Last week I hosted an amazing team from 2 churches (Eliot and Stratham) which are located in Maine and New Hampshire. If you are an avid reader of my blog (duh) then you may remember me talking about this team last February. This was the first team I ever worked with last year which had the 3 teenage girls on the trip who I really enjoyed hanging out with since I had been missing the youth at my church.
Anyways, I went to Guatemala City last Saturday to pick up the team and was greeted with smiles and hugs when the returning team members came out of the airport. I am very excited to work with all the teams coming this Spring since I have met a lot of them already. I think that is going to be one of my favorite things about working with the teams. After each team leaves I find myself thinking "well obviously now I have to stay until that team comes back next year because I can't fathom not working with them again" and this team was no exception. I truly had a beautiful week serving alongside them and it was a tearful goodbye (as always) when it was time to part ways. Here are some of the highlights of the week.
After picking the team up at the airport we traveled to Chichicastenango where we stayed for the week. On Sunday the team went shopping in the market which I had absolutely no interest in. If members on the team ask me to go with them then I of course go, but if they seem fine to go on their own I gladly pass on the market. After going with teams all the time for the past year I have no more need or desire to shop in the overly crowded market, so when Jose asked if I wanted to see "an ancient Mayan statue that people pray to" I jumped at the chance. Him, I, and Ignacio (a new driver that we worked with last week) walked around Chichi for about an hour until we finally found the little house that the statue is kept in, and when we walked in I had to keep from laughing so hard because it was nothing like I was imagining. Just look at the picture below. Wouldn't you think when you hear "ancient Mayan statue that they pray to and worship" that it wouldn't be a dude in a suit and a top hat holding a cane, a beer, and a cigarette hanging out of it's mouth? When we got to the museum/house Jose bought a few candles that represented different things and lit them and prayed to him (Pascual Abaj). I think the green was for wealth, the blue was to prosper, and the red was to find love. He didn't buy the other candle which was black which he explained was if you wanted evil for someone else. After the tour I put Q5 in his hand and asked for joy for all my loved ones, so if you have been having a joyful week you're welcome.
Then we took a tour of the rest of the museum to learn about the earlier versions of the statues and also the different masks that the Mayans are known to wear in their ceremonies. During the tour though I could really just focus on this painting that was hanging on the wall behind the dude giving us the tour. Let me just say that I had no idea that my dad looks EXACTLY like the saint Santo Tomas. I mean if I asked an artist to paint my father holding a goofy tiny version of himself while wearing a flapper robe with a cool headdress this is what I would end up with. After I saw this I then realized how many paintings and statues of Santo Tomas there are around Chichi. Especially at the hotel we stayed at that week (the Santo Tomas hotel) which all just look like my dad. I have no idea how I haven't noticed it before since I have stayed in that hotel about 10 times. Anyways, if you know my dad then you know how funny it was to discover that.
The team of 17 broke up into 2 groups during the work week. We all stayed at the same hotel, so we were all together in the mornings and nights. However, during the days 11 people went to the clinic in Camanchaj to work construction and the other 6, 3 translators, and myself went with the medical team into rural villages everyday to set up rural clinics. On Monday we served out of one of our Salud y Paz clinics which is not currently operating unless we have teams there in the village Patulup. This photo was taken from our clinic overlooking Santa Cruz, Quiche. The weather was so beautiful this week, and everyday I was amazed at the views we were given. I am constantly reminded of what an absolutely beautiful country I live in.
This is the pastor's house which is located right next to our clinic and church. I sat on a ledge for a long time just looking at this house and wondering why I do not live somewhere like this. My apartment in Pana is not much different than a place that I would live in in the States. I mean obviously in some ways it is very Guatemalan, but in others it is absolutely nothing like the local houses I visit often with teams. Sometimes I get hard on myself for the fact that I do not live the way that our patients live. Lately I have been wondering if I am truly following God's call in every way or if I am only doing it half way. I know that the way to stay down here longer is to have the random comforts that remind me of the States, but then am I truly having the experience he asked me to have? How can I relate to our patients if I cannot even relate to how they live? I have been asking myself a lot lately if I could still do my job to the same level if I lived in a rural community, but I can't figure out the answer. Part of me thinks it is something I need to do, but then the other part of me cannot fathom giving up my community here in Pana. Not a decision I need to make today, but is just something I can't seem to get out of my mind. One time during the day in Patulup Jose asked me what I was thinking about and when I told him he just laughed and said to try it for a month and I would be back in Pana... who knows.
