We spent last night in an “economy” hotel in Patulul near the coast. We had reservations at the best hotel in town, but, when we arrived, were told there was no room. The explanation was that the man who took the reservation was not authorized to do so. This was the third time this had happened to Dick here, though, and we are beginning to wonder if they just don’t like “gringos” staying at their place. This is one of a number of times God has given Dick the opportunity to practice patience and anger management, and he’s doing quite well.
We had dreaded this particular hotel, as there is no air conditioning and the day had been extremely hot. However, as we got to the room and put the fans outside the window to blow in cool air, the temperature dropped considerably. We all attributed this to a divine gift in our situation, and we all managed to get a good night’s sleep.
Our first stop this morning was at Jessica Vanessa’s home. She is the little one in the malnutrition ward at Hermano Pedro. Her family has become quite special to Dick and me, and I was anxious to introduce Katie to them. Thankfully, this is a vacation week for the school there, so all of the kids were there to greet us.
We visited a few minutes, and I talked with Mom, encouraging her to come to Hermano Pedro for an examination. She’s had a number of medical problems plaguing her for a while. She’s been somewhat hesitant, though, even avoiding an appointment when she was in Antigua to see Jessica the other day. Evidently, a “doctor” who came to her house the last time she was down in bed with pain told her she has cancer, and she afraid she’ll need surgery and there will be no one to care for the children. After discussing this, she agreed that an exam would be a good idea, but would not commit as to when she would or could come.
She then asked us if we could possibly help a little boy who lived near her who had a seizure so severe his family thought he was dead. Of course, we were off hiking to their home almost immediately. This later proved to be the “short” walk of our day.
We arrived to meet Noe Jeremias and his brother and sisters. His dad had died about a year ago, and two of the siblings, along with their mother, were doing field work to help them survive. After his second seizure a few weeks ago, Mom had taken him to the National Hospital where the doctor prescribed phenobarbital (a very commonly used drug here), and said maybe it would be a good idea if he had a neurological exam. He mentioned “brain tumor”and “cancer” to the mom, and she is scared to death.
Today, she was not home since she had finally gone to Patulul to get his medicine thanks to the help of the town mayor. A neighbor, though, who helps care for the children when Mom must be gone, came and talked with us, and was quite knowledgeable about his condition. She was sure Mom would be happy to bring him into Hermano Pedro to see the pediatrician and neurologist there. And Virginia (Jessica’s mom) agreed to accompany her on the trip. We are hoping this will happen the second week in July.
Noe is seems to be an example of what so often happens to the people here in Guatemala. They can go to a National Hospital, free of charge. They receive some type of diagnosis “off the cuff” (possibly correct, more likely not) and may even get a prescription. Then they’re on their own.
Most of these families have just barely enough money to buy minimal food to eat and pay whatever they have to to live on their land. Money for medication is pretty much unavailable, unless someone helps them out. Too often, though, this means a month or more wait, such as what Mom experienced in getting assistance with Noe’s medication.
This little guy just captured all of our hearts, and I pray the doctors at Hermano Pedro will come up with an accurate diagnosis and effective treatment. Please pray with us on this. Noe is one of the reasons we have set up a medical fund, so we have some resources to help in situations like this.
After walking back home with Virginia, we loaded up the car and started off to visit the family of Jessica “2” who is now living at Hermano Pedro. She was admitted shortly after the new year since her mother had to work and this was the only way her sister was able to attend school. This was another family Virginia had introduced us to.
As we started off for their home, Dick casually mentioned that he didn’t think he had marked their home on the GPS, but was pretty sure he could find it. (He was much more confident than I.) We did manage to find the turn off the highway, and started up the mountain trail to their home. Suddenly, her house “appeared” on the GPS! We did fine until we reached a “fork” in the road. Dick remembered going one way in the past, I remembered the other. (The house was on the GPS, but no roads were shown to it.) Dick graciously accepted my advice, and we started up the paved path. After numerous curves that alternately took us toward and away from her house, we finally arrived at the Duran home.
Vanessa, Jessica’s older sister, was washing dishes in the community pila when we arrived. Mom was home and we had a nice visit with her about how well Jessica was doing at the orphanage.
