Treated to Lunch

Living in a developing country you would think that free lunches would be few and far between.  But this is a very hospitable culture and we are frequently treated to meals--probably more often than we deserve!  Today Kemmel and I worked in two different places and were still honored by someone buying our lunch.  Kemmel was working in the office and was visted by one of the brothers from Paxot II, bearing fried chicken from Pollo Campero so they could sit down and talk about some ABC business.  Nice!   I was at Clinica Caris doing pap smears and procedures and got invited to a birthday lunch for one of the neighbor kids who turned 2 years old today.  They brought me a whopping bowl of chicken soup, extra noodles and fresh tamalitos, and to top it off--a cold diet coke!  About 18 of us sat in the tiny kitchen with mismatched plates and cups enjoying the birthday meal. The birthday girl got her own bowl and cup as a present from Grandma--she was excited!
We are definitely blessed and have a lot to learn from our humble but generous neighbors.

Finished Second Clinic at Caris

Today we finally had the time and opprutunity to finish the second dental clinic at Clinica Caris.  It was a good day as both Marcos and Sandra were available for the set-up as well as Maria, Martina, Mauri, Manuel and Josue.

Marcos proved to be a great dental technician as well to ensure all of the equipment was working properly and we got to use Josues skills in carpentry to do some touch up work, fix a few drawers, etc.

We recently purchased some used cabinetry, dental chairs, medical exam tables, dental equipment and dental instruments which allowed us to get things up and running.  We converted some wood medial exam tables into cabinets by replacing the bed padding with a counter-top which will be a huge help to us.

In clinic news, Ruben and team head out to San Jorge and Sheri and Gaspar to Xepol where they were able to do some house visist with some patients struggling with ilnesses. 

All in all a good day.  Ready for clinic today.

Highlands Teams - Blessed for Sure!

I do not think we have taken the time to introdude some of our new team members so wanted to dedicate this blog to the team in the highlands.  We could not ask for a more spiritually minded, humble, and dedicated group of people!

This is Josue.  Josue joined us in March and for those who knew Aura, the dental assistant that went to dental school, this is her brother.  Josue is also part of the Voces Acapella singing group who travel throughout Guatemala and some of Mexico to encourage the churches through music.  We hope to see Josue in Medical School one day.

This is Sandra with Maria.  Sandra and Maria also joined us in March.  Sandra is from Guatemala City and has joined our team as a dentist.  Maria is from Xepocol and is the dental assistant.  Sandra and her family are both deeply involved with their church in Guatemala City and has some great experiences in local mission work.  We have known Maria since we moved here and have seen her grow into a mature christian woman and auxillary nurse.  She has been working in a local pharmacy for about 2 years and has been a dedicated student in the HTI monthly education classes.

This is Sandra and Maria with Maria's mom and sister.  They come from a humble home, so Maria is excited to be able to help the family more and possibly move towards getting electricity in the home.

Before we left for the US for my surgery, the staff surprised me with a ceviche lunch and a time of prayer.  In these 2 pictures we have photos of other team members:

       Marcos (orange HTI Shirt) - Dentist - active in young peoples group at church in Santa Cruz and in music ministry encouraging praise and adoration in his church.  Marcos holds a future of being a leader in his church and in christian professional leadership.  As Sandra indicated one day, he is a special kind of dentist for the care and compassion he gives his patients.

      Ruben (bearded man at end of table) - Physician - Ruben is recently married to Sandra (pink shirt to his right).  Ruben brings us an energy that is needed in every organization and in every church and also has a great future in christian professional leadership.  Ruben accepts engagements to speak at churches openly and shares the gospel with his patients.

       Enrique (top photo, Marcos has his hand on his shoulder) - Enrique started with us in February as a promoter and replacement for Gaspar who is changing his role to work as an evangelist.  Enrique comes from Panajxit where there is no church, but he attends a church in a closeby town called La Estancia.  Enrique has been a long time volunteer and active in the classes.  He has been doing home visits on his own as a volunteer since we started the clinic in Panajxit.  Everyone who has gone to his home for lunch comes back amazed at the christian service he and his wife, Luisa, provides.  He is a preacher and evangelist.

