In the Operating Room

Thought I'd start out today with a precious picture of our youngest patient today-- It took forever to get her to warm up to us and smile (bubbles are universal, though!) but sooooo worth it! Dr. Hoak repaired a hernia for her with Carrie's help this afternoon, so don't worry; we're not going around taking out EVERYONE's uterus around here! ;-)

Aura (the beautiful little girl above) was actually the third surgery of the day, preceded by two women who needed surgery to repair prolapsed uteruses (?or is it "uteri"? I've never known how to say that! Guess they don't teach everything in "Gynecology School", as my husband calls it...) Carrie did a beautiful job with these two vaginal surgeries and gained some valuable experience that she hasn't had much of in the U.S. recently while busy practicing robotic surgeries instead! These women's lives, with God's help, will be changed dramatically by the relief of their symptoms, and our prayer is that that Rafaela (our second patient today) will come to know Christ eventually through our work here.

The first patient, Paula, was a little bit of a "breath of fresh air" for our friends the Fickers, who recommended she come to see us here and were pleasantly surprised when her Pastor stepped up from her very small little village and said HE would take her! This is about a 2.5 hour trip for them, and he is planning to come get her on Wednesday when she is discharged, too. I called on his cell phone after the surgery to let him know she was doing well, and he asked if I could give her the phone so he could speak to her, too! What a wonderful example he was for so many... A true shepherd to his people and a huge blessing to her.

The third picture is of Carrie and Tom doing a gallbladder as the last case tonight-- This lady may also need a hysterectomy in a few more months, but we are going to try to control her symptoms with medicine first before doing another surgery.

The last picture is one of my favorites of the day... Pat finishing up the anesthesia for the little girl Aura...
We also saw a few more patients in the clinic in between cases... Scheduled a couple more cases for the week and were able to provide some reassurance to a few other ladies in need of it. Lord willing, we will be operating all day tomorrow on three tough cases and then we'll see what God has in store for us on Wednesday and Thursday!

Long Clinic Day!

What a great-- but LONG-- day today!

Started off with market around 8 a.m., which Carrie got to experience for the first time but Pat's an old pro at by now! We then headed up to Church with the other local missionaries at 10, where we heard an amazing sermon on suffering and God's ultimate plan based on the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Then a quick (but really yummy!) lunch at a local restaurant that Pat has been talking about since the last time she left I think...

Then we ran over to the hospital to start seeing patients... 16 total came in, and we scheduled 5 surgeries for this week as well as some that want to come back later in the year for surgery. It's always wonderful to see patients back for a final post-op visit, so picture number one is a lady that I did a vaginal hysterectomy on back in November who is doing GREAT! Please pray for her, though, as she has not accepted Christ as of yet despite her family's efforts to convert her. She is in good health overall but getting on in years and I fear we are running out of time... It was nice to see her back to be able to show her some more of God's love for her today, though, and we just keep praying that our seeds we are planting will one day grow in to a beautiful relationship for her. She is pictured with her daughter. Her name is Manuela.


The next picture is just of me getting ready to start for the day, but it shows our trusty little clinic room, which is actually decently well-equipped with an exam table, light, and lots of supplies we have brought in over the years. Thanks to Carrie for being my photographer today; hopefully tomorrow we'll get some pictures of her and Pat up!



We also saw an assortment of ladies needing hysterectomies, or who needed reassurance that they did NOT need surgery for their tiny ovarian cysts that some of the local doctors want to make money off of. That is an unfortunately common thing here. We also saw a lady with a 10 centimeter ovarian mass that DOES need to come out (pray it's not cancer!), a lady who needed follow-up on an abnormal pap smear which we were able to help with, and a couple of ladies with pains that we aren't really able to explain. At least we were able to offer reassurance that they don't have anything terribly wrong with their uterus or ovaries, though!

After we had seen about 10 of our 16 patients, the local doctor called to see if we could help in the emergency room because there was a breech baby they were trying to deliver! So Carrie and I rushed over to see what we could do... Unfortunately, the young girl had tried to deliver at home and the baby's body had been delivered for quite some time before she arrived at the hospital. We were able to get the baby delivered safely for mom, but it was obvious that the baby was not alive at all even upon arrival to the hospital. How amazingly sad to have to tell a teenage girl that her first baby is a stillborn... and all for lack of delivering where there is a doctor trained to help! I don't even know the young lady's name, but I'm sure God will know who you are talking about if you send up prayers for Him to help heal her heart from the ache it must be feeling tonight.

