Stories

Here are just a few anecdotes that we have had the enjoyment of experiencing so far. I hope you at least get a smile out of them.

What a joy to serve our savior Jesus.  He has put together an incredible team of servants and we are so blessed during this time.  I have been teased repeatedly now after our episode in clinic with the babies who had coca-cola in the bottle.  Grace and I both spent time trying to explain to the mother that it is very unhealthy to do this.  Next, I needed to examine the baby who started crying as soon as I approached her.   Naturally, I grabbed the bottle of cola and shoved it into her mouth and said "this will keep her quiet".   Ah well--maybe I can be better about sending a clear message of health care and disease prevention tomorrow.  Please pray for Heydey who was our sickest patient so far.  We are hoping that her aunt can take her to the hospital as she needed much more care than we could give.  It was an incredible privilege to hold her hand and pray with her.  Thanks for all your prayers on our behalf...Blessings
Sarah

     This is Carol.  I have had the pleasure of meeting all the patients in Amatitlan and checking them into the clinic.  Today we arrived in Gualan, went to the beautiful hotel, and continued up the mountain to the village of La Avanzada.  Our goal today was simply to see the clinic setting (a community room) and bring the supplies to set up.  About 20-25 children gathered to see what we were doing, and I saw the opportunity to play Duck, Duck, Goose with them.  As I began to form a circle with the kids, I realized I didn't remember the word for Goose.  So...there may be some some Guatemalan children who think the game is Pato, Pato, Oso (Duck, Duck, Bear)  :)  I did learn later that goose is ganso.

     Blessings! I cannot even begin to express how awesome it has been here in Guatemala so far! God has truely been working in each of our lives, and in the lives of the people here. The biggest frustration for me personally has been the language barrier. I took some Spanish in high school, but had forgotten most of it. I am such a relational person, I desire to get to know and talk to everyone here, so not being able to was very frustrating. God works in such mysterious ways! He has showed that communication is so much more than words. I have successfully gotten to know some people without being able to understand each other. My favorite so far was a 3 year old boy. We played soccer together, he then followed me into the pharmacy where we played peek-a-boo, then we had a tickle fight. It was so fun. Words were not necessary to show each other that we were having fun and we enjoyed being with one another. I am excited to see how God will continue to work through the rest of the week. I am improving my spanish, which I am loving! Thank you all for all the prayers, keep them coming! They are much needed and appreciated! Muchas Gracias!! ~ Lauren

Hola amigos!! Guatemala has been life changing and absolutely wonderful! God is working in all of our hearts and this week will be something I will never forget. Just like Lauren said above, the language barrier has been interesting and pretty entertaining. One of me and Mia's jobs was to read the instructions that came with the hygiene kits, and it was written in Spanish. Andre who is from Guatemala was there to help Mia and I. Andre decided that after we had already read the instructions to maybe 10 different people, he would tell us that we were mispronouncing a word. He said it really lightly like it was no big deal. Turns out that we were saying "pene" instead of "peine". Let's just say "pene" happens to be a private male body part and peine is "comb". So when we were saying, "use your pene twice a day and use it to clean your hair and scalp" you can imagine the snickers we were getting. To make it even worse, before Andre told us what we were saying, Mia and I decided to practice our pronounciation on that not so appropriate word. She would say it and then I would say it, we probably repeated it out loud maybe 20 times.~ Megan