Houston, Texas!

Matt here -

My previous record for iron-man driving was from Houston to north of Boston. Just over 30 hours. Broke that this week.

We left Quiche at 4:00am on Friday. We arrived at our hotel at 12:30am on Sunday. With the exception of some silliness at the borders, all of that was driving. Martin and I each got maybe a total of an hour of sleep - most of it in 2-3 minute chunks. Amazingly, we never had a driver who was tired to the point of considering a stop.

And, (those of you who know me will not be surprised by this), I handed over the wheel from 10pm to 2am on Friday night and from 6am to 8am on Saturday morning. The rest of the trip was all mine. The 10-2 stretch was some of the most difficult driving, though. In Mexico, when it's dark, it's DARK! It was on bad, pothole-filled, windy, mountain roads and it was raining pretty hard. Good job, Martin! Not an easy task.

Anyway, the silliness at the Guatemala-Mexico border started thirty minutes into Mexico on our first attempt to enter. We crossed the border itself in about 20 minutes and started driving. At the first checkpoint, though, they told us that the truck did not have permission to be in Mexico. It's titled to John Villanueva from our support group and the notarized letter he sent (in English AND Spanish) was not good enough for them.

So we had to drive back to Guatemala. Martin went to an attorney friend in the border town to get some type of official seal on the title itself with a note on it (and an expertly forged signature) giving us permission to drive through. The attorney in the border town wouldn't touch it. So he took a taxi to the next town up the road - 30 minutes up the road - and found an attorney there who said he would, but he wanted a copy of John's passport.

So we called Houston and got a copy faxed down. We have John's wife to thank. She drove home from her job, got John's passport, then faxed a copy to him, which he faxed to Guatemala (John lives a long way from work - especially in Houston traffic.)

With the copy and about three phone calls, the attorney had all the info he needed. Then he decided not to put his seal on it. Luckily for the attorney, one of the commandments specifically prohibits what Martin WANTED to do.

Figuring that the law of averages had to eventually go our way, especially with two honest attorneys in a row, he tried a third. BINGO! Signed, sealed, and delivered, we were on our way again.

From the time we left the checkpoint the first time until the time they let us through the second time, we lost six hours. The kicker was that they put a sticker on our windshield that basically serves as the vehicle's visa. The sticker has to be removed by a certain office in Mexico to show that the vehicle has been in Mexico for less than the 30 days it's allowed. This office has hours and they do not include any hours on Sunday. So if we don't make it to Texas by Saturday afternoon, we're stuck in Mexico until Monday morning - which isn't the end of the world, but it ain't exactly heaven on earth, either.

So we drove.

And drove.

And drove.

Martin has been through Mexico more times than he can count. He knows a good way to go. One with hotels and restaurants all along the road. But Aaron Ficker had given us some notes to come down with and Martin hadn't been that particular way for many years. Hoping it would be better than his way, we tried it.

Aaron, the next time you see Martin, duck. Something might come flying at your head kinda fast. ;)

Not one hotel, not one restaurant. And by the time Aaron's route joined back up with Martin's, it was after midnight. At this point, let's just keep driving. Besides, we're faced with the knowledge that if we stop, we're stuck here until Monday. So we either push through or we completely hang back.

As a side note, the 8-9 Mexican police and military checkpoints are more than just a little annoying. The truck was immaculately packed as to avoid bumping, banging, clacking, smacking, chattering, annoying noises, and damage. At least it was until the first checkpoint when an 80 pound dog jumped into the truck, climbing all over my instruments and studio gear. In subsequent checkpoints, nearly every item we loaded was removed, opened, inspected, and put back in a place other than the one it came out of. At least the soldiers and police were friendly. Helpful, no. Friendly, yes.

Finally, we arrived at the Texas-Mexico border. Five minutes after the office closed to take off our visa sticker. And no help from the guy in the office, either, other than the advice to drive to Matamoros, an hour away, for the use of the 24 hour desk there (which might have been useful information the day before).

So we drove to Matamoros, eventually found the place we needed to be (an adventure on its own) and got permission to leave Mexico. We sat in a really slow and long line to get to the Texas side of the border, then were told to leave the vehicle until Martin could get his permission slip to enter the US.

