MDUMC team (YAY), Amoebas, and how my leg modeling days are officially over.

4 little updates for you...

1. The MDUMC team was here last week and I could not have been happier! I will write a much longer blog about it with photos hopefully this weekend when I have time to upload them. Let me just say quickly that having my family here again along with peeps I worked with at the clinic and all sorts of college folks who I love and miss tremendously was such a blessing! It means the world to me that they wanted to spend their Spring Break visiting me down here and experiencing what my life is like here. I will have many more pictures in my next blog, but here is one my favorites from the week!

Here is my family with Nehemias' family. He is one of our students at in our school who has Cerebral Palsy who is clearly a favorite. Our whole team went to visit his home, and someone suggested that my entire family take a picture with his. Could not be more thankful for that suggestion. This picture makes me realize how incredibly blessed I am to have such a supportive and amazing family back home.

2. PARKER AND I ARE GOING TO SOUTH AMERICA!!! Last week my brother and I decided that Summer 2014 we are going to spend 2 months backpacking around South America together. I originally suggested "dos anos" to which he suggested 2 months was more realistic. :) Then when we told our parents our plans they said that maybe they would fly down to visit for a week since it will be their 35th wedding anniversary. How fun would that be?? Us Craggs have turned out to be great travel buddies. Could not be more excited to start planning the trip with Parker!

3. Amoebas. Yay. I have been feeling really run down the last couple of weeks then went through about a week and a half period of time where I constantly was getting sick. I finally did some blood work at the clinic on Monday (have I mentioned how nice it is to work at a clinic sometime??) which came back saying that overall I was pretty healthy, but had a case of Amoebas which is taking me a long time to get over. I am now taking about 6 different meds, and should be better in a couple of weeks. Cheryl told me that I wasn't allowed to work for the next 2 weeks which is perfect since the clinic is closed next week for Semana Santa then I don't have a team the following week. However, after that I have 2 more weeks on with teams. We'll see how that goes. 

4. Sad news everyone! I have officially declared that my possible leg modeling days are over. My good leg (you know the one that wasn't broken in multiple places 3 years ago, and which now has 18 pieces of metal in it) is now out as well. In the past 2 months it really has gone down hill. Between the turkey bite and the ribarb gash a few weeks ago that are both going to scar, and the scab I have going on from attempting to hold my brother like a baby last week (isn't possible I found out and just leads to us falling on each other) it wasn't looking good. Then this week I have cut it twice more with ribarb and have 13 possible spider bites which appeared yesterday. One of the translators looked at it today and just laughed and told me that I was probably going to die in Guatemala, or you know at least loose a leg. My dad has told me since my broken leg a few years ago which left a 6 inch scar after surgery that my leg modeling days were over, but I still held out hope. Now I can officially say that when my donations run out and I have to move back to the States I will have to look for other options. Sadness. 

Ok... Off to bed. It started raining today at the clinic while we were working outside. This week we have 2 college teams in country, and I am working with the one from Rutger's University who are serving at our clinic along with 6 who are participating in our Amiga's training in Lemoa. I will write more about their team in my next blog as well. Night blog world!

Ft. Smith Medical and Dental Team, First trip to Cunen, and Bus drama.

So this blog is a couple of weeks in the making. As if y'all couldn't have already tell that I have been way behind on writing my blog lately. Anyways, I leave tomorrow morning to pick up 2 more weeks of teams (one of which is from my home church!), so I decided that even though I am crazy busy tonight I need to get these stories down.

If you have been keeping up with my blog (again sorry for being a stranger lately) then you know that a couple of weeks ago I finished my first 3 weeks on with teams. My last week I hosted a medical and dental team of 19 with 3 doctors and 2 dentists in a very little village called Cunen which is about 5 hours north of Panajachel. My group of 19 was actually part of a larger team of 34 which broke up into 3 groups during the work week.  We had a construction team at our clinic in Camanchaj, a medical team in Chichi, and my team in Cunen. I loved everything about this week. I loved the team who could not have been more supportive of me and my mission down here. I loved the village Cunen and would host every team there if I could convince more teams to go there, and I loved all the laughter and joy I shared not only with the beautiful team but also with our translators and driver. I realized after the fact that I really didn't take that many pictures during the week and that these are all from my iPhone. Hopefully I can get some of the pictures from team members and maybe add them back into this blog. Anyways, here are the pitiful ones that I took.

