Remember When...

Remember when God promised good days and bad days? We've had lots of good ones. Today is shaping up to be the other kind.

Heidi was up all night last night sick. She probably got a total of an hour of sleep. So when the alarm went off for clinic this morning, it wasn't extremely welcome.

Matt loaded up the truck for clinic and went to start it and... well, there really was no "and". It didn't start. So he cheerfully unloaded it and repacked everything in the other truck. (Maybe "cheerfully" is a bit generous, but I'm writing this entry and I'll use whatever adjectives I want!)

Paul and Lindsey came to ride with us to clinic today and Paul is having another migraine. So we have two clinicians who feel like dirt and one who is just in a bad mood thinking about how we're going to fix this truck.

Even on dark days, however, God sees fit to give us a little light. At the Texaco station, we picked up our new friend, Juan Diego Lux. He is going to work with us at this clinic in Chicabracan to help evangelize and get to know patients on a little more personal and spiritual level. He is a SUPER neat guy and a real follower of Jesus. We believe that he is going to really make this clinic into something we feel much better about.

Most of our other clinics are organized through churches or pastors. This is the only one (or "was" the only one) that has no pastoral support. We felt very strongly that simply having a medical clinic was not what we were sent here to do. So Juan Diego is going to help fill that very large hole. He speaks Spanish, K'iche, and even a little bit of English, so we will be able to really communicate much better with our patients and serve them in a much more meaningful way.

Also a bright spot, considering our collective conditions today, there were only about a dozen patients, as opposed to around 40 on a normal clinic day there. And the patients we had were mostly chronic patients who need to be keeping up on their meds. Paul and Lindsey will be attending this clinic once in December and once in early January before we resume our normal schedule later in January.

We got home and checked our email and found some more bad news. Duane Ficker was going to fly up to the Ixcan and check out the landing strip there for a possible weekend trip this coming weekend. Well, he flew up, but on landing, his nose gear collapsed and the plane took quite a bit of damage. It is not flyable and had to stay up there in the middle of nowhere. He and Aaron had to hitch rides back home and are really, really bummed right now. Thank God that no one was hurt, but they are really searching for God's will right now. We were positive that God wanted us to work up there but He seems to be testing us to see how badly we want to do this. One little nose gear isn't going to deter us, but it will delay things a bit. Please pray for a good solution for the plane and for lots of guidance for all of us.

Anyway, today is not one of the best days we've had. We're hoping to improve our batting average a little with a visit to the hospital to check on baby Lesly later this afternoon. Hopefully things will be better with her.

We'll never give up (God certainly had his chances to give up on us and never did) but today is a little bit down. Pray for Heidi to feel better and for lots of good news in the coming days!

----------------

Postscript (added a few minutes after finishing the original entry): We see now that Sly Stallone has been born again. We've also recently seen some awesome writings by Chuck Norris on Worldnetdaily.com (also born again). Apparently, God is gaining traction on the over-60 tough guy crowd in Hollywood! Clint Eastwood, you're next...

----------------

Another postscript (added a few hours after the original): It's that kind of day. Baby Lesly has been moved to intensive care. Only one person is allowed in with her at any given time and right now it's her dad. Mom says she won't eat at all and has been told that the situation is very grave.