Totonicapan Clinic

A few months ago, we got a call from a pastor in Totonicapan looking for Dr. Street. We told him that Dr. Street has returned to the United States but that we are doing our best to take his place. He said that he was trying to do some outreach with his church and that they were hoping to bring in some different doctors to bring people into the church who wouldn't ordinarily come.

After Isaac's birth, we've been trying to cut our schedule from 6 days a week back to 5, but we're having very little luck with that. Heidi has had surgeries scheduled at Buen Samaritano nearly every Wednesday, which was supposed to be our second day off. But we're not really here to take time off, so we're picking up some "odd jobs" on Wednesdays.

We agreed to go to Totonicapan to do a clinic to check out the church, the pastor, the people, etc. and try to get an idea of what God wants us to do. And since we've seen signs to Totonicapan all over the place and have joked that it's the town you can get to from everywhere, we thought it'd be fun. We were right.

The church building is incredible. It's very well done and the most like an American church we've seen since we've been here (outside of the Catholic cathedrals). The people at the church were amazingly friendly, too. Apparently they thought we looked a little thin, because they were trying to feed us from the moment we walked in. Being as it was the first time there, and we had warned them that we cannot be a blessing to 100 people in a day, the turnout was small, but good. We saw between 15-20 patients, but were able to spend some good time with each one. The pastor was downstairs talking with each person who came in, including the few that are part of his congregation.

Anyway, we are going to pray a lot about this place, but we have agreed to go back in November with the exact date depending on our next trip up into Zona Reyna. Please pray for us to have some wisdom and guidance about what we're supposed to do with this.

Yesterday, we got a call from Leslie letting us know that her son David was bringing a patient to us from their clinic in Chiminicijuan. Not really to us, but to the hospital, and could we please try to help out? Of course. About two minutes later, David knocked on our door. He had driven nearly two hours on some of the worst roads we've seen here in Guatemala to bring us this baby with pneumonia, but to save a life, you're willing to do a lot.

The baby was admitted to the hospital last night and the family was told to expect a stay of nearly a week. When we got back from clinic this afternoon, Heidi went to go check on them and found that they had left the hospital AMA (against medical advice). Sometimes this job can be very frustrating!

On the U.S. front, one of our nieces we've been expecting was born earlier this week. She was not expected to be the first of the two, which made her a bit early, but she is doing well, all things considered. Her mom is having a bit of a rough ride, though, so please keep all of them in your prayers. And our other niece-to-be's mom is struggling a bit, too. Again, please keep all mommies and babies in your prayers, but especially our two sisters (slash-sisters-in-law).

Tomorrow we're at ASELSI in the morning and Heidi has two surgeries in the afternoon. And Friday, Heidi is at Buen Samaritano and Matt is going to try to go to Guatemala City to get the green truck and bring it home from the airport parking lot where it's patiently waiting for us.