Here is beautiful Cunen with the Hollywood sign and everything. So I know I have talked about this before, but sometimes I get the urge to live in a more rural community than Panajachel and spending the week in Cunen didn't help that feeling. I know it would be a completely different experience, but I do question if I am fully following God's call since I do not live the way our patients live. I guess just something to continue to pray about and see where I am lead. I truly love my life and community in Pana, but lately the more I think about it the more I may want to explore what it would be like to live in a more rural community and experience what it is like to live the same way as the patients we serve.

Here is a pic of our Hotel in Cunen.  This is one of only 2 hotels in the village with the other one only having 2 rooms and apparently not suitable for us to use. This hotel is walking distance from our Salud y Paz clinic in Cunen. The clinic is completely built and is almost completely set up inside. We are hoping for more donations this year towards Cunen, so we can have it staffed with a Guatemalan doctor and dentist. Right now it is only open when we have teams in Cunen (you would think I would have taken a pic of the clinic, but nope). 

So remember above when I mentioned that this was the only hotel in town we could use? Well since we took such a large team to Cunen we had to scramble and figure out how to fit everyone in the hotel. They ended up bringing in 4 extra beds to accommodate the translators, but didn't have another one for me. I ended up sleeping on the floor on this pad in the storage room upstairs where we kept all of our rural medical and dental supplies. It wasn't the most comfortable night's sleep, but the worst part was that it didn't come with a bathroom nor was there a public one at the hotel to use. Therefore I had to be that awkward girl who had to ask random team members and translators if I could use their bathrooms or better yet when I woke up in the morning and they were all standing outside drinking their coffee with their doors open I would just go into their rooms. At least one of the translators that I am close to had his own room, so I could use Raul's room and bathroom whenever I needed to. I actually woke up one night and wondered if I should set up a rural dental chair and if that would be more comfortable. The other hilarious thing about staying in this room was that this was where the breaker box was. Almost every time 2 people tried to shower at the same time or maybe turned on their lights even the power would blow. Then the guy working at the hotel would knock on my door, step over my bed, and flip the switch. One night I was talking to my roommate on the phone for about an hour and he came in about 6 times while I was just laying in bed dying laughing.

This next picture is of a man named Jose who lives in the first community La Barranca where we served Monday. He came in with a cloth bag over her arm, and when he took it off this was underneath. None of the doctors on the team had ever seen anything like this before and I have never seen or heard of any of our teams seeing anything like this out in the rural communities before. Jose said that he had had it for about 7 years and had only gone to the doctor once, but that the 1 treatment he did didn't make it go away. The team was great with him. They took pictures of his arm and sent them to another doctor back in the States. They also said that they would be willing to help out financially for his treatment if we could get him to the appropriate hospital. However, even though I gave Jose money for transportation to Cunen to follow up with the team later on in the week and Raul's phone number in case he had questions he never showed up in Cunen. I am still holding out hope that he will come to Camanchaj, but probably not. Please pray that he does make it to our clinic in Camanchaj and that we are able to get him the treatment he needs.

 Ok... so remember from a couple of teams ago when I mentioned that between running around making sure the team had everything they needed I figured out I could color with the kids and keep them entertained? Well here is proof that I spent yet another week coloring with adorable kiddos. :)

These pictures were taken in Chiul which was the community where we worked Tuesday. This was one of the poorest communities I had worked in. On this day the kids taught me a little song about Jesus while we colored. Just a beautiful day!

The girl on the left is Susie. Her mom was one of our local translators all week, so she was an active member of my coloring club everyday. Also the little boy in the crocs below was my favorite. He was just incredibly precious and took my hair out of my ponytail, so he could play with it.