Just in case you're wondering why people sneak into the US instead of securing visas, read on. Let's skip the part about how hard it is to get a visa. Martin has a visa. He also has a 28 year history of passing in and out of the US. He has never had a ticket here. He has never violated his visa, not even by one day. But every time he arrives at the US border, even with his visa in his hand, they reserve the right to refuse him entry to the country for any reason or no reason at all.

We witnessed a very nicely dressed (and obviously quite wealthy) Costa Rican family get denied entry to the country with basically no explanation. Dad was furious, Mom was bawling, and the kids were just confused. One look tells you that these people, arriving in their Ford Excursion, are not interested in picking tomatoes for $5 a day. But denied they were, and headed back to Costa Rica. If you don't know how stinking far that is, allow me to tell you that no amount of money you'll ever have in your possession will ever convince me to make that trip. And I LIKE to drive.

Anyway, after three hours of waiting, Martin was granted passage into the US. Then the truck was granted access (keep in mind that we could have made the entire trip, both been given permission to enter, and been told that we'd have to go the rest of the way on foot).

By now, it was after 9pm. We had been awake and either driving or waiting on border officals for 40 hours (counting the time change). Then we find out that the hurricane that just came through knocked out a bunch of peoples' power and that there isn't a hotel room to be found in Brownsville, Harlingen, or anywhere within two hours. And there MIGHT not be one after that.

So we drove. There's one more checkpoint inside the US - an hour or so inside the border. We passed through there without incident and arrived in Kingville around midnight. 43 hours after starting. There were two rooms available in the whole town (we checked) and they were both at the Quality Inn.

I asked how much it would be for a room and was given the "fijese" look. (In Spanish, "fijese" basically means, "you're not going to like this, but...") The guy behind the counter told me that because they only had two rooms left, it was going to be.... $68.88. After making sure it wasn't $568.88, we took the room.

Did we want two rooms? Duh. And at that price, it was tempting, but you don't want to take the last room in town, knowing that some poor soul might be just as tired as you and only five minutes behind you on the road.

On that note, a very special thanks to Quality Inn for not ripping off two obviously very tired and desperate guys, one of whom doesn't speak English. And with all that, the price on the back of the door (the one that's the maximum they're allowed to charge) was $145. Good citizens, those. That's the Quality Inn in Kingsville, Texas. If you ever get a chance, give them your business.

Nine and half hours of sleep later, we got on the road again, enjoyed a really nice breakfast at Denny's (except for the part when the waitress dumped my entire Diet Coke in Martin's lap) and got to Houston just in time to eat a really nice lunch at Olive Garden with Martin's two sisters.

Right now, I'm upstairs at Russell and Bethany Leatherman's house. My sleep schedule is a little goofy right now, so I'm not even really tired, but here's my anticipated schedule this week.

Monday - Martin comes to the Agape In Action offices in Porter to meet the crew. Pending approval from John, he'll take the 4Runner and do some scheduled and preventative maintenance on it. I'll introduce him to Chik-Fil-A for lunch, and then try to find all of our stuff here in Houston. That way I'll know what size moving van to rent.

Tuesday - Drive to Louisiana and hang out with Trip. After Trip adds all the parts we need to the songs I recorded, we'll do a final mixdown. Then he'll get the semi-finished product and can master it at his leisure. We'll pass out and I'll head back to Houston on Wednesday.

Wednesday - I'll rent a moving van, load it, and, with any luck, Martin and I will head to North Carolina.

Martin got introduced to Cajun music on our trip (it's a long trip) and fell in love with it. Since we have to drive through Louisiana anyway, we'll see if he likes crawfish, too.

We'll drive all night and hopefully arrive in Salisbury, North Carolina on Thursday. We'll sleep, then get him on a train or a bus to Providence, Rhode Island where there's a truck and three motorcycles waiting for him to drive them back to Guatemala. Please pray for him during his travels. He's away from his wife and daughter (who is about to have his first grandchild). Oh, and the drive through Mexico really stinks. It's manageable, but it's not the kind of thing you do because you're bored.

Heidi and Isaac fly to North Carolina tomorrow. It's an all day affair, what with the plane changes, layovers, and what-not. Pray for them to have safe and easy travels, with a well behaved little boy and a complete lack of stories to tell. I have enough for both of us.

Mexican Progress?