Manuel - (above center) - Manuel first came to work with us after he stated. "If you all ever need some help with a driver, please let me know as I would like to just go with you all on clinics as a volunteer.  I am impressed with the ministry and want to be involved in anyway I can.".  This sealed the deal for us.  Manuel is from Paxot 2 and is a previous businessman who brings a business way of thinking to the team and a no frills just get it done correctly attitude.  He is a preacher, teacher, church leader and fullfills a volunteer leadership role with the ABC program.

Mauri - (left side of Manuel) - Mauri comes from Chichicastenango and is the only promoter who has finished high school.  She started as a dental assistant and after 90 days or so was not excited about working around the grossness of dental every day.  She had enough confidence to bring this to us and was willing to look for another job.  Of course, that kind of courage to speak up and give up a good job, is not something someone wants to loose.  We found another position for her and now she is a office assistant, bookkeeper, promoter and part-time dental asisstant as needed.  Mauri is a leader in the childrens worship in her church and is currently attending university to become an accountant (8 years of Saturday classes to get her degree).

Martina - (right side Manuel) - Martina comes from Chucam a close community outside of Chichi. Martina works as a dental assistant with Marcos.  Martina started with a 3rd grade education a few years ago and through the adult learning system (weekend classes) is now in middle school with the goal of going to Dental School one day.  We hope to guide her along the way to secure her goal.  Martina is an oldest child and second mom to her younger brothers and sisters and a great encourager.  She is also very active in the children's ministry at the church in Chichicastenango and hoefully one day a leader in a new church in Chucam.

 Of course we would not be complete without Sheri.  Sheri's bright attitude and excitement is catching and especially a gift when it comes to education.  Sheri came to Guatemala a number of years back on a short term trip and the next thing you know she is in language school and made a number of trips in 2 years to prep herself to move here.  She came as an ICU nurse and now acts as a nurse practitioner, teacher and spiritual encouager to many, including us!

Gaspar - Behind Mauri and Martina - Gaspar is holding a candle like the others, but was the first to shine here in the area of Quiche.  The way we ran into each other is but a work of God and we are thankful each and every day of that blessing.  Gaspar is a leader in his community, an elder in the church and knows just about everyone.  Reminds us much of Don Berryhill.  Gaspar has started a movement in his church and his community in education, outreach and compassion and as a result, the church has grown, young people are finishing high school as teachers and people are finding a church family who really cares and gets involved in the lives of people in the community.  Gaspar is changing his role this year to focus more on individuals and encouragement to the local churches where we serve and is off to a good start.  He has made mulitple contacts with people through Clinica Caris and today is speaking with a family of 10 about scheduling a day for a baptism party!

Tomas - promoter - Tomas comes from Mactzul V and started with us as a volunteer promoter in his community.  Tomas is our hugger (a rarity in this culture!).  Tomas is a natural evangelist and speaks with a humble confidence to most people he meets.  Tomas is also a preacher and a recent appointed elder in his church.  Mactzul V is also a fast growing church and has doubled in size of the last few years.  Tomas's primary role will be as promoter but we will find oppurtunities to send him with Gaspar on home visits when possible. 

We are blessed to work with such a great group of people who are dedicated to serving the Lord both with HTI and leading their local churches.  God be praised.

Here is a photo of many of us together with a group from ACU a couple of years back.  Guess we need a more updated team photo.

This is a picture of what we would call our extended team.  At the end of March we had a fellowship and encouragement time with most of the local volunteers and elders from the churches where we serve.  We were able to thank them for their work in the local church, give them a commerative patch and an HTI bag and more importantly discuss the purpose and vision of the ministies partnership with the local churches. 

We planned this based on local leadership interest in coming together and Gaspar arranged everything through the church in Xepocol and presented a talk on the parable of the sower leading into a discussion on local evangelism efforts between all of those who came.  It was a good day!

Thanks for visiting us today and please keep all of these brothers and sisters in your prayers as they continue to share the gospel both in deed and talk to those we come across in our daily lives.

Making Progress

Kemmel's rehab on his shoulder is really coming along.  He has been a compliant patient and thankfully, has had very little discomfort.  This week he has transitioned to some slightly more active excercises which has been encouraging.  And... he just has two more weeks before he can start driving the stick shift (well, maybe just up to town at first).  While doing his exercises, our cat always hangs out with him supervising.  We caught a great picture of her the other day when she decided she needed a little more hands-on approach to her coaching.