So I hadn't hurt myself in a few weeks, so clearly something was bound to happen in Cunen. I walked outside to take a phone call where I saw a little girl who was laying on the ground crying. I went over to the little girl and bent down to pick her up. What I didn't know was that she had tripped over a broken off piece of ribarb that was sticking out of the ground.  It gashed me, but luckily the medical peeps I was with fixed me up everyday. Oh also the bottom circle cut is from when I was with the Stratham and Eliot team a couple of weeks ago and was BIT BY A TURKEY. Yep, you read that correctly. I was actually bit by a turkey and I think I am going to have a stupid scar from it. I will say that when it happened the doctor on that team had a hilarious line about how "turkey bites are what took out the pilgrims". 

These brothers were also in Chiul and were hilarious. They showed up at the end of the day while we were cleaning up and loved carrying suitcases bigger than themselves down the massive hill to the bus. Before we loaded up I entertained them by taking their picture on the iPhone. Then I got the brilliant (yep... brilliant) idea to take their video then show it to them. Now I have 26 videos of them dancing and laughing hysterically on my phone. They would show off then run back to me to watch themselves on my phone and laugh their little hearts out then ask for more. 

The last 3 days of the week we set up in our clinic in Cunen. The 2 pictures below are from outside the clinic. One is of the line of patients waiting to see the doctors and dentists and the other is of 2 cute boys who were just taking a nap up against our clinic. Right next door to the clinic is the Methodist church where Alejandro is the pastor. 

 

Below are just some more pictures of cute kiddos at our clinic in Cunen. I would hang out with them until a team member needed me then I would leave them and the kids would come find me and call me teacher and ask to color or play with bubbles some more. It also made me laugh every time team members would walk by and just smile and take my picture then walk away.

I can't remember this ladies name, but she lives across the street from the hotel where we stayed. The team had seen her last year and when they saw her again this year they decided to help her get to the clinic. They actually sent a translator to her house one morning to make sure that she was going to come. Susie showed up at the clinic sick this morning, so since her mother was translating I took her into see the doctor to get her some medication. As I sat there with Susie this lady started telling me how her husband had died several years earlier leaving her with no other family in Cunen. She has a cousin in Chichi, but no one in her house to help take care of her. I talked to the pastor about looking out for her and he said that he would make sure that she had people who would bring her food. She started crying at one point and told me that she was scared to see the doctor and reached over to hold my hand. This is a lady who was sitting there telling me that no one had been taking care of her in years and that she hadn't touched someone in so long, but yet I was just this American with poor Spanish who she decided to reach out to. We just sat there in silence holding hands for a few minutes until it was time to go into the doctor. After I went with Susie to see a doc and she went to another one I saw her again in the pharmacy and she gave me a huge hug. She then thanked me for living in Guatemala and serving her people and said that God had something special for me when it is my time to go to Heaven. Such a precious moment with a beautifully strong woman. (By the way if you are reading this blog and remember her name please let me know.)

This is a picture of me with the team leader, Nelson, in his super cool hat! He was for sure the trouble maker on the team, and was one of my favorites. I communicated with him a lot prior to their arrival and he always made me feel like I was his granddaughter. When we were having some difficulties planning the trip he would just say over the phone "You're a smart girl you'll be able to figure it out.". His wife Dottie is in the background of this picture. They both reminded me of church members back home and Nelson actually reminded me of my grandfather Vernon. Also know that he lost his suitcase for a day before getting it back. However, in those few hours where we didn't know if he was going to get it back or not we brainstormed how to get him clothes for the week. My suggestion was obviously that he needed to wear the traditional Mayan dress. You can imagine how disappointed I was when he actually got his suitcase back. :)



This precious little baby is Miguel. He was born with a cleft lip palate, and had already had 1 surgery to repair it. However, according to the parents the stitching had come out, so obviously he was in need for a second surgery. This little baby was really scared and crying a lot when he entered the doctor's office, but by the time they were ready to leave he was smiling at me his giant smile. We do not have a surgery team coming down who is able to do cleft lip palates (we do cleft lip) at our clinic, so we just gave them some baby vitamins and told them about our clinic in Camanchaj. Please also pray that Miguel's parents find the appropriate organization or hospital who will be able to complete the surgery on him.

