March 2009 Archives

.....to give without expecting anything in return.

.....to give even though the receiver has done nothing to earn or deserve what is given.

.....to give life even when precious life has been taken away.

Our week in Guatemala with Hands of Hope was a lesson in grace.......amazing grace.

I don't think most Americans understand grace. Most Americans either expect to work for everything and are skeptical of anything that is "free" or they have a sense of entitlement and obligatory fairness. Neither paradigm is compatible with the concept and gift of grace. Life is not fair. The people of Guatemala understand grace --- perhaps because they also have an intimate understanding of death.

Aron's father shared a dream he had several days before Aron's death: He was standing in a river with Aron and the pastor of their church. The water was crystal clear which meant that they would soon receive a great blessing. Now, in the wake of his son's death, Aron's father believes that the blessing was our mission team.

Even in the darkness and despair following his death, Aron's mother also poignantly and repeatedly praised Hands of Hope for the care we gave to her son. She gave heart-felt thanks and praise to us despite her own personal pain and grief.

Admittedly, grace can be difficult to understand . . . . but also to accept. We certainly did not feel worthy of the gift we were given and feel we received much more than we gave.

Although we may never understand everything that happened during our time in Guatemala, God's grace gives us comfort, hope and inspiration to exemplify grace in our daily walk --- wherever we are and in whatever we do.

Last Saturday, after I left for Guatemala, Steve put the pier in. He is always the first one to get the pier in and taunted me from thousands of miles away about how warm and calm it was that day and that I would have skied if I had been home.

Then the rain came. And it rained some more. And some more.

Lake Tippecanoe is notorious for high water in the spring because so many lakes feed into Tippy --- which is part of the reason Steve puts the pier in so early. He likes to put the pier in early when the water is low. (Otherwise the ice-cold water sneaks in over his waders!)

Every year we watch the water rise and then listen to everyone else complain that their their pier is under water. Our pier, however, is about 6 inches higher than everyone else's on the lake so we have never had a problem. We just wonder why everyone has not learned to either raise their pier or wait until the water recedes before putting it in.

This year was a little different:

The lake level was about 18 inches below the pier last weekend. This weekend the water was so high that Steve had to swim out to remove the pier that was floating away.

The water rose nearly 3 feet and went over our seawall which was built above the 100-year flood level.

The first picture shows the water level almost to our neighbor's house. The water also reaches up the lane and nearly surrounds the shops in the back yard.

We are high and dry . . . and will stay that way for a while since the lake is now closed to motorized boat traffic. (No spring skiing for me . . . yet.)

Homeward bound. Still a lot to process. More later.

Today we visited Amor del Nino founded by Steve and Shyrel Osborn. This is an orphanage primarily for special needs children. Many were abandoned and left to die but for the mercy of Amor del Nino. You can only begin to imagine the tragic story that nearly each child has to tell, but as the photos attest, the lives of these children are now filled with comfort, love and acceptance plus stories of astounding growth and progress.

The next stop on our "tour" was the city dump.

The dump in Guatemala City sits below a cemetery: what a paradise for vultures.

Countless truckloads of trash are dumped here every day and countless numbers of people scavenge through the trash hoping to find something they can salvage and sell for a few quetzels. Many children have been killed rummaging through the trash so laws were finally enforced that prohibit children from entering the dump.

Life and death take on strangely similar appearances in Guatemala.

Sally, Christian and I also made the trek to Chichicastenango......to visit Christina.

Christina, now in her 20s, has spina bifida. She was "adopted" by Hands of Hope and a local family in Warsaw about ten years ago and brought to the US to have surgery so that she could walk.

Once we made the drive down the steep, narrow, bumpy, serpentine road into the valley where Christina lives, we had to get out and walk the rest of the way.

It was about half a mile to her house on a well-worn path, but . . .

Did we turn at the right corn stalk???

Fortunately, two of Christina's sisters came to meet us and lead us the rest of the way. (Even in remote areas of Third World countries there are cell phones.)

Christina is the oldest of eight children. Her father left eight months ago to find work in the US and has not been heard from since. Her 16-year old brother is now the man of the house. He and his mother are working hard to try to support the family. We found Christina working on some embroidery which I assume she sells. She is able to walk with crutches and has remained fairly healthy, but rarely leaves the house because of their remote location.

