Less than 2 weeks left...NOOOOOOO!!

Well guys, I’m down to my last 2 weeks here. Yelsi had a legit sob session while I was washing dishes the other night. She cried: AHHHHHHH!!!! I’m going to miss you! AHHHHHH! I’m going to miss you with all my heart….and all my guts!!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!! I’m going to be a HOT MESS!!!! AHHHHHH!!!!!

Yeah, the feeling is mutual (and I’m proud to hear her say “hot mess.” Ha. That was my influence). This experience has been nothing but amazing. I have healed so much and I just want to thank everyone again who helped to push me to actually do this 3 month leave. I needed it more than I even realized. You all know me: the stubborn one who just keeps saying I’m fine and has a tendency to shove my own emotions aside to keep helping others and to ignore the fact that I’m not fine. And a huge thank you to my friends down here in Guatemala who helped me heal and have put up with me this long in this trip. You guys are awesome! You listened when I needed to vent or talk out my train wreck of emotions and told me exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you doesn’t seem like enough.

This past week has been crazy busy like all the others and just when I think it hasn’t been that long since the last post, it’s about a week…or two. So here we go. Last Monday, my first grandson and I went to clinic. It was the usual: lots of kids with fever, cough, and diarrhea. We had one kid who had a sore throat, fever, and said he had trouble swallowing. Well, his tonsils were nearly touching each other. Slight problem. Later on in the afternoon, my first grandson started taking tests for school.

On Tuesday morning, I worked on making whoopie pies while my first grandson was taking tests. I made 46 regular whoopie pies and 20 gluten free ones. That night, Kayla, Conner, Peter, Yelsi, and I went to Antigua for dinner and to walk around town. We went up to the cross on the hill overlooking Antigua. Absolutely beautiful view. We were quite the group trying to get a selfie up there. All night consisted of a lot of laughing, eating, and a great time hanging out. Conner likes to say, “Oh my wooooooooord,” and “I’m so oooooollllllld.” Both of which we all have started saying. He’s 15…seriously. Yeah, he’s ancient. We laughed so much while at the restaurant. They were probably half annoyed with us. We walked around town and saw a lot of the buildings lit up for the night, which has its own beauty to it. At one point, we joked that Peter was our tour guide. Kayla even got some footage of it, until I tripped and we all started laughing.

On Wednesday at clinic, we had a mother come in with her 2 kids and she insisted that she was going to see me and not the doctor. She just kept saying that she wanted an exam. Usually that means they want a preg test. So my first grandson and I pulled her into our room and when we started talking to her, we found out it was a bit more involved than that. She was 5 months pregnant, went to the doctor in a local town after having vaginal bleeding, and was told that her baby was too small and she should have an abortion. She refused, told them that every child that she has had is a blessing from God, and she was not going to abort her baby. She was upset since her husband didn’t care if she got an abortion and she said that most women made fun of her in the village. I asked what they did at the appointment to be able to tell that the baby was small. She said nothing. She said they just “rubbed her belly” and didn’t even listen for a heartbeat. She was concerned that the baby had died since she hadn’t felt the baby move in a while and just wanted to know if the baby was alive or not to determine if she needed further medical treatment. I explained to her that I would use the Doppler to try to find the heartbeat, but don’t be alarmed if I don’t find it right away. Well, thankfully, I put the Doppler on and found it right away. Strong and regular at 146. Relief spread across her face when I explained that that was the baby’s heartbeat. That afternoon, my grandson took his math test, which I had seriously had him prep hardcore for. When I went to grade it, the answer key was completely different than the test. So I had to read Spanish and do all the math by hand to figure out the answers, and go figure majority of the test was word problems: aka my least favorite and even better: it was in Spanish. That was a fun time.  

That night, we played soccer on the roof while Conner made this amazing chicken on the grill…on the roof…on the ground…near where we were playing soccer. The ball came flying, hit the grill, and flames burst up at Conner’s face. Praise God he was leaned back and not directly over the grill or else he would have had some serious burns to his face! Oh my wooooooord! The chicken was absolutely amazing and the potatoes Kayla made were great! It was their last night here and none of us were ready for them to leave. We all laughed the whole time they were here. We had worship night as a family on the roof. I sent audio of us singing during worship and then of some of us being ridiculously goofy at times later that night to a friend who had a crappy day. Conner was trying to figure out fundraising options and websites for everyone, while falling asleep on the roof and Yelsi and I kept telling him to just go to bed. He insisted that he was still really awake. As I was getting ready for bed, he was sending messages to Peter that didn’t make sense at all. It was a bit rough for a while until I made him get to bed. That was after he stood at the door of the bathroom and said he was super dizzy but needed a shower. I said I would not pick his naked butt up off that floor, so don’t you dare fall.