This isn't the best picture of this little old man, but it does show what one of the doctor's offices looked like. This was the room that Dr. David and Raul served in all week. This little man came in complaining of back pain and saying that he didn't understand why his back always hurt. The doctor explained to him that he was just getting older and that he needed to slow down a bit. He had such a hard time walking around our clinic and I can just imagine how far away he had to walk from to even get to our clinic.

These next 2 pictures were taken when I took the team to a local house for them to visit and see how the patients they had been treating all week live. The first was the view from the house. The team had to walk up a pretty big hill to get to the house on the top. I thought it was absolutely worth it to see the view. I never got over how beautiful Cunen was. 

This was one of the two rooms in this home. I thought it was unusual that this room had 2 beds in it, but no mattresses. Most of the patient homes I visit have the mattresses on the floor, but no actual built beds. No wonder so many patients come through complaining of bad back pain. 

Again I loved working with this team. I can't remember if I have written about this before, but every time a team leaves I think well now I have to stay next year until (fill in month here), so I can work this team again. This team absolutely made me think I need to stay at least until next February so I will be able to work with them another time. Who knows. This was another beautiful team where I felt like I became a part of their team and not just the host who no one knew. They said such kind and reassuring words to me during the week and prayed with me during a hard time. If anyone from the team is reading this please know how thankful I am for such a beautiful week of service with y'all! I truly appreciate and miss your community, laughter, and joy.

Now onto a slightly different note I had a little bit of a scare Friday afternoon while traveling back to Pana after leaving the team. I said goodbye to the team in Los Encuentros where they traveled onto Antigua and I had to take 2 buses back to Pana. My first bus from Los Encuentros to Solola was uneventful, however my bus from Solola to Pana wasn't. After being on the bus for a few minutes I heard this guy towards the front of the bus yelling in K'iche (one of the Mayan languages in Guatemala). Since I couldn't understand what he was saying I didn't think much about it, but after another few minutes I saw the guy stand up and start waving a knife in the air. I was towards the back of the bus, so I wasn't close to the guy but I did quickly realize that I was the only non Guatemalan on the bus. All of a sudden he grabbed a lady and held the knife against her neck. After about a minute and a half a couple of guys tackled him while the bus slammed on their brakes. I was sitting by a group of older teenage guys who opened the back door and all jumped out. The guy I was sitting by threw my large backpack to one of his friends who threw it out the bus while another guy grabbed my hand and jumped out with me. Right after we jumped out the back the bus started going again.

Thankfully I made it out with my main bag, but left several others on the bus. I left some things that the team had donated to our clinic, a bag of personal donations the team had given me, all the dental stats for the week, one day of medical stats, the amazing $100 donation the team had just given me, and a bag I was using as a purse with about Q300 in it along with some other personal items. Also my bag which was thrown off the bus had my computer in it and when it hit the ground my computer busted. I was able to pay someone $125 to get it back up and running, but the screen is cracked and it keeps overheating and dying. Even though it was upsetting to loose all that stuff the thing that I couldn't stop thinking about was the lady. I jumped off the bus (or was kind of dragged off the bus) before I made sure she was ok. It took me about a week to not wake up in the middle of the night crying because I felt guilty for not staying and making sure she was ok. One of our translators talked to some bus drivers and told me that they would have heard if anything bad happened, so I needed to take that as a good sign.

