etc. So if you ever get a chance send us some bottles. They can be sent to Rick Harper, email us for his address.



Also please check the http://www.healthtalents.org/ website for additional needs we have.



God bless and please keep checking back!