Cleft Palate Surgeries - Day 5

It's a terrible burden to have to hang out in such a beautiful city for a week and experience the joy of these families getting new faces for their kids. Occasionally, people ask us if it's hard to do what we do. It's hard to have to see more need than we can fill, but it is SO rewarding to see how God can help put broken lives back together!

And it's not like we're doing this alone, either. First, we are part of the world's most amazing team. They are based in Houston, Texas and work day and night (yes, it's not uncommon to see Ray in the office at midnight) to make money to support missions - not just this one in Guatemala, but others around the world, too.

And you'd be amazed how many people are doing wonderful work here in Guatemala. The hotel we are staying at, for instance, is called the Posada Lazos Fuertes. (http://www.posadalazosfuertes.com/). All of the profits from this hotel go to a group called Safe Passage, who works with kids they find digging in garbage dumps for food.

Of course, there's the Hospital Hermano Pedro itself (http://www.obrashermanopedro.org/) and the group, Faith in Practice, that coordinates a team here EVERY WEEK (http://www.faithinpractice.org). The hospital does over 3,600 surgeries a year. That's ten a day, every day, year round.

And when the families are here for their surgeries, it's not like they can afford a hotel (even though ours is less than $50 a night). So there's the equivalent of a Ronald McDonald House. It's called Casa de Fe and it's also supported by Faith in Practice. Families here receive lodging and dinner every day for free. They are the nicest people here and work very hard to help the families do everything they need to to get their surgeries. Example: Regina's 14 year old daughter wanted to go to the hospital last night because the baby was crying. Minors are not allowed to leave the Casa unattended, so they got the lady who lives across the street to walk her 12 blocks to the hospital.

And, of course, this trip would not have been possible without the surgical team. The team is called Medical Missions for Children (http://mmfc.org/). We have seen them basically every morning in post-op while they round on "our" kids and they are always very friendly and upbeat and clearly love what they're doing.

Between the Social Work office, Casa de Fe, and the team itself, they have arranged to move Carolina's surgery up to today. (Her brother's surgery was yesterday and hers was originally scheduled for tomorrow.) The only problem was that Ana Maria didn't apparently understand the change (we're not sure how thorough her comprehension of Spanish is). So we've now made the trip between the hospital and the Casa de Fe "a few" times (and it's a long walk when you're carrying babies and 3 year olds), but at this very moment, Regina is waiting with Carolina in the hospital. Her surgery should be this afternoon. That'll be the last one on this trip!

And it's not just medical people doing great work here. Our friend and travel agent, Real, is working today to get fresh tires on our truck. We left it here while we were in the United States for Christmas and he got a bunch of preventative maintenance done on it (it has about 80,000 hard miles on it - most of them off-road) but the right tires were not to be found. They came in on a container yesterday and he's getting them put on today. Not too many travel agents in the US would do that for you!

Well, that's it for today. Hopefully our next post will be from our house in Quiche and it will tell you that all went well with Carolina's surgery and our trip home...