Here, again, Saundra (Jessica’s mom) told us about a child who was “worse than my Jessica.” She hoped someday we could go to see him. When we asked if she could take us there today, she did not hesitate before accepting. She told us the hike was about 15-20 minutes on “level” ground. Dick was a bit concerned about me attempting this trek, reminding me that in this part of Guate nothing is level.
I really felt we should go, however, and I was the only interpreter, so it wouldn’t be too much help for Dick to go alone. So we set off. The hike was a little steeper than what was originally promised, but, pacing myself I was well able to complete it. And I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
Not only did we see some of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve seen here as we walked, but I fell in love with the family we met off the beaten path.
For the life of us, we can’t remember the name of the little guy we visited, but he seemed a younger version of Bayron at Hermano Pedro. He was bright, responsive, happy, and very limited in his ability to move. As I entered the dark one room shack in which this family of five lives, I turned to Dick saying, “Look, a Hope Haven chair.” It turned out that not only was it a Hope Haven chair, but Mom immediately recognized both Dick and me from the distribution last March where “Bayron’s twin” had received his chair. Only God could have orchestrated such a meeting.
It was unbelievable to me that this mom had managed to get out with her eight year old, probably carrying him on her back, and managed to get to Antigua for a distribution. The dedication of this lady to do what is best for her child was astounding. (Remember, we had just walked this path in, and it was not a stroll in the park.) We didn’t know what more we could do for this family, but I knew we wanted to do something.
As we visited, we discovered that the two younger boys (age 5 and 3) were quite healthy, given their meager living conditions. The five-year old was really quite a spit-fire, and Mom definitely has her hands full managing his energy and enthusiasm, along with his two brothers.
“Bayon’s twin” however, seemed pretty skinny compared to the other two. Mom explained he cannot chew and drinks only milk. She told us that he drinks two “bags” of milk each day which cost about Q12 each. That means each day, the family must spend about $3 on milk for him alone. That does not leave much left for the rest of the family to live on.
We will be returning in the near future to bring vitamins to this family, and I would love to be able to tell them that we have a sponsor to help with the cost of the milk this little guy needs. If you would be interested in investing about $30/month to help feed this child, please email me and I’ll let you know how you can help. Even one month of help would go a long way in encouraging this family.
As we were visiting and eating the “chuchito” (a tamale-like food made of soft cornmeal paste) the sky suddenly darkened, and all at once the sky opened up in a downpour. Of course, since it had been such a warm, sunny day, none of us had brought any raingear back into this area with us. So we began to hike out in the rain.
Dick, worried I would not be able to make the hike all the way out, set out ahead of us, planning to bring the car back as far as he could to get us. It was really uncomfortable having him off on his own, with no ability to contact him even by phone (no signal up here!). This was a good exercise in placing our full dependence on Jesus alone.
So Katie, Saundra and I continued to walk out together in the downpour, with Dick soon out of sight. We plodded along steadily in the heavy downpour, and I have to tell you, I was pretty impressed by Katie’s wear-with-all in this situation. At one point she quipped, “You have to have some good stories to go home with!.” She never uttered one word of complaint. What a gal!
A couple of times there were lightening strikes so close you could almost feel the electrical charge. At one point, we needed to leave the path and walk through a field, since there was a tree down, blocking the path. This was really quite the adventure for all of us.
Finally, we saw Dick’s headlights coming up the road. He was pretty surprised at how far we had come. (Though he did give us some advantage by over-shooting the road back to the car by about a quarter mile.) I have to admit, it was a wonderful feeling to see him coming down the road.
We climbed in the car, soaked to the skin, and Dick backed out the whole way to the fork in the road, since there was nowhere to turn around safely. This was really a feat given the heavy rain outside, and the steaming windows inside from our wet clothes mixing with what was left of our body heat.
We took Saundra back to her house, and headed for the highway. The rain made this usually challenging trail even more so, but we made it out without incident. We headed to Santiago, Atitlan, where we stayed in a hotel that more than made up for our mean accommodations last night.
Katie and I shared a small stone cottage while Dick had the one behind us. The beds were warm and comfy, the showers hot, and we even had a fireplace in each cottage. I can’t believe that in June in Guatemala we built fires to warm us, but we sure did and enjoyed every minute of the comfort they provided. What a great end to the challenge of the day.
Thanks, Dick, for starting our fire!