For Christina, it is a very small world.

Today we held a clinic in San Pablo La Laguna but instead of packing all our daily clinic supplies into pickup trucks, we hauled it all down to a boat that took us across Lake Atitlan for the day.

It was a beautiful day and a wonderfully relaxing contrast to the thrill of travelling in the back of a pickup truck.

Once we arrived, we hauled all our supplies back up a hill and re-loaded them into pickup trucks.

You know it's hair-pin turn if you have to 3-point it! (And NO, that person in the passenger seat is NOT waving at us. He is desperately trying to stop the truck barreling down the hill!)

Our clinic for the day: time to move supplies . . . . . . again.

The view from the street in front of the clinic:

Patiently waiting. Notice the kids trying to crawl in through the windows.

Because of the local dialect we had had to work with two translators today. This slowed us down a bit, but by the end of the week, I was so "fluent" I could diagnose a lot of problems without my translator. (OK, so I learned a few key words like "dolor" and "picar" and got really good at charades!)

David shows off his skills in dentisty --- and as an artist.

I saw a 34 year-old mother of six with a nagging cough and a large, hard, irregular mass in her neck. Cancer until proven otherwise . . . . ."but no access to proof."
Even though I know the power of prayer, I still feel powerless.

A fun way to end the day: Trina and Sarah blow bubbles with the kids while we wait for our trucks.

Time to load the boat --- a small price to pay for the magnificent commute back to Panajachel.

The director of Hands of Hope, 1 nurse, 1 physician, 1 minister, 1 retired teacher, 1 retired railroad worker, 1 retired power company worker, 1 retired nurse . . . and 1 teen. Age 16 to 71. Nine diverse backgrounds and three generations separating us but one common mission that bonded us ALL together.

In Panajachel we were also joined by a Guatemalan dentist, the founder of a Guatemalan orphanage and a Guatemalan boat captain to make . . . . .Twelve disciples.

The 30,000 vitamins and other medications that were taken from us by customs when we arrived . . . . turned into over 130,000 vitamins through a donation from the founder of an orphanage in Guatemala when heard of our plight.

Small but mighty, our team saw nearly 800 patients in just four days and shared the Gospel with each one. Over 100 accepted.

We worked, laughed, cried, ate, slept, prayed and praised together along with an amazing team of young, passionate and incredibly sensitive Guatemalan interpreters.

Jonathan began working with Hands of Hope ten years ago at the age of 16. Every team has fallen in love with him and Hands of Hope takes credit for raising him up to be such a fine young man. He is passionate about his country, coffee and computers . . . as well as a lucky young lady back here in Warsaw, so we hope to see him again soon.

Christian is quiet, gentle and equally as lovable, but a man of few words. He has also been instrumental to HOH for many years and we look forward to getting to know him better.

Demetrios just started working with HOH a few years ago. He was our boat captain when we went across Lake Antitlan to San Pablo La Laguna. He also served as a translator, dental assistant and helped in any other way he could. He shared in our grief when our team attended Aron's viewing ceremony. On our last night together, he expressed his heartfelt thanks to our team for helping his people --- not just with material things, but with genuine love.

Norma is an English tutor and Sigrid works at a call center but hopes to be a chef and own a restaurant one day. These two young ladies worked primarily with the Evangelism team and are wise, sensitive and compassionate beyond their years. They each have an amazing gift for touching and mending broken hearts.

Each person made an eternal imprint on every other team member's heart.

The road to Panajachel has been rough but not without rewards.

Lake Atitlan

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

Aron died today. I do not completely understand God's will right now, but I have faith that good will continue to grow out of this experience.

The road to Panajachel is twisted, rough, steep, curvy, bumpy, chilling, inspiring, unpredictable . . . and life-changing. That also describes our day.

We packed up in the back of two pick-up trucks and had an adventuresome ride to La Jorge La Laguna. The ride while standing in the back of a pickup truck going up, down and around the road to our clinic today was not for the faint-hearted. There are no guard rails, rules or reason.

Our clinic today, including the dentist's office, was much more primitive.

The people we saw were traditional Mayans and all of their faces have a story to tell.

