This has been a long running joke in our house for a little
over a week now and more and more people are becoming aware of it. There may
even be a certain co-worker, who calls me Marco (*cough, cough* Rachel *cough,
cough*), who freaked out and thought I needed to be 302’d and put in Spruce.
She even offered to take me to Tomcat café before committing me. I told her
that I was having a great time and I love her, but no. I’m staying in Guatemala
for the duration of my trip. (For those of you who have no clue what I’m
talking about: being 302’d is when someone petitions for you to be put in for a
psychiatric evaluation for a certain amount of time and Spruce is the name of
the psych place in Reading. Tomcat café has the most amazing breakfast place
ever. Come visit me once I’m back in Reading and eat there). When we returned
home from Manos, Yelsi was mentioning that the guy who is starting a transition
home for teenage boys is single (I have known this for years). Without missing
a beat, the boy staying with us for the month says, “Yeah I need a mom if I’m
living with him [after this month]!” Um, what!? Then I figured out the math…and
technically he could be my son if I was 17 when I had him. Scary thought. So
that night, everyone was joking that “Mom will tuck you in tonight and pray
with you. You’re going with Mom to clinic tomorrow and then she can help you
with your math.” Then all of a sudden, this kid started calling me Grandma. Ok,
I’m old enough to be your mother, but your grandmother? Absolutely not. His
reasoning: “You don’t look like me, so you can’t be my mom. But if you’re my
grandmother, then you don’t have to look like me, but we’re still related.” Ok.
So I’m just going with it. I’m his grandmother. He continues to call me Grandma
and I call him my grandson. So don’t be concerned if you hear about my
grandson. I don’t need to go to Spruce.
This week went by so fast. Actually, they all have been.
I’ve been having a great time with the family I’m living with and our growing
household. We currently have 10 people in the house. We have 2 boys with us now
who are here for healing and change before their court appearances that will
determine where they go in the future. One is my “grandson” and the other is a
boy who is no longer allowed at a local children’s home. We’ve had some intense
games lately: air hockey (all but got a bloody knuckle), apples to apples (I
won the card that said painful by putting down the card that said daughters. I could
just hear my dad yelling, “AMEN!” to that one), dutch blitz (Isaiah and I ended
up tackling each other while attempting to put down the red 2, as Moses threw
the one across the room), hungry, hungry hippos (mine kept getting food boluses
in his throat. He seriously needed some IV glucagon), and Candyland (I had
flashbacks of when my niece, Kaylee, and I had played before she was in school
and I played with her and blue blankie. Yes, you read that correctly. Blue
blankie played. Blue blankie was a girl. So don’t insult her. Well, blue
blankie got the ice cream right off the bat and jumped the whole way to the end.
Are you freaking kidding me? A BLANKET was beating me! And yup, blue blankie
ended up winning. Kaylee thought it was the funniest thing ever). 
Last Tuesday, Micah, Angel, Saul, and Yelsi tag teamed and
graded all of workbooks and tests for the boy that is staying with us for the
month. That was an intense day for everyone. I made brownies for them to eat
while they spent hours going through books. On Wednesday, we went to clinic. It
was technically pregnancy day and we see only the pregnant women in the 3
villages, but there were a lot of sick kids that day. So I ended up seeing most
of the kids, while the doctor saw the pregnant women. We had a lot of kids with
cough, fever, and diarrhea. Karen and I went to visit a man in his 30’s who is
now blind after having a brain tumor removed and is taking seizure medications.
His young daughter, who is about 5 years old, is caring for him and her little
brother, while his wife and newborn baby go into the city around 3:45 AM to
sell vegetables. When we visited him, he did not go for his xray a few days
prior because he was feeling too weak for the last few days from diarrhea. At first,
he was saying he always had diarrhea, but then said it was just straight water
for 15 days. We got him medications for his diarrhea and stressed the
importance of needing to get his seizure medications, since he was out for 2
days. We prayed with him and he was trying not to cry while we prayed. But, I can’t
even imagine going from being completely “normal” to now being blind, on a ton
of meds, and relying on your little children to care for you. As we walked back
to the clinic to get the meds, we brought back the two children at the house
since they had really bad coughs. When we arrived, there were 2 girls getting
their feet washed. After that, the nurse was going to look at their feet to see
if they had parasites that embed in their feet, go to the bone, and the only
option then is to amputate. Thankfully, they only had really bad dry skin from
last time when the nurse pulled out the parasites.
