Guatemala Medical Mission

Blessings,

God bless! Were back, its been a week since our return from Guatemala. We are so excited to tell you what happened on our trip. We were able to meet an amazing group of doctors from Adventist Medical Missions, there are the most humble and compassionate Doctors I have ever met, nothing against the wonderful Doctors that help us in Costa Rica. We were immediately excepted as family by the Doctors, we served together in Zapote and Sumpango. Zapote is a very poor town with no sewer system or clean water, the residents of that town migrated there on there own. The government never had plans to use that land that's why they have no sewage or running water. The majority of our patients were Children, Mothers, Pregnant women, and young ladies. We were amazed at the extraordinary amount of malnutrition, low birth weight, parasites, lice, infection, respiratory problems, menstrual, Hypertension, and Diabetes problems. Many of the patients had no idea they had a problem, because of there lifestyle. In Sumpango we attended the Indigenous people of Chimaltenango, they are a simple people still dressing in traditional clothing. I was quite a sight to see mothers carrying babies wrapped in a blanket tied to there backs, while balancing a huge jug of water on there heads. We treated people mostly for pain, hypertension, allergies, and sunburn. We were able to go to the Maria Valletio Children's Hospital, this hospital is especially for children with HIV/AIDS and Cancer. Dr. Francisco Rivera who is part of AMENSI and our team helps the hospital with donations of medications and doctor visits. The hospital is not sponsored by the government they completely rely on donations, Dr. Rivera made it a point that we make the hospital part of our trip. We did not see patients, we went to spend time with kids, playing with them, carrying them, giving them much love and attention, because there orphans. I especially was touched by a 3 month old girl who is HIV positive, and little boy who had so much energy. We returned to the hospital a week later only see the this little boy was in isolation because his immune system dropped, the reality of the hospital is that many children are here and gone with the Lord tomorrow. We decided to donate the remaining medications, supplies, and some money to the Hospital, they need it now and God will provide for us as he always does. Our trip ended with a trip to Casa Samuel Orphanage, 30 minutes from the Guatemalan, El Salvador border. The orphanage houses 43 children from 3 months to 17 years old, we enjoyed our time playing and watching the kids enjoy the clown ministry of Luis and Eric. We also brought medications for the kids and found that there was a lice epidemic amongst the children, unfortunately we found a young girl named Andrea who was sold as a child prostitute. She was looking for work to help her family when she saw an ad in the paper for child models for clothing stores. When she arrived to the interview she was kidnapped and used as a prostitute, she was raped by 20 men in one day. Unfortunately she is suffering with the emotional, mental and physical trauma from that time, Dr. Rivera will be visiting her with a Gynecologist and Psychologist this week, please keep her in prayer. We are praying that we can go back in December to meet up with Dr. Rivera's team, there is so much work to be done there.

Blessings