Tomorrow we will operate on at least two ladies who need vaginal hysterectomies, and see what else God sends us! Hopefully we will get a good night's sleep tonight and be ready to go tomorrow... There are also currently 2 surgeries scheduled on Tuesday and one on Wednesday. I'm sure others will show up, though!

Safe Arrival!

Thanks in large part to lots of prayer coverage, we have arrived safe and sound in Chichicastenango! And the best news is that we didn't have any medications or other supplies "held" (i.e., stolen) in customs, which is becoming a bigger and bigger issue with entry in to the country with any medical supplies lately... Kudos to Pat for being organized enough to get all of her meds listed and approved in advance, and many thanks to Don Tono, the administrator at the Hospital Buen Samaritano, for getting the paperwork done! That's a huge load off of our shoulders already...

Today has been a long day (We left home about 2 a.m. local Guatemala time and it is now 9 p.m.) so this will be a short post, but wanted to thank you all for your well wishes and prayers during this week. We will get up tomorrow morning and probably hit the market for a little early bird shopping before heading up to Church. Then as soon as we can, we will start seeing patients until we are done! We hope for a good turnout, of course, but always pray also that God will never send more than we can handle.

Ideally, we would like to see all of the patients first tomorrow and then just schedule the surgeries that are needed for the rest of the week and not have to try to rush to see patients between surgeries later in the week... But we know that's not always going to work perfectly, so there will be plenty of work to do all week and we will need to pray for lots of patience especially the first few days. It is so tough between surgeries when you have time to see maybe one or two patients before they are calling you back to the OR-- the next patient in line always looks so crestfallen when they realize you are leaving again for what could be another several hours before you can come back down to see them. Luckily for us, Guatemalans are generally a lot more patient than we North Americans are...

Will try to post some pictures tomorrow, of course, so please stay tuned!

February 2010 Trip

Yes, several months have passed since our last blog and a few trips. The second week of the second month of each quarter is the scheduled trip from Greenville, NC to Chichicastenango, Guatemala. (February, May, August, and November).

Heidi has been fortunate enough to have some wonderful experiences her last few trips and has been able to perform some badly needed surgeries, as well as transport some critical supplies. Thanks to the generosity of many in Matt's parents' church in Michigan, literally thousands of diabetic test strips have been sent. A couple ministries were even on the verge of discontinuing treatment of diabetics for lack of strips but God always comes through and we're thrilled when He uses us as His "boots on the ground".

The next trip is scheduled for February 6-13, 2010. Traveling with Heidi will be Dr. Carrie Ballard, another ECU faculty member, and Pat Peabody, a nurse anesthetist who made her first trip to Chichi last May.

In her last two trips, Heidi has been very encouraged by the fact that she's given some patients pre-surgical courses of treatment that they've followed and returned for surgery, she's seen several return patients, and it seems like word has gotten out that this doctor who says she's going to come every three months is actually coming every three months. She's also had an opportunity to operate with and assist Dr. Hoak which is both helpful to him and educational for her.

In the August 2009 trip, Heidi was accompanied by Dr. Chris DeLuca, a chief resident at ECU. Below is a picture of Chris with a few of their post-op patients eating breakfast.

Next is a picture of Heidi, Katie Ficker, and Duane in Zona Reyna (yes, she had time for a short trip out there) to see over 100 patients with Katie and Chris.

The next picture is inside the clinic building there. There are no roads to this village. Visitors must either come by bush plane or walk a LONG day over a mountain. It's so steep that horses can't even make it, so everything would have to be carried in on your back. Thank God for airplanes! Only a few residents in this village speak Spanish (everyone else speaks K'ekqchi) so translators are needed for every single patient. Typically, the medical people will see patients, the rest will evangelize or help with projects that need to be done and keep an eye on the sky. It takes two or three trips to get everyone in and out and if the weather starts to turn bad, Duane has to start ferrying people home or risk getting stuck in the jungle all night with no power (don't laugh, it's happened!)

