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.