Back on Radar

We are back on the blogging wagon again after quite a long writing break.  The last month has been very busy and productive for us and we have a lot to share about the ministry. Besides getting my computer stolen during a house break-in, we had been too busy to let our creative juices flow enough for blogging!  But, thankfully we are settled back in to some semblance of routine again.
Spring Break
It seems like the Spring Break season came and went in a flash, bringing with it two great teams from Harding University and Lipscomb University.  We were able to get all of our ABC kids' check ups done for the semester, which is a great accomplishment.  The students also did a great deal of painting, cleaning and organizing after our recent clinic expansion.  So we are grateful for all of the help we received. 
Vision Seminar
Also we were able to host a meeting of clinic volunteers and elders from participating churches to discuss the clinic ministry and use of contacts for evangelistic outreach.  Many of the participants had encouraging words and ideas for improving the work.  Our Bible lesson was focused on the parable of the Sower and about how we have the opportunity to prepare the soil we are about plant the seed in and how the clinic ministry allows us to get involved in people's lives in a compassionate way, preparing their hearts to hear the gospel. We are blessed to work with so many brothers and sisters who are interested in sharing the good news.
Kemmel's Surgery
At the end of March we flew to Little Rock, AR so Kemmel could have surgery on his torn rotator cuff.  It was successful and he is recoving very well--just itching to be able to use his arm more.  This week he has been weening off the arm splint and gaining some freedom!   He has a long way to go with physical therapy but we are optomistic that he will be strong again by the end of the year.  We are thankful to the doctors and nurses and physical therapists who took such good care of Kemmel.  While we were in the States we got to stay with my sister Aimee and her family and see my parents and other sister Anna.  That was a great treat to spend time with them and be treated like royalty.  God has been so good to us!
Marriage Seminars
This month we hosted three Marriage and Family Therapy specialists to come and give seminars in the churches.  The team consisted of Clay Bartee and two of his students in the master's program at Harding University.  Allison and Raul did a great job and we have heard nothing but wonderful comments about the classes.  Hopefully we will forge a long-term relationship with them for future work.
Health Talents Board Meeting
This last weekend we were invited to be a part of the Board of Director's meeting in Antigua.  It was a great blessing to present information about our work here and get to share ideas and listen to the goals and plans they have for the future of the ministry.  We are grateful for the time we got to spend with them.

That's it for now.  We have a day at home today to rest!  We are planning on kicking back and taking in some Kindle time (we are enjoying the Hunger Games books).

Seven Years in Guatemala

This week marks seven years since we moved to Guatemala.  In our minds it is both a short time that has flown by especially when we think about how much we would like to do still; and it is a very long time when we think about how far away we are from family.  This work is hard sometimes, and lonely sometimes, but it is fulfilling and exciting and never boring.  God has been faithful and has helped us increase our faith in him and drawn us closer to each other and to him these  seven years.  We are grateful to our both our family and our church family for the constant support and encouragement. 
We were talking to one of the elders at the church in Mactzul 6 yesterday and asking him about how he became a Christian and how the church began in this area.  He told us about how at the age of 25, some Christians from the capital came and preached in the area and he and his wife and 5 other couples believed and formed the first Church of Christ in the Chichicastenango area.  He remembers that when they were baptized, the brothers and sisters from the capital came and brought food for the families and that one of the sisters who came was an old woman who walked about 10 miles with baskets of food on her head. These young couples also began to teach others and he describes it as the gospel taking off like an explosion.  He remembers one town where over 70 people were baptized on the same day.  What a blessing to sit and listen to his memories of the work he has done the last 38 years.  He was honored this week at a local church during the innauguration of their new church building, for his dedicated work spreading the gospel and planting and nurturing churches.  We asked him if he would do us the honor of doing a written interview to collect his memories of the history of the church here and he agreed.

We are so honored to work with people like Pedro and learn from their zeal to teach others about God's saving grace.  May we be as willing to be God's instruments in this world.

Breakfast anyone?

This morning we are in Guatemala City waiting for our visiting team of Harding University P.A. students to arrive.  So we decided to go to IHOP for breakfast.  We got there at about 0630 and were the only ones there!  The waiter confimed that we were the first and only customers so far and remarked that Northamericans seem to eat a lot earlier than the local crowd who tend roll in around 9:00 on Saturdays. We enjoyed the alone time until about 0730 when other customers started filling up the tables (even some Guatemalans!).  Thanks IHOP for opening early.  Now if all the rest of the stores would do the same!