The last picture is of a beautiful rainbow they saw on the way back to Canilla Intergalactic Airport. It's an awesome reminder of the promise and the faithfulnessof God.

Surgical Trip

Wow, where to start? I probably should have started blogging a little earlier this week as I am somewhat out of practice with blog-writing! We (Heidi and some friends from work) have been down here in Guatemala operating at the Hospital Buen Samaritano in Chichicastenango all week. We are hoping that this is the first of our quarterly trips down here, and are praising God today towards the end of the trip that everything has gone well!

We were not sure what to expect-- how many patients, how our transportation would be arranged, how much help we would have, whether we would spend the whole time at the hospital, etc..-- when we got here, but we did know that God already knew and that was enough! He has been faithful-- as always-- in providing for His people here in Guatemala. This week, specifically, He also provided three women who had never done missions in Guatemala with a wonderful experience. We are praising God that everyone is already talking about when they can come back!

Our first picture is of our team-- We are in front of the fire at the Hotel Casa del Rey here in Chichi, and from left to right we are:

Erin Hartwell, a fourth year resident at ECU in OB/Gyn, who Heidi has enjoyed working with since September. She had the chance to not only do some great gynecologic surgeries, but also some general cases with Dr. Hoak that she would never get the chance to see and do in the U.S. Heidi is sitting beside her, of course.

Pat Peabody is a CRNA (Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist) who tirelessly ran anesthesia for us this week. Heidi has also had the great honor of working with her at Pitt County Memorial Hospital since September. It took a little less than a week of working with her before Heidi was hitting her up to join us on a Guatemalan trip, and she has held fast to her promise to do so!

Patty Palmer is a circulating nurse in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who actually arranged to come down here through Sharon and John Harvey at ASELSI. We quickly snagged her up and adopted her on to our team, and she was a true God-send all week! She helped with everything from prepping and transporting patients to getting hair out of Heidi's eyes during an operative case, and even found time to do some classes for the nurses there at the hospital about how to use the new autoclave for sterilizing instruments properly. She is also to thank for many of the great pictures that we have from the week.



The next picture we just had to include for our old regular readers... Some of you might just recognize the lady in the sharp-looking nurses' uniform as Cecilia ("Ceci"), our translator from ASELSI! When we found out over a year ago that she was interested in putting herself through Nursing School, we offered her an informal "scholarship" to do so. She is now just about a month away from her degree (equivalent, basically, to an LPN in the U.S.) We are so proud of her! She is truly a success story out of the ASELSI mission... a single Mayan mother with a professional degree? What an unheard-of and wonderful bit of news!


Now on to the patients, finally! What an interesting week... that has left us full of prayer requests to post! The first picture here is of Heidi and Erin posing with the uterus they took out Tuesday night. The normal uterus should be less than the size of a fist, just for a frame of reference... This lady should be feeling much better from here on out.



And here is our BIGgest prayer request from the week. The picture below is of Heidi, Erin, and Tom Hoak operating on our patient Petrona. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer by Tom recently, and we attempted to do a curative surgery on her this week. We knew that none of us is truly qualified to do this kind of radical surgery, but we also knew that this lady would NOT get any help from anyone here otherwise. Dr. Hoak has enough experience with the Guatemalan medical system now to know that there was essentially no chance of her getting a safe surgery here-- if anyone would even operate at all. The other option-- radiation-- is something she will not be able to afford, most likely. She refused to even go to The City to explore that option, so we all spent lots of time praying over her and agreed that surgery with us was the best option. God provided a peace with this decision, and we proceded with as much love and patience and diligence as we could.



Seven hours in to the surgery, however, we eventually encountered a stumbling block that we could not overcome. (For the medical folks, her left ureter was completely encased in tumor, which we did NOT expect from our clinical exam. This makes her an inoperable Stage IIIb cervical cancer) We could not safely remove the tumor, and had to terminate the surgery. Her only option now is to go to Guatemala City and try to get radiation, which she is unlikely to do. So the other option is praying for a miracle, which we invite you all to join us in. Either way, we hope that she felt the love of Christ that we tried to show her with our efforts.