Just a quick update for tonight... and a plea for continued prayers for Matt and Martin as they drive the 4Runner up through Mexico. They had an adventurous day today... which is really not quite what you're hoping for when driving through two underdeveloped countries to get home! Many thanks to John Villanueva and his wife for getting a copy of his passport faxed expediently to Guatemala... long story.

Long story short though, they lost about 6 or 7 hours running around trying to get a lawyer here to do enough paperwork for them to appease some Mexican officials-- It is very frustrating to deal with Mexican officials, who abide by no rules and with whom we as American citizens truly have no rights. Now is not a time for a political rant about the treatment they demand for their citizens who are illegally in our country, but suffice it to say that driving through a place where you truly have NO rights is quite frustrating and scary. Feel free to take this opportunity to thank a Vet in your general vicinity for your rights and your freedom...

Anyway, we have not heard from Matt and Martin since around 1:30 this afternoon, so we are hoping and assuming that "no news is good news" and that they are well on their way through Mexico. It is difficult to call from there, so "no news is good news" was the agreement. As we said before, continuing prayers are appreciated.

On the Guatemalan front, Heidi and Isaac continue preparations for the trip north. Help from several members of the Savior's Sons team (from The Woodlands United Methodist Church) is, as always, greatly appreciated. A few of them stayed behind to help with Roy's addition on the house, but have also spent countless hours now on home improvement projects here as well as helping Isaac and Heidi get the house ready for their prolonged absence! God is truly The Great Provider, as He has proven yet again with His provisions for our move home.

Thank you all again and again for your prayers and support over the last two years. Please be aware that we all serve a truly awesome God! Blessings to all... and good night!

Last Day for Matt

Today is Matt's last day in Guatemala.

Yesterday, we spent a good part of the day packing. Matt went to Martin's with the 4Runner to get new brakes put on the front and to adjust the ones on the back. We're hoping not to use them too much, as we'd like to make good time through Mexico, but since Martin said he couldn't make the horn any louder, we worked on the brakes.

David, Craig, and Juan are still here working on Roy's roof. And Roy and a few of the guys are coming over this morning to help some more.

Then tonight, the rest of the team comes in. It was a bit of a surprise visit, brought on by some other circumstances, but we're always happy to have them!

At 3:45am, Matt will roll out of bed and meet Martin at 4:00 to head towards the border. We're hoping to be there about the time it opens, cross in around an hour, then make it to Veracruz, Mexico to sleep.

With any luck, we won't run into too much hurricane devastation near Brownsville. We cross the border about 20 miles inland, so we're hoping for smooth sailing... Well, maybe a water analogy isn't what we're looking for here.

In all seriousness, we pray for all the people in that area. We know firsthand what it's like to deal with hurricanes and to come home to find your possessions soaked and destroyed. No fun. So while it may be a minor inconvenience for us, for some, it's all they have.

Also, with any luck, Matt will be in Houston in time to go to church at the Woodlands Methodist Church on Sunday. Then it'll be some errands in Houston, some studio time with Trip during the week, then rent a UHaul and head to North Carolina.

Heidi and Isaac will ride down to Guatemala City with Roy on Sunday and fly out Monday morning - to North Carolina. Her dad will meet them at the airport and they'll have a week at his house, then head to Atlantic Beach for a family week there. We're hoping Matt will arrive in time to ride down with them.

After a week on the beach, we fly to New Mexico to visit Michael, Michelle, and Luke - Matt's cousins.

Then Heidi and Isaac fly back to North Carolina and Matt flies to Detroit to supervise the packing of our stuff there. A moving van will take it all down to Winterville, North Carolina, where we'll be renting a house for a bit.

Around September 1st, Matt's parents will come down to hang out with us for a few weeks. On September 4th, Matt flies to Atlanta for a friend's wedding, from Atlanta to Houston to meet Don Allison, and then they drive back through Mexico to Guatemala.

Don and his family are moving to Canilla to work with the orphanage in San Andres and with the Fickers. Don's never been through Mexico and Matt will be a third timer by then.

After all that, it'll be time to try to settle into a new life. (Did we mention that Heidi starts work at East Carolina University on Sept 2?)

Heidi did her undergrad work at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She then worked for a year as a pharmacist at ECU, then went to medical school there. After four years in Houston and two in Guatemala, she's heading home to be on faculty at ECU.