The face with the most important story today, however, belonged to 2 year-old Aron. He was my second patient of the day. He was lying limp in his mother's arm and was burning with fever. Once I was able to get him unswaddled, it was obvious that he was struggling to breathe due to pneumonia and was gravely ill.

Sarah quickly assisted in giving him a breathing treatment while Trina, our nurse, gave him an injection of antibiotic. He perked up, but we knew he needed more than what we had to give so we made arrangements for more antibiotic shots and breathing treatments for the next several until he was hopefully well enough to take oral antibiotics.
When we checked on him again several hours later, however, he was again limp and struggling for every breath as he laid in his mother's arms. Within minutes, we were loading Aron and his mother into a surprisingly modern ambulance that was stationed less than a quarter mile away from our clinic. As I began to close the door, however, Aron's mother let out a heart-wrenching cry . . . He had stopped breathing.

I jumped in the ambulance and did CPR all the way to the hospital while Aron's mother sobbed in the back seat. He was still lifeless when we arrived and handed him off to the team of doctors in the emergency room, but we were able to revive him enough to give us hope. When we left, he still was not able to breathe on his own so a nurse was continuously at his side "bagging" him because the hospital does not have a ventilator. They were trying to get Aron transferred to a larger hospital several hours away, but the ambulance that was supposed to transport him broke down on the way to get him and the volunteer ambulance that brought him earlier in the day, couldn't afford the gas to get to the city.

As I said above, the road to Panajachel is very rough . . . . unpredictable . . . . . and unsettling.

No matter how great your faith, moments like this still make you wonder "Why?" We left money with Aron's family hoping they could use it to buy gas for the ambulance.

After the clinic, five of us, including Trina, drove to another town to pick up vitamins that had been donated. (Our supply of medications is still in the hands of the Guatemalan government.) It was not any easy drive and it was late, but we insisted that we make one stop along the way. We stopped so that Trina could see Teresa.

Teresa is a vibrant, healthy 9 year-old Guatemalan girl that Trina met on her first trip with HOH. At that time, Teresa was only 2 months old and weighed a mere 5 pounds. Like Aron, she came to the clinic struggling for every breath and close to death. Trina ended up taking her to the "local" hospital more than an hour away and stayed at her bedside all night breathing for her with a hand ventilator. It seemed hopeless so after 24 hours so they decided to remove Teresa's breathing tube and return her to the comfort of her mother's arms and God's hands.

When they returned the next day, Teresa was still alive --- and when Trina returned a year later, Teresa was clearly thriving without any signs of permanent impairment.
When Trina made her first came to Guatemala with Hands of Hope, she did not believe in God but now she gives one of the most moving testimonies you will ever hear.

As I write, I still do not know God's will for Aron's life, but when we stopped to see Teresa, we also found her 14 year-old sister very sick in bed with fever. "Luckily," I had a supply of antibiotics with me because I had done mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Aron.

Luck and coincidence are for those would do not believe in God.

Even before we left Warsaw 3 days ago, Sarah was connected to Guatemala.

A friend from school who had been on a previous trip with Hands of Hope gave Sarah something to give to Jonathan, one of our translators here in Guatemala. Sarah promptly found him on Facebook and began chatting with him on Thursday night before we left.

She also added Trina as a friend on Facebook. Trina is a nurse at KCH and comes to Guatemala with Hands of Hope three times a year. Consequently, Trina has many friends here in Guatemala including the aunt of Sarah's boyfriend who is a missionary living in Guatemala City.

One of our other team members, Gloria, lives across Oswego from us and is in a Bible study with Steve's mom.

I am the doctor for Jonathan's girlfriend's grandmother.

Tonight however, my head really spun around when the brother of one of my high school classmates walked in during our after-dinner meeting. Also, a "HOH junkie," he was here for a few days working to get fresh, clean water to one of the nearby villages - a project that arose from a previous trip with HOH.

What a wonderful way to start the day. This is the view from our hotel here in Antigua.

After breakfast, we packed up all the supplies and meandered through the cobblestone streets of Antigua to a small school that would serve as our medical clinic for the day.

As expected, we were warmly greeted by a crowd of people awaiting our arrival. There were mainly women and lots of children, but they all waited patiently and quietly as we set up the clinic.