As we were getting ready to leave, a 3 day old baby came to
the clinic with a fever of over 103. We called an ambulance to transfer her to
the local hospital for sepsis (infection in the blood) that she more than
likely got from her mother, since she needed IV antibiotics. In the village,
the mothers don’t leave the house for 40 days and don’t name their babies until
after that time period. So the baby’s aunt had to run back to the house to get
the mother since she needed to come along to the hospital. We had already
called an ambulance for a boy who had hydrocephalus and his shunt wasn’t
working. So we had two ambulances coming to the clinic to pick up both kids. That
afternoon, I went over to the house that Peter’s house sitting to hang out
since he was threatening that he was going to have to go back home soon. I had
dumped to him about how this past year has been for me and he wanted to share
his story. We had a great time talking, eating brownies (I added peanut butter
to the batter…why have I not done that before!?), watching I Love Lucy and Mom’s
Night Out (hilarious movie).
Thursday consisted of quite a few interesting conversation
topics. The boy staying with us for the month decided he was going to ask me
random health questions while he was supposed to be reviewing his school books
from the previous month. We talked about diabetes, amputations, phantom pain, constipation,
foods that make you constipated, puberty (He was stuck on that topic for quite
a while. At one point, he asked me what peach fuzz was), worms, parasites, the
importance of taking a shower especially after clinic days, and we already a
conversation about the female reproductive system multiple times because of the
picture hanging up in the room we see patients in at the clinic. Despite all of
the random conversation topics, we did get a lot done. He was understanding his
math and English better. Although the one answer, I laughed so hard. He was
supposed to put a name of a country and he wrote down farmer beside the word
country. (We’re working on the importance of reading the directions…). I told
him that the answer is wrong, but I’m pretty proud of that wrong answer. I made
slow cooked southwest chicken for dinner. In between school, he played the
piano and worked on learning how to play new worship songs. 
On Friday, I started working with another ministry as well. We
went down to the dump near the coast, set up a tent for the medical clinic and
had a soup kitchen set up beside that. We had arranged “an exam room” with
bedsheets around a quarter of the tent to try to keep it semi private if there
was something we needed to look at. This place is ready to start building an
actual building for the clinic. But in the meantime, they are doing a great job
with the resources available. We saw a bunch of kids with cough, fever,
pneumonia, and diarrhea. There was one girl who came with a burn on the back of
her foot. We attempted to debride the wound, gave her soap since she didn’t
have any at home, and had her use triple antibiotic ointment. Considering she
walks around barefoot, she was doing a fairly decent job at keeping it from
getting infected. At the end, we had a father approach us with his son who had
scabbed over areas all over his body. It almost looked like a cross between the
yellow scab from impetigo, but he didn’t have it on his face at all, and bug
bites that he scratched open. A lot of kids came to be seen by themselves or
with other kids and they like to just hang out with you and help be a “doctor.”
The soup that they made that day was amazing. I have no clue what all was in
it. Rice, garlic, spices, veggies. Just freaking good. I had been warned before
I went to drink lots of water and you won’t have to pee since you just sweat it
all out. Yeah, they’re not joking. It was just really humid. I didn’t need to
pee til that night and that was even with drinking a decent amount of water. When
I got home that day, I jumped straight in the shower. My skin was blackish
brown from the dust, smoke, and sweat. Lovely. That evening, we played soccer
on the roof and celebrated Carla's 18th birthday
On Saturday, I helped Cindy and Yelsi get food ready for the
baby shower we were having for Deborah (Mom of the house out by the lake, Manos
de Compasion, where I was last weekend). We cut up veggies and fruit. I already
had the whoopie pies made from the previous week. Drew brought over a bunch of the boys from Casa Shalom to play at our house and I made Amish Oatmeal cake for them to enjoy before lunch. That night, we played games as
a family and I finished making the mac and cheese for supper. Moses (4 years
old) came into the kitchen and said, “Oh, THANK YOU!! That is my FAVORITE meal!
Oh, thank you!”
Sunday, the plan was for the horse to get castrated since he was a little on the snippy side and bit Cindy's leg the previous day. But when the vet arrived, he said it would be better for us to trade and get a female. So we did a horse swap before church. After church, we went to Karen’s house for the baby
shower. We all piled in one van (around 30 or so people) to go to the house. I was
the 2nd to last to get in the van and had to climb into the back
corner…in a skirt…that was entertaining to say the least. I was tripping over
my skirt, climbing over seats and kids, and then sat down in the back seat,
with a toddler on each leg. We had 7 of us in a seat for 3. It was a fun time! I
love that family and all those kids! Mateo climbed right on my lap when I sat
down and then I had Mynor on my other leg. We were rocking out in the back to
the music and were doing some good old air guitar. We had a great time
together. Amazing food. Awesome friends. Games that I could handle. (I’m
usually not a huge fan of the showers because of games that can be quite painful).
