Weekend News

Saturday morning found us out at the Fickers again as usual, but by now the regular readers know that clinics tend to be anything but usual! Saturday was relatively benign, with just two of the last few patients throwing us for a loop.

One little boy, less than two years old, can barely walk because his left knee is so swollen. There's no history of trauma that the parents are aware of, so our best guess is that there is an infectious cause. We gave him antibiotics, prayed for him and his family, and hope that they will come back if he is not getting better.

Another little baby was in with quite a bad case of pneumonia, needing oxygen to breathe comfortably. We provided that in clinic while we set about the task of trying to overcome the obstacles to get this baby to the hospital. The young (18-ish) mom was there by herself, with the father away at the coast working the sugarcane fields. She refused to go or make any decisions without her own father since she couldn't get in touch with the baby's father. They live four hours away on foot, and at least about 1 and 1/2 hours away if they can find a vehicle to bring them.

To make a long story short, we did finally get in touch with the grandfather and got him to come to the clinic. A few hours later when he showed up, we were able to find them a ride to the hospital and hope to be able to check in on them in the next few days.

Today was a little more crazy... but we'll start with the good news. A man that we met two weeks ago, with an obvious chronic illness of unclear origin, had told us and the pastor that we sometimes work with there that he would "think about" what we had told him about Christ. Today he came in and told us he was ready to accept Christ, and Mateo (the pastor) prayed with him as he did so. It's always great to start the day off on the right foot!

Our next few patients are all prayer requests-- One, Candelaria, is a 30-something pregnant mother of four who has just been kicked out of her home by her so-called husband, who is now with another woman. She is, by local custom, required to take the kids with her. This lady's parents are dead and she has no brothers or sisters. She is truly alone in this world as far as she knows in terms of anyone who can help her in this crisis. Her baby is due in about a month, and is currently breech. We are not sure yet how we are going to help this woman, and tossed around a lot of ideas in clinic today. We ended up leaving it with giving her bus fare to come back in a week while we pray and ponder over it. Please pray with us for wisdom to know how best to help this woman.

This is truly a difficult case for missionaries everywhere. It's the age-old problem of trying to figure out how to "teach a man to fish", instead of just giving him fish to eat for a day. This lady does not have many options for finding the means to feed her family currently-- Even if we can find her a place to live for a while, the real problem is how to get her actually on her own two feet again. With four malnourished kids already, a new baby, no family to help, and living in a culture where there are already few options for women who want to earn a living, our options aren't exactly limitless here. Our prayer then, is truly for wisdom in dealing with this lady's situation in the best and most permanent manner.

On a happier note again, the lady who we asked to come back with her husband to schedule a breast biopsy did indeed show up, and we scheduled her for Wednesday. Please pray that she shows up and that the surgery goes well. It is another procedure that is really outside of Heidi's realm of expertise or experience, but sometimes we are called to test our limits.

Also on a very happy note, Matt's parents arrived safely today and will be spending nine days here with us and Isaac. Yippee! Isaac is excited about playing with Grandma and Grandpa and having some new entertainment for a while. We will be glad to have their help with him while we do our clinic tomorrow.

Tomorrow night, we will drive to Guatemala City and hope to meet up with Dr. Hollier, the pediatric plastic surgeon from Texas Children's Hospital who hopefully will be doing Rudy's surgery this week.

Unfortunately, we forgot to take the camera with us this weekend... Sorry!