We saw 176 patients today. (I don't know how many we had to turn away.) Most came with fairly simple complaints like cough and cold symptoms, but many also came simply for reassurance or to be prayed for.

I met a 12 year-old boy today named Alvado. He is the oldest of 7 and came to me with a humble request that I simply pray for his family, and especially his mother. His face and body were sullen and his eyes welled up with heavy tears as he made his humble plea: He wanted to bring his mother to the clinic today, but she could not walk: Alvado's father is an alcoholic and beat her last night. He also beats Alvado and his siblings. "But" Alvado reassured me, "I know God."

It was obvious that this little boy, barely 4 feet tall or more than 50 pounds, was the real man of the house.

We weren't able to get Alvado's mother to the clinic, but we were able to get Alvado more help through his school and we all felt hope despite his despair.

Meanwhile, Sarah was assisting the dentist and got to pull her first tooth. (She quickly decided that she does NOT want to go into dentistry.) She also experienced her first thrill: she listened to a heart murmur that was so loud and caused so much turbulent blood flow that she could feel the "thrill" (vibration) through the child's chest wall.

A glimpse of Antigua from outside the clinic.

Before dinner we had a little bit of free time, so Sarah and I walked around downtown Antigua for a little while. It is a quaint town surrounded by several volcanos.

Tomorrow we head to rural areas near Panajachel . . .

Sarah and I left shortly after midnight today for Guatemala with Hands of Hope. This Winona Lake based group has been doing medical mission work in Guatemala since 1999 and now travels to Guatemala four times a year to touch hundreds of lives at every visit.

In today's medical world, US privacy acts preclude any type of personal observation, much less hands-on experience until you are actually in medical school, so when Sarah declared she wanted to pursue a career in medicine, I knew we needed to join Hands of Hope.

Sarah, our "Sleeping Beauty," has always loved to sleep. In fact, at the age of 4 she declared that she NEVER wanted to be a doctor because she didn't want to get up in the middle of the night!

Well, Sarah just pulled her first all-nighter as we arrived at O'Hare around 3 am and then tried to doze on the hard, cold terminal floor until they opened for our 6 am flight.

Next stop: Miami where we were greeted with "Love" and we were in Guatemala by 2pm.

Three hours later, we finally made it through customs......

We had ten 50-pound suitcases filled with medication, formula and other medical supplies. Never before has a Hands of Hope group even been questioned, but today we received uncustomary treatment by Customs and they confiscated nearly all of our supplies!

We took an inventory of all our supplies and left them behind, but hope to retrieve them soon. In the meantime, HOH has supplies here that are left over from previous trips.

Lessons learned: 1) Patience and diplomacy 2) Government interferes with the good of the people 3) Man cannot stop the momentum of God's work.

The morning will come early......Good Night.

Each year I patiently wait for the ice to leave the lake so that I can put the pier in the water and each year the lake residents gage the arrival of spring with the day our pier goes in. So anyway today is a bad day. My wife left me and I woke up late. Prior to driving Rachel to school I walk down the sidewalk to check the ice. Bummer, the ice is about 4 inches thick and 20 feet from shore. Then I look east and west...what the heck the only ice on the lake is in front of my house! It must be a conspiracy of local home owners to prevent me from putting in my pier. Anyway the sun comes out the temperature reaches 68 degrees, I race home from track practice and the ice is gone. So first thing I need to do is pick up sticks. You can't drive over them or they embed themselves for ever. So I race to get that done. Walk through the garage put the hitch on the Jeep, back up and neighbor Joe Westendorf comes running over. (His doctor "Erin" may not approve.) Anyway Joe asks, in jest, if he can borrow a wrench to put his pier in. I respond with sure Joe no problem. He chuckles and says oh I was just kidding, you know the neighbors are wondering when you're going to put the pier in? I respond with, "well Joe funny you should ask, I am on my way back to pick up the pier and put it in right now." The look of disbelief on Joe's face was a memory that will last a lifetime." Yes, the pier is in and spring is here......God Bless us all.
Oh by the way my wife left me to go on a medical mission's trip to Guatemala with Sarah too! Rachel and I will try to survive without them but it will be tough. Sarah talks about being premed in college so this is a good trip. Premed, that would make us proud. But of course we are proud of all our children no matter what they choose to do in life. just don't make me a grandpa too soon.