God has provided a wonderful job for us in a beautiful town, much closer to family and friends and we are very thankful for it. While we will miss Guatemala every day, we will stay in touch - often through our quarterly visits here with Heidi's job. (It's nice to negotiate things like that, isn't it???)

This will probably be the last post for a little while, as we'll be scattered all over for a few days. Thanks to all of you for your readership, your interest, your support, and MOSTLY your prayers. This has been a life changing experience for us and we urge you to follow God's call for you in your life, too. It is ALWAYS better than anything you could come up with on your own!

Last Clinic in Guatemala

Unless God has something completely unexpected up his sleeve, we did our last clinic in Guatemala (at least on this go-round) today. We were in our solo clinic in Chicabracan. The next time anyone is there will be on September 1 (thanks Katie!!!).

Two of our patients actually broke down and cried. Isaac cried, too, but for different reasons. It's a good thing, for him, that we're leaving at this point. He's pretty much "all done" with clinic.

Luckily, there weren't too many SICK (read: contagious) people there today, so Matt took Isaac outside for a little while and let him play with some of the patients. They love his blue eyes and his waving good-bye and his game where you tell him to say "mama" and he says "papa", then cracks up laughing. We can see that...

Meanwhile, Duane, Aaron, David, Craig, Joe, and Juan all came over to the house to work on the roof on the addition. It's nice to still be able to see them, and to be able to return a meal. We've eaten so many meals at their house that it's a privilege to serve them every now and then. David, Craig, Joe, and Juan are spending the night tonight and will be back to work in the morning. The goal is to have the house dried in by Friday so Roy and his guys can start running heater duct.

After lunch, we drove to Nueva Santa Catarina to meet with the Savior's Sons team, then to their hotel in Totonicapan for dinner. Thanks for dinner, guys!

After dinner, they prayed for us and for our trip back to the US (which they are helping to answer their own prayer by carting a bunch of our stuff back for us).

One very special member of that team is Dr. Street. It was SO nice to be able to see him and we got a really neat pic with him and Roy...

Tomorrow we'll be here at the house, helping the boys, and starting to pack some.

Last Weekend in Canilla

Of course we mean that it was the previous weekend in Canilla, but, unfortunately, we also mean our final weekend with the Fickers in Canilla. Very sad.

It's been two years, which means we've spent somewhere around 100 weekends there. If you count extended visits (planned or otherwise) and the times we've spent together during the weeks, we've spent nearly half of our two years here with them. Certainly enough to really feel like family. So it's hard to leave.

We did get a minor adventure on the way out, though. It was mostly smooth sailing all the way through San Andres. The roads are a long way from good, but since there was less rain than usual during the week this past week, they were at least passable. After the 3/4 point, though, we came up on a line of cars that were not moving. A short inspection showed that a big truck was buried all the way up to the frame in mud on one side of the road and the people who were trying to get past it on the other side of the road were not having much success.

Matt parked and walked up to see if he could help. What he found was that all the way on the right hand side of the road, it was muddy but more or less solid. In the middle, it was over a foot deep of just slime. The problem was many-pronged.

First, there was a crowd of Mayans standing around - most of whom do not own cars and have no idea how to drive - who were offering advice.

Second, the pickups that were trying to get through were not four wheel drive. Guatemalans, for some reason, really hate running their trucks in 4x4 mode. They feel like they're wasting gas or something. Yes, we're paying about $5.50 a gallon here, but tires are expensive, too. And when you have to rev like crazy and smoke your tires to climb a rocky hill, you might have saved a dollar on the trip up to that point, but you just spent $10 by refusing to lock in. But we digress.

Third, again, mostly for fear of breaking something, most Guatemalans, when presented with a muddy patch of road, will inch into it as slowly as possible and as soon as they start to bog down, they shut the whole engine off. This leads to a lot of stuck Guatemalans.

Matt watched for a little while and helped shovel some loose dirt into the muck, but mostly observed while a few people tried to get through - all unsuccessfully - and had to be pulled out by a crowd of 30 or so people and ropes.

After one particularly pushy Latin guy cut in line in front of us (in a Nissan, 2 wheel drive, automatic) and remained stuck for about 40 minutes, all the while shouting instructions to the Mayans on how to pull him out, Matt offered a better suggestion.