The last picture is of a little 3-year old boy that a team from ASELSI actually brought in to the Emergency Room after finding him on a home visit that they made. About 10 days ago, he stuck both hands in to some boiling liquid and severely burned them as you can see. The family had sought no medical care to date, and it is really quite lucky that he has not become severely infected. Tom, Pat, and Erin took him to the operating room and cleaned his wounds under anesthesia. Tomorrow they will do a skin graft to try to save some function of the right hand. ASELSI will follow up with physical therapy, and the whole thing will hopefully be a wonderful testimony of how God can really work in people's lives when we all work together for His good!

Please pray for the rapid recovery of Hugo Emmanuel. He will be hospitalized for a while here, but hopefully will continue to do well.



Today Erin and Heidi were supposed to go out to the Zona Reina with the Fickers, but that trip was cancelled due to some forgetfulness on the part of the community leaders where we were supposed to go! Bummer, but at least it gives Erin something to look forward to when she comes back!

Tomorrow Heidi will get up to Quiche where Duane has generously offered to come pick her up to spend the day and night with the Fickers. It is hard to imagine a trip to Guatemala without seeing them, but the logistics proved to be a little challenging this time with no vehicle. We will all meet up back at the airport Saturday morning (Thanks, Tom and Jana, for offering a ride to Erin and Pat!) and fly out...

We have missed our friends and families this week, but are truly blessed to be a part of God's continuing work here in Guatemala. May He continue to bless you all and all of his people here in Guate!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone!

The two main holidays in the Christian world are Christmas and Easter. One because it celebrates Christ coming to be with us and the other because it celebrates the accomplishing of his mission.

This season, we celebrate the fulfillment of a promise. God had been promising his people for thousands of years that he would send a messiah. And in a tiny town in modern-day Israel, that promise was fulfilled.

It's a reminder that ALL of God's promises are fulfilled - in His time. That's why this is often called a season of hope. See, another one of God's promises was that Jesus will come back in the same way the disciples saw him leave. So, like the old testament Jews waited for Jesus to come the first time, we now wait for him to come back.

In the meantime, there is work to do.

Agape in Action is very excited about the next chapter of our story in Guatemala. Dr. Sherwood Pope and his wife Areli will be moving to Guatemala in a matter of days now. Please keep them in your prayers.

Also, since Agape in largely funded through investments in the oil and gas business, and you may have noticed that oil prices are dropping, please consider a financial gift to the ministry. Less money at the pump in our case means less money for missions. So maybe a bit of what you're saving could be put to good use???

Just a thought.

We pray you have a blessed Christmas and New Year!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It was a pretty typical American Thanksgiving week for us. Busy, busy, busy!

Heidi, being junior faculty at the hospital, was blessed with a 24-on, 24-off schedule for the week. The trade-off is over a week off at Christmas, though, so no complaining here!

Matt played Wednesday-Saturday nights, so we spent a few nights at Heidi's Aunt Mary Ann's house to celebrate Thanksgiving with her and to have a place for Isaac to stay while Daddy was out playing "rockstar".

God continues to smile on our end of the ministry here in North Carolina. We have a very different role now, but we're still working for the kingdom. Heidi has been busy collecting "trash" from the hospital. Yes, it's hard to believe, but we Americans throw away a lot of stuff that can save lives in other parts of the world.

We are using the attic in our house as a storage facility for these donations and will start working on a plan to get these things into the hands of the hospital folks in Guatemala.

And to echo our last post, during this time of worry and fret here in the United States, please remember that we are still the richest country in the world. Our bounty is so ridiculous that the obesity epidemic is the most pronounced in our poor population. Not too many other countries in the world worry about how fat their poor people are.

Please, please, please, keep giving to missions, especially when times are tough here. If they're tough here, they're even tougher everywhere else. Just a few dollars a month can make a huge difference in the third world.

And if you're looking for a place to send money, Agape In Action sends 100% of all donated money directly to the mission field. NO administrative expenses are taken out - those are already covered from their business ventures. So you can know that every penny of the money the Lord has led you to give ends up in the hands of those who are spreading the gospel.

Also please keep Dr. Sherwood Pope and his wife, Areli, in your prayers. They are preparing to move to Guatemala to take over the medical mission there and do amazing things with it. They are young, energetic, and spirit-filled, so you can only imagine what God has in store for them. Please pray for an easy, uneventful move and for God's revelation to be clear to them.