Accident in Sacapulas, July 17

We left Uspantan around 8:30 in the morning, about 30-40 minutes behind Ronny—the driver for the team. Roger, the missionary, called Ronny to get his location and learned that the brakes failed on the van and they had collided with another van in Sacapulas. Finding them in Sacapulas was no problem as the two crashed vehicles completely blocked the street. A crowd of people gathered around watching. Ronny was understandably emotional and upset. He kept saying how he had wanted to do a good job. The miracle in all of this was that no one was hurt—not a single pedestrian, the driver of the other van, nor one of the 12 passengers in Ronny’s van. Garry Eudy, team leader and former missionary in Guatemala, was talking to people up and down the street and finding out where the believers lived. The collision occurred right in front of a Christian home, and the house directly across the street was owned by a Christian family. It was empty and for rent, but the owner invited us inside to get us out of the sun and allowed us to use the bathroom there. We took tons of pictures from the balcony of that house.

Shortly after the vehicles were separated and the street cleared, Roger came to tell us that we needed to get out of there. Our instructions were to leave the house two at a time, with a few minutes delay between departures. We were to go to the end of the street, turn right and turn right again at the end of the block and walk up the hill to another safe house which Garry located. We waited there another half hour until the pastor of the church in Uspantan showed up and prayed with all of us. The pastor had gotten a man from the church to come in his van to drive the team to Guatemala City. Roger drove the SUV with the luggage. Garry Eudy rode with him. Unfortunately, we had to leave Ronny behind to wait for the insurance adjustor. To have that many gringos in one place was not helping the situation.

We stopped for lunch in a beautiful old hotel in Chichicastenango. The plan was to go on to Guatemala City with a brief stop in Antigua so the team could do a little shopping and enjoy the beautiful ancient city. Shortly after leaving Chichicastenango, we ran into traffic problems. We eventually learned that a bridge was being paved and the traffic was stopped in both directions. Though I had not been paying attention to the time, I would say that we were stopped, engine off stopped, for a couple of hours.

Meanwhile, Vickie had been on the phone with Ronny. He had quite an experience after we left. Family members of the other driver showed up with the intention of extorting money from the rich North Americans. When they realized that we had disappeared, they came after Ronny and began throwing rocks at him. One of the Christians brought Ronny into his house to protect him. He was only there a few minutes when he received a call from one of the policemen telling him to quick sneak out the back way and run into the woods to a place where the policeman would pick him up. The policeman told him to get down on the floor of his jeep where he would not be seen, because the crowd had intentions to kill him. Ronny was dropped off at a bus stop where he caught a bus going to Guatemala City. Because Ronny and Vickie were staying in touch on their cell phones, and because the traffic had stopped, Ronny was able to get off the bus and walk to where we were stopped and ride back to Guatemala City with the rest of the team. The team did not get to do any shopping or any tourist activities, but they did see the mighty hand of God protecting and directing. Hardly anything went according to our plans, but God’s plans were not thwarted.

“The Lord says, "My thoughts are not like your thoughts. Your ways are not like my ways. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:8-9

“People may make plans in their minds, but only the Lord can make them come true.”
Proverbs 16:1 (New Century Version)

Medical Team, July 12-17

Nothing went as planned. The theme of the week was flexibility. With the elasticity of play dough this team was constantly adapting to changes in schedules and plans. The team of ten had 20 pieces of checked luggage, 14 of which did not arrive with them on Saturday night. The original plan was to leave the capital city for Uspantan by 7:30 a.m. on Sunday morning. Instead, we left at 10:30 leaving behind Roger Grossmann, missionary, and Garry Eudy, team leader, who were going to collect the missing luggage from the airport. The missing luggage contained most of the medications. Quite often medicine brought in by medical teams is confiscated in customs. Whether or not the delay kept them from taking the medicines, I don’t know, but nothing was missing, nor did it appear that the luggage had been inspected.

The medical team, from Central Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia, was truly a dream team. A pediatrician, an internist/surgeon, 3 nurses, a pharmacist, 2 strong men willing to do anything, a fluent Spanish speaking evangelist, and the pastor of the church who was a former missionary in Guatemala all worked together as having one mind and desiring only to serve and glorify God in their every action. Roger and Vickie Grossmann are the missionaries who have been working among these people for many years. Vickie is a nurse practitioner who has worked with many medical teams and regularly has her own clinic out of her home.

Soon after arriving in Uspantan, we had a lovely dinner prepared by a precious Christian lady. She told me that her food was delicious because it was prepared with love. Emi cooked for us every evening over a wood burning stove in her tiny restaurant named Kevin after her youngest son who helped her with cooking and serving. We ate quickly in order to get to church service on time. We learned at dinner that this team was in charge of the service. Joe Owen, team member and pastor of a Spanish speaking church, preached an impeccable sermon in impressive Spanish. This tiny church was filled with people—standing room only. The praise music was energetic and loud, instruments being guitar, drums and keyboard.

Originally the plan for the medical team was four days at the Uspantan church, but another group was already in the town with a medical team. Being flexible, this team accepted invitations for two days in Pinal and two days in Nebaj. The pastor of the Uspantan church told us that he had hopes on getting work started in Pinal and for strengthening the church in Nebaj.
Pinal is a Quiché village with many poor people. Most of the children we saw were suffering from malnutrition, as were the adults. We gave everyone vitamins, other medicines as needed, kind words and encouragement. We held the clinic in a large open government building. We used sheets and large sheets of plastic to divide the area into consultation rooms. We had to be very careful about taking pictures here as the Quiché are not that open to outsiders. Nearly everyone spoke some Spanish, but many could not read. I worked in the pharmacy writing out the medicine instructions in Spanish and explaining to the patients how to take the medicine. This was a slow process for the non-readers as I had to make certain they had the instructions memorized before moving to the next patient. Three ladies from the church in Uspantan also helped in this process, though their main function was to get the people organized, handing out numbers for the order they were to be served, and taking pertinent information from each person. Five Guatemalan medical students were on hand to help and to learn. One in particular had a great desire to alleviate suffering and to help the poor. These students were extremely helpful, but they could only stay until noon which was when the last bus left Pinal, and we had no more room in our vehicles.

Wednesday and Thursday our clinic was in Nebaj. It was a rough ride to Nebaj with winding hairpin turns, large portions of unpaved and many potholes. In contrast, the scenery was amazingly beautiful and picturesque. It would have been worth the trip if only for the panoramic view, however there was more—so much more.

When we arrived in Nebaj, we could see that the church had everything ready for us. Dividers were set up for the consulting rooms. A large area was set aside for the pharmacy with benches stacked to use for shelves to put the medications and tables to separate us from the people. Benches were set up outside in a covered area to protect the waiting people from the searing sun. Church members were everywhere ready to help. At least four translators were on hand to help with those who only spoke Ixil. A tiny Ixil woman, Petronela acted as greeter and child care provider. Both days the church people prepared us a delicious hot lunch. The second day they even fixed us a special snack which is typical of their region—boxbol, pronounced bush ball. It is very similar to stuffed grape leaves. They use the leaves of the guisquil vine which are similar in size and shape to grape leaves. The rolled them almost the same way. The stuffing is masa with herbs, and they put a tasty sauce over it. I found the Ixil people to be very open and warm toward us. Our last day there, they presented each of us with a small tote bags, typical of the area so that we might have a memento of our visit to Nebaj.