The other reason why this was so upsetting to me was it took away my comfort level down here. I didn't even think twice before jumping on the bus to come home. When I was spending a lot of time in Xela I used to ride the public buses all the time by myself. Now I am too scared to go on one even if I was with other people. I needed to come home last week one day early from the clinic and had to have one of our staff members drive me because I wouldn't do the bus. It makes me so mad that my comfort was taken away. It also on the same hand made me realize how thankful I am that I have now been in country for a little over a year and that is honestly the only time I have been scared (besides that whole 7.6 earthquake thing). I just keep telling myself that the embassy had warned Americans to stay off of buses and I was too stubborn to listen, but that if I just keep away from the buses then I am fine. Things like this happen everywhere including back home in the States. I always tell my teams that as long as they use common sense they will be fine which is what I need to start doing. As long as I follow the rules and don't put myself into bad situations I will be fine. It has been 2 weeks and I am still a little shaken up, but I know that it is just in my head and that I need to get over it. Hopefully my confidence will come back little by little.

Ok... this has become the world's longest post I know. Last thing: Tomorrow morning I am going to Guatemala City to pick up the team from my home church in Houston! My parents are leading the trip, and my brother along with so many others who I love and miss are coming down as well. Most of the peeps on the trip are college kids who were youth while I was working at the church. It was so difficult for me to leave my job there to move down here that it means so much to me that they are going to be able to come and experience what my life is like down here. I know I have asked you to pray a lot this blog, but if you have time please add in a little prayer for a beautiful week of working construction with my loved ones. Also we have 2 additional medical teams in country next week that could also use prayers for a safe and amazing week of service.

Have a beautiful week and thanks for reading. :)

Carnival and University UMC Eye Surgery Team.

Last week I hosted the University UMC surgical team from San Antonio, Texas. I had briefly worked with this group last year while they were in country, so I was eager to spend the entire week serving alongside them this year. This team brings down the same 2 eye surgeons every year, Dr. Evans and Dr. Sponsel. The team did over 100 eye procedures and were really fun to work with. Here are some of my favorite moments from the week.

Sunday was triage day, so I got to the clinic super early and after the welcome meeting with the team I spent the week scheduling the patients for their surgeries. After the patients went through the triage stations and the doctors determined what surgery was needed they came to me and I inserted them into our schedule for the week. This may sound odd, but I actually really impressed myself with how independent I was when it came to scheduling the patients. I asked Jose to help translate for me, but then ended up really only needing to use him when the patients didn't speak Spanish but K'iche instead. Otherwise for the most part I was able to schedule the patient and also give the pre-op instructions. May not sound like much, but I am always amazed when I can talk in Spanish about medical things and they understand!

The team did did surgery Monday through Friday. My role on those days was just to make sure everything was running smoothly. It is always completely hilarious to me when surgeons are all standing around me asking me medical questions that I am able to answer. So many times I walk away from a conversation and just start laughing to myself and asking myself how did this become my life? I also had another pretty hilarious moment when my phone (which quacks like a duck) went off while I was "in surgery" aka watching while taking pictures. The doctors just looked up at me and laughed really hard and told me that was the first duck they had in their OR. I then went outside and called my mom back and told her that I couldn't answer before because I was scrubbed in. A sentence that I never thought I would say.

On Tuesday at the school we celebrated Carnival. I am still not really sure what is behind the celebration, but I don't really care because it was one of the most fun things I had done in awhile! The way you celebrate Carnival is you crack eggs filled with confetti on each other's heads. Janet brought me a bag of eggs that morning into the clinic and told me to get ready for my attack at recess. I spent the morning watching a few surgeries and holding a few family member's hands while their loved ones were in surgery. Then at 10:00 I heard the bell ring for recess, and when I went outside I could not stop laughing. All the precious kids in our school were wearing decorated masks and throwing eggs at each other. The following pictures are my favorite moments from the celebration.

The next 2 pics are with the extremely precious Luisa Elaina. Her and her sister Reyna are without doubt 2 of my favorite things about Guatemala.

I love this picture of me, Carol Ann and Janet. They have recently roomed out of the clinic and into the school to office which I was a little bummed about. However, not I have my one little escape from the clinic when I need to go sit on their floor and complain/cry/or laugh.

Below I sat on the ground so the kids could reach my head better and got COVERED in confetti. A team member took my camera and took the following couple of pictures.