This is just another house in Patulup that I thought was beautiful. Sometimes Guatemala reminds me of Colorado where one set of my grandparents live. Because I spent so much time in Colorado growing up when it feels like Colorado here it really does feel like home. Again just so beautiful. I really do think that the rural villages I get to serve in while with teams are more beautiful than Pana.
I was bad about having my camera out with this team taking pictures, but I stole this one from a team member's Facebook. This was part of the triage team on the first day. When I wasn't checking on the rest of the team or getting sad while looking at the houses around I would go into their room and sit on the counter and listen to the patients. I love sitting at triage because it is really where I can get the most patient interaction during the week. I had just put hand sanitizer in my hand before this picture hence the awkward hand placement.
On the other days we set up the rural clinic I set up a coloring station for the kids. My days were not busy at all with this team because we only had 1 doctor and were usually set up in one large room, so I could just sit there and see that everything was running smoothly. Usually on teams we have multiple providers who are set up in various classrooms and I am the one running patients to all the different sites. However, I took total advantage of this team being more laid back with only 6 people. Also even though it was their first year of being a medical team you could never tell. They had everything so greatly organized that it was a breeze to host them which is why I got to color almost every day!
The picture that I am coloring below was my masterpiece of the week (obviously... just look at it) and without my knowing the doctor on the team took it from my clipboard and hung it over the mantle during devotional one night. He then explained to the group that they had a local Guatemalan artist with them and I almost fell out of my chair I was laughing so hard. Then the construction team at the clinic took it the next day and painted it over my desk. I have no idea what the other volunteers and staff will think about it, but I LOVE it!! The team also built me some shelves about my new desk area (pics to come) and put their hand prints on them. I loved it so much!
These were the translators and drivers that we worked with during the week (Archy, Jose, Jaime, Joshua, and Ivan). I really love working with these guys. Several of the team members commented to me that they admired the way I worked with them. They said it was great that I am obviously friends with them and can laugh really hard with them, but that at the end of the day they could tell they all respected me and knew I was in charge. Absolutely something I have worked hard on finding the balance with, so it was nice to have that feedback.
The picture below is of the beautiful team minus one of my favorite team members who wasn't in the picture. I laughed and cried with this team during the week at the nightly devotionals. I truly felt like I was included in the family they were building during the week, and am very thankful for the amazing moments I had with them. One of my favorite moments happened the last night during devotional. Each night Patty would ask a question to the team or say a topic then we would go around the room in a circle and everyone would talk. When people started sharing they all started by saying "When I go home..." and I started getting really sad. I just sat there thinking about how I didn't get to go home and then I started thinking about how much I missed it. Then as people continued to share I had an epiphany that I was home. That for right now Guatemala is my home, and that when they were going to be going back to the States I was going to be going back to my apartment in Pana which is now my home. So that is what I talked about when it was finally my turn. I talked about how I had no idea for how long Guatemala was going to be my home for, but that at least right now in that moment it was home. Maybe something will pull me back to Texas tomorrow, or maybe I'll finish up my commitment and leave, or maybe I will become a lifer (Mom I'm kidding... don't cry. I promise I'll move home and have babies sometime). Anyways, the point is that Texas is now where I am from and don't get me wrong it will always be my home, but I realized that I need to stop being sad that I am not there because that is a choice. Maybe it has taken me a year to realize that because now I have a truly amazing community of people surrounding me down here. Who knows, it was just a really special beautiful moment. After I shared one of the team members suggested that we listen to the song Home by Phillip Phillips (who names a kid Phillip Phillips?!?) which of course made me cry like a baby. My favorite line in the song is "Just know you're not alone, Cause I'm going to make this place your home". Beautiful. Such a beautiful last night to a beautiful week with an amazing team!
After this team left on Friday I worked at the clinic for a few hours helping set everything up for surgery week. It was more difficult than I was expecting to jump from one team straight into preparing for my next one. Luckily I ended up not having to go to Guatemala City to pick up the team on Saturday, so I actually had a day in between to finish up some work stuff with one team and get ready for the next. I will write another blog in the next couple of days about the surgical team in country right now, but let me just say I wish I had time this week to just color everyday! Surgical teams are so hectic not even mentioning that I have a team of 37 flying in on Saturday that I am also trying to get everything ready for. If you happen to read this in the next couple of days please pray for our eye patients and for the hands of the surgeons and supporting medical staff. Also please continue to pray for my guidance for these teams and that I am properly prepared for anything that may come up during the week.
On another note Land Before Time just came on TV in Spanish which is maybe the best motivation I have had to work on learning more Spanish in a long time! :)
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