Sunday Clinic and Fun Around the House

Today we took a break from home improvement to go and do a clinic! Many, many thanks to Mom and Dad Bell for HOURS of hard work put in to get these projects done. Hopefully the fountain will be done tomorrow afternoon, and up and running (read: picture-ready) by the end of the week... It's all about remembering to get excited about each and every small victory around here.

Today in clinic we saw about fifty patients between us and Leslie. Please pray for a friend of ours who we are seeing weekly now to treat a bad venous stasis ulcer and help control her diabetes. She seems to be improving slowly, but this will be a long process and we pray that she will not lose hope or patience with us before she gets better. Also on the prayer list, two pregnant ladies with very sad complications... One was informed this week that her 4- to 5- month fetus was dead inside her uterus, and the other is likely facing a diagnosis of anencephaly (a rare, uniformly fatal malformation where, basically, the brain and skull never form in the baby) We have very little besides prayer to offer these ladies, but will continue to do what we can. An 81 year old man with an inguinal hernia is also praying for guidance about whether or not to pursue surgical correction.

After clinic was a little more exciting, and the source of most of today's pictures. Heidi's "korte" (skirt, in the traditional hand-woven pattern of this area of the country) was finally ready! The last picture below is of Rosa, the young lady that translates for us and whose father made the korte, helping teach Heidi how to put on the skirt. (It's harder than it looks!) You'll all see the complete finished product with the top over Christmas, I hope.

The other pictures, from top to bottom, are: One more of little Carolina Perez that we just couldn't resist blogging. She's the little girl whose mom stayed with us the night before the trip down to Antigua (See "One Brave Little Lady" entry below...) Her smile is simply infectious.















Then there's this shot of our "new and improved" entryway. You can see just a little bit of the bench that we bought to match the table there, and more importantly, the curtain which divides it off from the rest of the house. This helps a lot with privacy when all those knocks on the door come, and gives patients a place to sit while we find them meds, bring them food or supplies, or perform minor surgical procedures... whatever!















This last one is another silly shot of Heidi practicing "being Guatemalan". You've seen plenty of pictures of Guatemalan women carrying their babies on their backs in this sort of a sling... so we figured we'd try it with OUR baby! Surprisingly enough, it did last long enough to at least get a picture... and Heidi's back will heal quickly from the scratches. We hope.