The following morning, we said goodbye to Kayla and Conner. Those punks had to go back to PA. But not before Conner had 11 whoopie pies in little less than 48 hours. My first grandson continued to take tests, while the rest of us cleaned the entire house. On Friday, I went to the dump for clinic. With the help of my translator, I saw 42 patients in a little less than 4 hours for the medical clinic. We rocked it! We saw a lot of kids with cough, fever, diarrhea, whole families who needed to be dewormed, and adults with diarrhea and rash. We cleaned out their med supply. I was able to scrounge together enough to get through that day. That was all God. That evening as I was driving home, the sky was just amazing. Skies like that always remind me of Jo. I had been thinking about her a lot that day to begin with. I get into the house that afternoon and songs were playing on the radio that made me think of her and I had listened to a lot over the last year. Same thing happened on Sunday as I was thinking of her, the song that came on the radio was the one that was playing every time I would get in my car and either be thinking and praying about her and her family, or was playing every time I left their house during the last few months of her life.

On Saturday, Peter came over to help make a sawhorse for the saddle from the scrap wood that we have at the house and to work with the horse. It took us an insane amount of time to make the sawhorse. But considering we were cutting the wood by hand, apparently using some ridiculously strong wood (I bent thick nails and broke screws), and we were totally making it up as to how to make it (haven’t made one in…years. I’m so ooooolllllldddd!), it turned out really well. We went out to ride the horse later that afternoon. As Peter was tightening the saddle, I was holding her at her head. I’m used to cows…not horses. So she flipped her head up and as I got out of the way of her head since I’m used to cows just swatting at you with their heads, she decided to bite. Not something I’m used to with cows. They’ll head butt you, not bite. Well, she didn’t break skin. Just left a nice red mark that is now bruised. After that fun, we took turns riding her. Like Kayla had said before, she is a lazy horse. We had to keep getting her to walk. She would do a lap and then stop as if to say, “Ok. I’m done. Now get off.” I rode her while going down the road a bit and she did not want to go down the hill. But when we turned around, she had no problems keeping it moving. Totally reminded me of when we would lead our 4-H heifers out the lane and we had to drag them out the lane. But as soon as you turned around, they were booking it back to the barn or to the yard to eat grass.

After church on Sunday, Peter came over to help wash the horse since we ran out of sunlight the previous day to do it. Thankfully, she didn’t try to bite me this time. Guess we didn’t officially tick her off this time around. Peter was a huge help that afternoon to make 73 whoopie pies to load everyone up before I leave. It goes so much faster with 2 people going at it! (And I didn’t break the oven! Yay!) That weekend, Drew, Cindy, the boys, Yelsi, and my first grandson went to the children’s home by the lake. My grandson is now staying in a boys’ transition home out there. Yelsi was a beast and helped organize the one house. They all had a great time of worship and games with the kids.

On Monday, I went to the dump for the last time on this trip. Thankfully, we had gotten some more meds since I had cleaned them out last time I worked with them. We were able to take down vitamins to hand out to the families there. The morning didn’t start out as planned. We were to leave Antigua around 8:15. At 10:45, we piled in the van to head down. Part of our group just hung out on the sidewalk by the water jugs and talked about life and future plans. So even though it didn’t go as planned, everything worked out. The soup that they were going to make was chicken, cilantro, and rice: aka fast and easy to make. Once we got there, we set up quickly and started cutting up the food. The kids helped to make the food and we got them coloring supplies while we waited. There was a mother’s day program going on, so not many people were around in the morning. Some of the people there realized that we had the medical part set up and started coming slowly. Around lunch time, a bunch of people came. So even though we started late and slow, it picked up and we saw about 25 people and even more than that received vitamins. It was an extra hot and humid day with sweat just running off of you. I fell in love with all the kids there. Even when it’s crazy hot and they just are completely covered in dirt and who knows what else, you just let them sit on your lap, give you hugs, basically hang all over you.

