It's a three hour drive each way out to Nueva Santa Catarina, but we just can't resist going because of what the pastor we work with says is happening in his Church out there! He attributes a lot of the growth to the clinic, but we know that our clinic is really just a way for him to get his "foot in the door" of these people's lives and hearts and talk them in to coming to Church and meeting Jesus their Savior. His time spent ministering to them and in prayer for them during clinic is in most cases much more beneficial than any of the Tylenol or Sudafed that we're handing out...
Regular readers will remember this as the little wooden shack (literally!) of a Church high up in the mountains, where they were lucky to have 10 people attend on a good day. Today when we walked in, there were new benches/pews literally piled high in a corner to make room for the clinic to run-- apparently they were needed to accomodate the almost 50 people he said were there yesterday! Even with extra benches, there is no telling where they all could have possibly been seated. The picture below is of the Church to refresh your memory, although it's an old picture.
While it was nice to see some of our regular patients out there again, it's always interesting to see what new things will walk in the door. Today our most interesting patient was the last one of the day-- a ten year old boy who "cut his finger" with a machete yesterday while trying to chop firewood. After unwrapping his bandage, we could see that he actually meant that he "cut his finger nearly OFF"-- the tip of it anyway-- with said machete. He will certainly never again have a pinky nail on his left hand, but the family had cleaned it up pretty well considering. Hopefully with some antibiotic prophylaxis and some better cleaning and bandaging supplies, he will heal just fine. All of you who are the proud new owners of Guatemalan machetes received as Christmas gifts from us, though, take heed-- those things most assuredly CAN relieve you of any body parts that happen to get in their way!
Anyway, for any of you who were still worried about whether or not Jake had made it home Friday night, rest assured that he is back safe and sound and living the life of luxury which he has become quite accustomed to. He has not let us out of his sight at all when he can help it since he found us here Friday night! Says to tell you all, "hi", by the way...
Before signing off, we do have a prayer request that is a little different than the others we have posted here... Our truck, just out of the shop where it spent the month of December getting lots of "preventive" maintenance done, doesn't seem to have taken too well to all of these repairs. Or, in other words, it no longer seems to want to pull us up any of these mountains at more than 6 miles per hour! This is a big problem, especially considering that the three best mechanics we know (Aaron and David Ficker and their good friend Martin) are all in the States right now! We are going back to the shop in the City that did the repairs tomorrow, and we are very thankful to have the time and the support to be able to do that. But a little prayer never hurt, either-- And if you feel at all silly praying for a truck, don't worry-- we've all certainly prayed for sillier things before, and God has never once laughed (out loud, at least...) at any of our requests.
So we're off to Guatemala City and Antigua tomorrow-- hopefully we will be home tomorrow night, but that depends on what they say about the truck and how much time they need. Heidi was fortunate enough to get an OB appointment with the doctor we will be going to in the City for tomorrow also, so at least we get to accomplish that in the meantime. There's also always plenty of shopping to be done after being gone so long... Wish us luck!
1 comment:
We pray that your truck is repaired to provide you with the power and dependability you must have!
Bambino is in our prayers. 13 weeks already!
Love, Mom
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