Why doesn't everyone get out of our way, let us drive through (which we're pretty sure we can), then we'll help pull the rest of the cars through when they get stuck? So that's what we did. Turns out you just need 4-wheel drive, good tires, some technique, and some guts. Below are four videos Heidi shot while Matt was pulling cars through. Yes, the last one is a LandCruiser, which had no business being stuck, but apparently nuns aren't the gutsiest drivers in the world. Plus, if you look closely, you'll notice that they're not even in 4x4 mode!

Anyway, our trip to Canilla took about 3 1/2 hours, instead of the normal 2, but we got some good movies for our trouble!

Clinic was relatively routine. We got to meet John and Alex, a father and son from St. Louis who were down to help out. Also, our friend Adrienne was here for her yearly visit. Martin and Gloria surprised us by driving out to share lunch with us and to say good-bye (even though Matt and Martin will get plenty of quality time later this week as they drive through Mexico together).

We also got to go down to the river for our last sand volleyball games together. Driving through the river was less challenging than last week (it rained less this week). Last week, even on the big 4-wheeler, your butt got wet riding through... Yeah, pretty deep!

We had a really nice worship service last night (thanks, Craig and everyone else) and got up this morning for breakfast and more clinic.

Heidi had a pretty funny patient today - perhaps her funniest of our entire time here. A 40-something-year-old man came in complaining of a problem with his hip or rear. He pulled a wilted plant out of his man-purse and handed it to Heidi. Eventually, the story came out that he had used a plant like this, well... like toilet paper about a year ago. It gave him a wicked rash. He came to clinic, we gave him some cream, and it went away. Just last week, the rash "came back". Knowing how much Heidi likes patients like this (there's a reason she's a gynecologist), she asked Katie to help her with the physical exam - after discarding the plant and washing her hands VERY thoroughly!

The end is a little anti-climactic. It probably wasn't another plant rash - maybe just some dry skin or something - but how great is it to HAND your doctor the plant that gave you some butt-rash last year? Leslie picked a bad time a few minutes later to ask Heidi if she was sure she wanted to leave...

Anyway, tomorrow is our last clinic here in Guatemala (as far as we know). We'll be out in Chicabracan. Then we'll drive to Totonicapan to have dinner with the Savior's Sons group. They were here at the house last night and we missed them (we were busy playing volleyball - all work and no play.... you know)

So please enjoy our videos and pictures... Oh, one picture that probably deserves explanation. You'll guess which one. That thing is part of one of Heidi's favorite trajes (traditional dress for women). The girls went to market in that village and bought one for Heidi as a going away present...

P.S. Okay, the videos embedded, but in low-quality. If you want to see the higher quality videos, go to youtube.com and search for "Pulling out trucks in guatemala" or something like that...

Busy Week

WOW! Is it possible that Matt drives out a week from today??? Time is flying. And we still have so much to do...

David, Craig, and Juan came over on Monday to start the welding work for the ceiling and roof on the addition. They stayed and worked here for four straight days. The ceiling joists are completely done on Roy's side and the roof joists are about half done on that side. A few more days ought to finish it. See pics 1&2...

We had clinic in Chujuyub on Monday morning. Our friend there with the key was over an hour late showing up. We had a ton of stuff to do back in Quiche in the afternoon, the roads were horrible (we barely made it to clinic - lots of trucks, even 4x4s, were turning around and going back or getting stuck) and it was raining like crazy, making us wonder if we could even get home. So we set up outside the building and started doing clinic out there. See pic 3.

Somehow, the roads managed to IMPROVE with all the rain. We actually had less trouble getting home than we did getting to clinic. Go figure.

Tuesday, we had the wonderful privelege of visiting Vina Studios in Solola. John Henderer, one of the guys working there, had called Matt a few months ago and we started talking about trying to get together. Unfortunately, between our schedules, we didn't get a chance until this week. They are doing some absolutely awesome work over there. One of their main projects is a series of videos mostly done with finger puppets called Deditos (little fingers) portraying various Bible stories. The idea is to produce audio tracks in various Mayan languages. Most people around here can't read, so getting the word of God into their hands is a little tricky.

Lots of people are working on translating the Bible into Mayan languages, but if the target audience is illiterate, the next step is to get these translations recorded and distributed. Vina is doing that work.

