A Year Gone By

It's hard to believe, but a year ago this weekend, Heidi and I were in North Carolina, getting our marriage license and driving down to the beach to get married. In fact, the Friday of that weekend was when we started the normally 3 hour drive from Raleigh to Atlantic Beach. Of course, as our luck had it, we were driving through Tropical Storm Tammy. But that's another story entirely. October 8 is our one year anniversary and we're taking a few days at Lake Atitlan to celebrate. So there probably won't be much blogging until later next week.

Today we don't have any clinics, so we're headed to Canilla a day early to hang out with Katie and offer her some American company. She's been at the Fickers' house for two weeks with their adopted daughters (both under the age of 2) while they've been in the US for their son's wedding. They wanted to take their daughters with them, but paperwork issues prevented it. So Katie has been babysitting and, except for last weekend, has had very few English-speakers to hang out with.

Yesterday was one of our most challenging clinics. Since our message last Sunday night, we've been praying very hard for good attitudes in clinic and God has responded. We've been feeling much better and more patient since then and will obviously be praying for that to continue. Thursday, though, was a challenge.

Once a month, we have a clinic here in Quiche. Most of the patients in that clinic are chronic patients with diabetes, hypertension, or both. The vast majority of them are among the richer people in town. We can tell because most of them are dressed at least as well as we are, they are all literate, all speak Spanish, and almost all of them spend a considerable amount of money with private doctors and private labs. Many are even purchasing medications at the local pharmacies. Of course, they prefer to get their medicines for free from us, but most have demonstrated that they have the means and the access to get them for themselves.

We're not exactly sure why God has placed us in this clinic. It can be very frustrating when you're working with people who don't have enough to eat one day, and working with people who have literally eaten themselves into bad health the next. We have patients approaching 200 lbs in this clinic (and remember that Guatemala isn't exactly turning out a lot of NBA prospects - these people are short). We try to educate them and help them to understand that a major cause of their diabetes and hypertension is the fact that they are considerably overweight. Most are not interested in hearing that, they just want their meds. We're also fighting a cultural issue where the men prefer their women on the heavy side - it's a demonstration of their wealth and ability to purchase so much food.

Again, we're not exactly sure why God has placed us in this clinic. But we're sure that He has. And our prayer is that we can reflect God's love onto these people, as well. True, there are some truly poor people in this clinic, including a woman who probably doesn't have much longer to live. Her diabetes is simply out of control and she is experiencing all of the horrible health effects that come from that. Her daughter comes with her to clinic each time and, though she's only in her early 20s, looks like she's got the weight of the world on her shoulders. We've NEVER seen her smile. Heck, we'd even be happy with a neutral expression, but she always looks like she's on the verge of bursting into tears.

With the new year just around the corner, there are some opportunities that appear to be on the horizon for us and it looks like this clinic may have to go on the chopping block. Please pray for us to be able to make the decisions that God wants us to make and not the ones that we want to make.