They had bowling for the little kids to do, using baby bottles for the pins. We
wrote notes on diapers, so it will be a little more interesting changing the
baby’s diaper. 
Last update, I had asked for you guys to pray for an 8 month
old that we sent to the hospital who was about ready to code in my arms and we
weren’t sure he was going to live. Well, his mother came into the clinic
yesterday with him! I could have cried from happiness! This kid looked amazing
compared to the last time that I had seen him. We’ve all been praying for him
and his family all week, even though we had no clue if he was even alive. Well,
he pulled through and was discharged after a 6 day stay in the hospital. We had
a bunch more kids come in with cough, fever, diarrhea, and a few who still had
the chicken pox. We had a one month old with a low grade fever, cough, and
decreased appetite, and a six month old who was in mild respiratory distress,
vomiting, diarrhea, and cough. After we saw all of the patients, we went to an
elderly lady’s house to give her medications, clean water, and wash her
laundry. She had broken her hip a few years ago and has since been having
trouble getting around. No matter what she is going through, she is always so
happy when we’re there and thanking us up and down for everything. Yesterday, I felt like I pretty much hit every part of my life: nurse at the clinic, baker as I made a new recipe for pumpkin cake with homemade icing, and farmer as I drilled into concrete to put Yelsi's mirror back up in her room, and attempted to put fly spray on the new horse and make a halter out of rope. I did a little of everything.
We’re starting to run low on some medications. Zithromax for
adults, Augmentin for children, Children’s Tylenol, nebulizers, etc. So if you
would like to donate money so we can go out and buy more medications, please
let me know. I had posted the links on facebook and for those of you who don’t
have facebook, just let me know and I’ll get the links to you so you can
donate. These meds are literally saving lives. That baby we had last week would
have died without it. But because we were open that day, we were able to get
him the help he needed and now he looks great! Another need is for old phones. So
any old iPhone 5 or whatever you have when you decide to upgrade, even if it
has a broken screen, send it my way and they can fix them. Thank you so much
for considering!
Last night, I had a dream about Jo. It’s been a while since I’ve
had a dream about her. I dreamed that she was lying on the couch and I went to
go check on her. She asked what I ate and I said something with chocolate in
it. She looked at me and said, “No, silly. I already ate it all.” After I woke
up, I couldn’t fall back asleep. Half was excitement that I saw and could hear
her again and the other was the wave that hits all over again that she’s not
here. I know she’s healed and in Heaven. And a lot of times, I feel half guilty
that it hits that hard since she wasn’t my child. But, I legit see that family
as my own and feel like I lost a niece. As I was attempting to fall back to
sleep, the song “Tell Your Heart to Beat Again” by Danny Gokey played through
my head. So for any of you struggling, trust in God and continue to give it all
to Him, no matter how tough it is. He can put all your broken pieces back
together again in His time. And especially to Jo’s family, I’m sending you my
love and lots of hugs from Guatemala!
You’ve
shattered
Like
you’ve never been before
The
life you knew
In
a thousand pieces on the floor
And
words fall short in times like these
When
this world drives you to your knees
You
think you’re never gonna get back
To
the you that used to be
Tell
your heart to beat again
Close
your eyes and breathe it in
Let
the shadows fall away
Step
into the light of grace
Yesterday’s
a closing door
You
don’t live there anymore
Say
goodbye to the where you’ve been
And
tell your heart to beat again
Beginning
Just
let that word wash over you
It’s
alright now
Love’s
healing hands have pulled you through
So
get back up, take step one
Leave
the darkness, feel the sun
Cause
your story’s far from over
And
your journey’s just begun
Tell
your heart to beat again
Close
your eyes and breathe it in
Let
the shadows fall away
Step
into the light of grace
Yesterday’s
a closing door
You
don’t live there anymore
Say
goodbye to where you’ve been
And
tell your heart to beat again
Let
every heartbreak
And
every scar
Be
a picture that reminds you
Who
has carried you this far
‘Cause
love sees farther than you ever could
In
this moment heaven’s working
Everything
for your good
Tell
your heart to beat again
Close
your eyes and breathe it in
Let
the shadows fall away
Step
into the light of grace
Yesterday’s
a closing door
You
don’t live there anymore
Say
goodbye to where you’ve been
And
tell your heart to beat again
Your
heart to beat again
Beat
again
Oh,
so tell your heart to beat again
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