Please check out John's blog at http://www.sololagracia.com/ He put a really nice write up in there about us this week.

Also check out Vina's website at http://vinyastudios.org

See pic 4 for a shot of Heidi doing some voice work for one of the videos (they're being produced in English, too, for promotional purposes in the US).

Yesterday was Heidi's last day at ASELSI. They had a really nice going away party for us and had some very kind words and generous gifts. We are really going to miss all those folks. We're looking forward to visiting as often as possible, but it's never going to be the same as living here...

In the "closure" department, one of the workers at ASELSI asked us to come to his house a year and half or so ago to check out his wife. He was pretty upset and was relatively sure she was in the process of miscarrying. So we drove out into the middle of nowhere with our ultrasound machine to check her out. The drive included about a 20 yard section where we were squeezing between a house and a fence so closely that we were touching on both sides... then there was nowhere to turn around, so we had to BACK out the same way!!!

Anyway, when we got to their house, we unfortunately confirmed his fears, that she had miscarried. We prayed with them and assured them that there was nothing that they had done to cause this - it just happens sometimes.

Well, shortly after, they conceived again and yesterday Mom came in with her new baby!!! (Their other daughter's name is Heidi, so that made an even better connection!) See pic 5 for a shot of the happy family (minus Dad, who was working...)

Today, Heidi is at the Hospital Buen Samaritano for her last clinic there. We'll clean and prepare for the arrival of the Savior's Sons team tomorrow. We won't be here - we have clinic in Canilla - but since Dr. Street is on the team and he built the house, we figure they've pretty much got it under control. Also, this team is the team that was coming in to Quiche the day that Isaac came home from the hospital. They got to meet him when he was only 3 days old.

So we're planning on driving over to Totonicapan, where they're staying, maybe on Monday afternoon to have dinner with them and share a little bit. They helped us get many of our personal possessions down here two years ago and they're helping us get some of them back home again... What would we do without those guys???

Well, we hope to have some pics from this weekend. It'll be our last time in Canilla, which should prove to be pretty difficult. We've grown so attached to the Fickers during our time here that they're pretty much family to us. Well, the less we think about it right now the better....

Also, Roy and his grandson Cameron have been here for the last two weeks and they're heading down to Guatemala City tomorrow morning to pick up the Savior's Sons team. We're doing a fair amount of turnover with Roy as far as handing over the managing of the construction of his house...

Weekend Notes

Saturday morning, all of us piled into two trucks and headed to Canilla.

All of us, you ask? Yes, the three Leathermans, the three Bells, Roy, and his grandson, Cameron. The roads were, well, pretty bad. Luckily, both trucks are Toyota 4x4s with good mud tires on them. And we needed them.

Anyway, clinic was relatively routine, then we had lunch and the Leathermans flew down to Guatemala City to meet back up with John Hull and the team. Then the rest of us went down to the river to play volleyball. The river we have to cross was about the highest we've seen it in quite a while. We sure could have shot a Honda commercial - the ATVs and dirt bikes all forded about a 3 foot river without any problems. Pics 1-3 are of the game...

This morning, Roy and Cameron drove to Quiche, picked up Jacob, then went to the jobsite in Nueva Santa Catarina. Things there are not going exactly as planned, but with a little direction and a whole lot of prayer, things will turn out okay.

In San Andres, Heidi had a pretty interesting day. Remember about a year and a half ago when we tried our best to rescue a malnourished little baby but got turned around by a raging river we couldn't go through? The next day, the mom and baby got to the hospital by chicken bus and the hospital tried to save the baby but couldn't.

Anyway, the mom showed up in clinic today. She wasn't too big the last time we saw her. One of the reasons the baby was so malnourished was because Mom was half-starving herself - somewhere around 80 lbs. Today she was closer to 60 lbs. And based on her symptoms and the results of our HIV test, she's got full-blown AIDS. Her mother had come with her and explained that her husband runs around on her alot with women in Guatemala City.

Rosa (the patient) is a Christian. Her soul we are not all worried about. Her husband, on the other hand, grew up in the church but fell in with a bad crowd and got himself kicked out of the church. We prayed for him after diagnosing Rosa with AIDS and in less than an hour, he showed up outside clinic. After the unsurprising results of his own test came back, we explained his situation to him and that he is deadly contagious. We also explained that he's probably going to meet his maker sooner rather than later and that this would be an excellent time to get back into the church (around the time their baby died, he told us he was thinking about coming back).