This little boy is Danny. He used to not let anyone touch him and would try to run away from school almost everyday last year. Now he has grown so much and loves to hug. He ran up to me and threw his entire bag of confetti on my head, so clearly I had to attack him with tickles. His laughter in that moment was precious.

This cuteness is Karla Marlaney. She has been another favorite since she had surgery in our clinic last year. Before her operation and then after I sat with her in her bed holding her hand. I think my profile picture on this blog is still of me and her right after surgery.

Beyond happy that Carol Ann is not only my friend but now my coworker as well. It is so amazing having her around at the clinic! However, I was a little mad that she didn't send me the 'wear a hat' memo that morning.

Below are a couple of pictures of me with my sweet friend Mary. She is one of the teachers at our school and the one who came to Houston last December before I moved here. She is very special to me.

Last picture from Carnival is of me and Saydie. She kept running up to me and trying and then succeeding to throw her confetti down my pants. I then got her back by smashing about 5 eggs on her head. Such a fun celebration!

So after having a ball celebrating Carnival with our school students and staff I had to clean myself off and go back into the clinic to continue hosting the surgery team. I could pretty much get the confetti off of my clothes, but it wouldn't come out of my hair and also while I was walking back in the teachers threw blue glitter at me which COVERED my neck. The surgeons just laughed at me and politely suggested that I take the rest of the day off from surgery. :)

This is a picture of our normally office space and lunch room which we transform into pre and post op care during surgery weeks. This is the pre op area where the patients get the numbing medications for their eyes and wait for an OR to open up.

Another picture of our mini "hospital" that gets set up for the week.

This picture came out a little burry, but I still love it. Archy was the translator for Dr. Evans, so when I went into that OR it was hard not to constantly laugh at the fact that we were both "scrubbed in". Also some of the patients when they say bye and thank me as they leave call me doctora. Again hilarious. 

Next up is Dr. Evan's OR, and also a picture of me with 2 team members (Christine and Paula). When I said I was going into the OR they took it upon themselves to "dress" me while laughing the whole time then decided of course we needed a picture. 

This picture was taken on Valentine's Day. Obviously you can see the cute little heart shaped sticker on the surgeon's face. :)

This is Dr. Sponsel's OR. On a side note the Shirley, the team member in black, pulled me aside on the last day and asked if she could pray with me. She then put oil on my hands and held them tightly while she prayed. The phrase that she kept using about me was that I was in a "moment of transition". Her and I had not spent much time talking throughout the week, but she said that while watching me she just got the sense that I was constantly growing in both my position and my faith. She then said that the night before while she was thinking about the week and thought about me that is what kept coming to mind. I actually think it was pretty fitting. Even though I have now been here for over a year I am still everyday in a moment of transition. I thought it was a pretty special moment for her to want to pray with me. 

During the week Dr. Sponsel did 7 child surgeries. Below are 2 pictures of 2 of the children who had operations. The first one is Wendy (wish it wasn't so blurry). She had to come back for an additional surgery and while she was walking into the clinic I asked her if she had any pain and she smiled and said no. Then she took my hand and kissed it. I can't remember exactly how old she was, but she had to have been so scared but yet she came off so brave. She later told me that her little doll that she carried around had a little bit of pain, but not much. :)

This is Rueben. He had surgery with us on Monday. Him and his father traveled for about 8 hours to get from their village to our clinic. It is constantly amazing to me how far our services reach. We paid their transportation to and from surgery, and they spent a few nights staying in the salon before they were cleared to return back home.

I worked with this team Saturday morning while they were doing their final post op appointments. Then while they were cleaning up I got picked up at the clinic to go to Guatemala City to pick up a team of 34. The team this week is from Fort Smith, Alabama and my part of the team is serving in Cunen. More to come in the next blog because now I need to actually get out of bed (and by bed I mean mattress on the floor in a storage room (get excited for that story)) and go host the team. Please pray for another beautiful week of service!

Eliot and Stratham CC: Construction and Medical team

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! :)