Busy, Busy

WOW! Seems like a lot has happened since yesterday. Heidi had another good clinic day today at the Hospital Buen Samaritano. Not too many patients, but good ones. At least one more surgery, too. And one of our patients from Chicabracan came to see Tom about her stomach problems. He'll do an endoscope on her soon.

Matt went with Paul (one of the medical students that Agape is helping) to a friend's house last night to do some recording. Paul had written a song a while back and they were able to get the money together to record it, but the recording was lost (don't ask - these things DO happen!). So we re-recorded last night. And since they're not paying by the hour, more and more ideas can make their way into the final product.

Matt spent the bulk of today doing production work with the tracks that were laid down last night. Believe me, there's a lot to do after the musicians stop playing. With any luck, this song will end up on a CD that will be available for sale here in Guatemala and in the US. Be patient, though, these things don't happen overnight. Plus, there's at least 10-20 more hours in the studio to finish this song.

This afternoon, we got our desktop computer back. Remember that it died a few weeks ago. Well, it wasn't exactly new. The design of this particular computer had the fan bolted directly to the processor. The fan died and everything underneath cooked. But we got a new motherboard, a new processor, new memory, and a new case (long story, don't ask) for about $150. Could be worse, right?

And this evening, Pam and Jose Munoz were coming over to pick up the green truck for a trip to the Ixcan area. They are doing some Bible School work about four hours past where we went with the Fickers. Matt went to go fill the truck up for them and on his way home, it died. Luckily, he was only about four blocks from Martin's house (our mechanic friend). Martin sent his helper over and we determined that the gas station had put diesel in the (gas powered) truck.

Martin towed us back to the gas station and informed them of their error. The solution is, clearly, to drain the diesel from the truck, refill it with gas, and be on your way. The problem is that the genius who designed this truck didn't anticipate this problem. There's no drain on the gas tank. So we pulled the gas tank (on a 4x4 truck, it's protected by some stuff, too), took it apart, drained it, reassembled it, put it back, pulled and cleaned the filters, and refilled the truck. Much of this was done after dark. Thank God for Martin (AGAIN!). Without his help, not only would none of this have gotten done, the gas station wouldn't have paid for it, which they did.

Anyway, Matt just got home and now Pam and Jose are on their way BACK to the house to get the truck. (They were sitting here waiting for the longest time while Matt was dealing with the truck - he didn't have a phone with him!)

Tomorrow, we're back to Canilla for what seems like the first trip there in AGES! We sure miss that visit when we don't get to go...