Anyway, please pray for Rosa and her husband. For her that she stay strong in her faith and have a relatively easy go of it. For him that he find his way back home before it's too late.

Tomorrow is clinic in Chujuyub. Our last one there. Again, very mixed emotions...

Tuesday, Matt and Roy will go to Guatemala City to do some shopping. Wednesday, we probably have a quick trip to Solola to meet with a missionary there who is doing some fantastic work - we'll write more about it then.

Feliz Cumpleanos Isaacito

Today is Isaac's first birthday. In some ways, it's hard to believe that it's already been a year. In other ways, it's hard to believe it's ONLY been a year.

Anyway, the same team that was here to send us to the hospital last year was here to celebrate Isaac's birthday. Gencha, our caterer, came over and decorated the tables and chairs. She also had two beautiful tres leches cakes made - one with his picture on it.

We had a pinata, too.

The team left this morning for Antigua. Russell, Bethany, and Tye are still here to spend another day with us - then they'll go to Canilla with us tomorrow and fly to Guatemala City with Duane.

Also arriving today was Roy and his grandson Cameron. So we went from a full house to a medium-full house. But it's a whole lot quieter with five guests instead of twenty. It has been a real pleasure to have the team here and we hope that maybe we'll be here next year operating the same week they're here again...

Anyway, here are some self-explanatory pics...

Woodlands Team/Surgery

Today was Day 3 of the Woodlands Methodist Team. They're helping with construction work at the school in San Pedro in the mornings, then doing Vacation Bible School in the afternoons. For the second straight day, they had 188 kids - way more than they anticipated. So that's a great thing!

Also today, Heidi had two surgeries at the Hospital Buen Samaritano. Katie Ficker came in to help out with those and Russell Leatherman's dad, Gary, went down to watch. One was just a small vaginal repair and the other was the removal of a fairly good sized mass in the abdomen of a woman that the team knows. She is the mother of a couple of students they're sponsoring at the Utatlan School and she has also been taken in by Pastor Eliseo.

We were very happy to get the call from Heidi that her mass was safely out and that it did not appear cancerous - just a simple fibroid tumor in her uterus.

Tomorrow Heidi is at ASELSI. Matt will do some more work on the recording project (he was very glad to have Russell's help this week - Russ is a guitar and bass player.)

The first two pics are of Heidi with Katie and Gary. The next one is of Tye and his mom, Bethany Leatherman. And the last one is Isaac sharing his thoughts on the whole thing...

Monday with the Team

It has truly been enjoyable having this team here. The teams from the Woodlands Methodist church are always so fun. They pretty much take care of themselves and we have such a great time hanging out with them.

This morning, we had our clinic in Chicabracan. We may have mentioned before that Isaac is pretty much "over" the whole clinic experience. So Matt and Bethany stayed home with Isaac and Tye while Heidi and Russell went to clinic. Matt got the builders re-started on the addition (after the weekend) and then got Isaac down for his nap. Then Bethany was nice enough to stay with both of the boys while Matt went to relieve Russell in clinic.

Bethany, Russell, Tye, and Isaac then spent the rest of the morning together while Matt and Heidi finished clinic. We saw about 40 patients and got home just before 2pm so the Leathermans could go up to the school in San Pedro and do Vacation Bible School with over 100 kids.

This evening, after dinner, we helped blow up around 300 balloons for an activity the kids will do tomorrow. Then the team reflected on the day, we shot the breeze for a while, and now, around 9:30 local time, pretty much everyone is in bed.

The pics are pretty self explanatory. The first two are from clinic and the last three are from the dorm tonight...

Wild Weekend

We picked up our friends Sherwood and Areli at the airport on Wednesday and drove back up the mountain to get home.

Thursday we went to ASELSI. It wasn't our day to do clinic there, but it was a chance for us to visit and hang out with a team a little bit without having to see a whole room full of patients. Plus, there's always the market in Chichi.

Friday, Russell, Bethany, and Tye came in with a truckload of groceries for the team.

Friday night we drove over some pretty bad roads to get to Canilla. We hadn't been there too long when one of the Fickers' worker's wife came in pregnant, in labor, and pushing. Sherwood actually did the delivery and Areli got to watch him in action for the first time.

Then we got a call that a chicken bus was stuck on the road between Canilla and San Andres. So we took a tractor out there and spent almost four hours digging and pulling and finally got it out. After having been under a chicken bus and seeing how they're... um... maintained - my advice is to walk.

Saturday morning, Sherwood and Areli flew back to Guatemala City, the girls did clinic, the guys pulled another chicken bus out (lots of rain = lots of mud = lots of stuck people), and Duane dealt with some airplane paperwork issues in Guatemala City.

Saturday night, we had worship in Canilla (thanks, Craig) and the Woodlands Methodist Church team arrived at the dorm.

Sunday was clinic for the girls. Luckily, Craig drove them to clinic because somewhere in the slippery, muddy, rocky roads, they slid sideways into a big rock and ripped a sidewall out of a tire. Craig basically laid in a river of mud to change the tire. Fun, huh?

Tomorrow is our clinic in Chicabracan. Luckily, Russell is going to go to clinic with Heidi, so Matt and Bethany can stay home with Isaac and Tye. Isaac is getting to the age where he wants to be out and about, so being penned up in a pack-n-play for 4-6 hours during clinic isn't his idea of a good time.

Anyway, tons going on tonight (hence the terse entry) and we hope to have more time to write later...

Guatemala City

Monday was our last clinic in Nueva Santa Catarina. It was a little weird to know that we're not going back. Well, Matt will probably go back to help with the construction work, but no more clinic there.

We've given all of our chronic patients enough meds to last until the end of September, at which point we hope to have someone to go out again and see them. We're working on that.

The "shortcut" road there, which runs through Totonicapan, was absolutely brutal. Yes, the Toyota is practically indestructible, but WE'RE not! After about 30 minutes on the road, we decided to take the long way around on the way back, construction delays or not. Knowing that this could add hours to an already long day did not matter. You can only get beat up for so long!

We left home at 6am, arriving in Nueva Santa Catarina just before 8am. There were about two patients there. So we spent a little time loading in and talking about the construction project. Patients began to trickle in. We don't control the numbers there, so we have no idea how many patients we saw, but we left around noon.

Usually, when we have an extraordinarily long day ahead and we know that it would be helpful to be out of clinic by a certain time, it lasts about three hours longer than that. So we had hoped to be out by noon, but knew in our hearts it would be more like 3pm. So noon was pretty exciting!

We took the long way home, driving all the way down to Los Encuentros, then up through Chichi. But miracle of miracles, there were NO construction delays and it took us just over 2 hours to make the trip - only about 20-30 minutes more than the "shortcut" and not nearly as abusive. Oh well.

At this point, Isaac had spent four hours in the car and four hours in his pack-n-play. His ideal is zero for each one. Yet, he was being pretty tolerant. Good thing, too, because we had another four hours in the car to go!

We drove two vehicles down to Guatemala City, in order to leave one for Russell, Bethany, and Tye, who fly in on Thursday. The downside of this is that with Heidi in the Toyota with Isaac, she had no help with him and had to just keep handing animal crackers, toys, and sippy cups back to him for four entire hours!

In the continuing saga of fighting mechanical problems, the Mazda has developed a seal leak where the drive shaft connects to the rear differential. We stopped in Los Encuentros to see if a mechanic there could check our rear differential and fill it, if necessary (the nut was on there too tightly to get it off with the tools we had). 20 minutes, Q20 for labor and Q20 for oil later (about $5 total), we were on our way with a full differential. Guess we'll call our go-to-guy, Martin, when we get home.

Yesterday was full of doctors' appointments and lab tests (all routine stuff, no worries) and getting copies of all of our medical records from here in Guatemala. Then we went to Dr. Hoak's house in San Cristobal for dinner. We are really going to miss them!!!

Today we'll run up to the Hospital San Juan de Dios to try to find Ramiro, our little spina bifida baby, and get his parents a little more walking around town money. They've been here three weeks now on less than $100.

Then we'll go pick up some friends from the airport and head back up the mountain.

The pic below is of the first stage of the construction at Nueva Santa Catarina. Many thanks to Roy Simmons and the Savior's Sons group for funding this project!