The next day…was a day of birth at our house. We went from 3 dogs…to 10 and one of the butterflies from Moses and Isaiah’s homeschool group…hatched? I don’t know what you would call that. The last puppy was really gasping and thought breathing was optional for a while and Cheerio, the mom, was licking other puppies, rather than stimulating this one. So I moved it to her nose so she would start to stimulate the puppy. She started licking it and the puppy is doing great now. We went back inside the house and saw that the cocoon for one of the butterflies all of a sudden was empty and a butterfly was there. So Cindy put it outside for its wings to dry and then fly away. That afternoon and evening, Yelsi and I went to Peter’s house to use his unlimited internet to Skype some peeps (There you go, guys. I worked it in there) and I typed up my 100 charts (not even exaggerating) from my 3 weeks of working at the dump and emailed them to the coordinator. That night, Yelsi had introduced me to the song “In the eye of the storm.” She said when she heard that song, she thought of me and everything I had been through this past year. It is a great song to sum up my past year. Lately, we have been talking about how we don’t know how some people get through life without God. He honestly is the only thing that can pull us through all this crap. And He’s used so many friends and family to get me through everything, that’s for sure.

On Wednesday, I went to clinic and was able to take supplies that we had shipped down before I left. (Thanks for the connections, Tracy!) It was pregnancy day at the clinic, which we do once a month. But people were bringing their kids in to be seen too. So we went through the line and took the kids that legit needed to be seen and the doctor saw the pregnant women for prenatal checkups. The first kid that we saw was a 1 year old who had pneumonia and a fever. He had a ton of retractions and just looked like crap. So after getting him some neb treatments, Tylenol, and antibiotics, he should be getting better. Another kid puked all over the floor while I was writing down what meds I was prescribing for his brother. There was a group from the States visiting as well and 2 of the nurses in the group went with us to do some home visits. We visited the 2 people that we’ve been seeing frequently and also another woman who is 42 years old and just had a stillborn baby with apparently no complications during the pregnancy. That woman was obviously upset that she lost her baby and just doesn’t understand why. No one explained why it happened. All she knows is that her baby had oxygen on after she was born and that was it. We provided water for the one woman we visited and told her that we’d come back on Wednesday to change her bedsheets and take her laundry to wash them. The other man we visited is the one who had a brain tumor removed and is now blind. He continues to struggle with depression and finding purpose while living in the village. We prayed with him and he said he hadn’t been out of bed for over 15 days because of right sided weakness that has started recently. He’s already had 2 surgeries to remove the brain tumor. That night, we had worship night at the house and had a great time as usual. I had a pretty emotional past few days to begin with just with memories, reminders, and anniversaries. We sang the hymn “It is Well” and I shared about how after we got back from Belize, I had that song in my head and it was the first time I truly felt some peace after everything that had happened. Later on, someone had shared about needing to stand up for those who can’t and how we can do that in love, but standing firm in what we believe in. That reminded me of the baby about a month ago who was dying, legit about to code in my arms, and I pushed for the neb treatment to at least get him something since no oxygen was available. He is now doing great. At the end of worship night, of course we had to have some whoopie pies and chocolate cake with peanut butter icing. Yelsi and I ended up staying up til 1am working on updates (I’m considered her secretary since I type her updates) and having a heart to heart. I told her that God used her and a lot of friends to seriously save my butt and helped to get me where I am today. Obviously there are still some bad days, but I know that I can go, talk and cry it out with them, and that they will have my back and help pull me through.

And that brings me to today. Isaiah and Moses had their homeschool group closing program. Everyone did great sharing the work they did throughout the year. That afternoon, we all were taking naps. I woke up and wondered what time it was since all of a sudden it was dark. Then it started: torrential downpour. Cindy and I went running out and down the hill to get the horse and put her in the stable. We were soaked the second we stepped outside. And then it started hailing. We got the horse in the stable and ran to the house, completely drenched. I was literally ringing out my clothes and making a legit puddle. Totally reminded me of when we used to run out to get the 4-H heifers into the barn when there was a thunderstorm in the middle of the night. Straight up downpours while dodging lightning bolts. This afternoon we didn’t have power for a while. So Yelsi and I went on a walk and as we were trying to figure out what and how to make dinner, thankfully, the power came back on. We made a fire on the roof, roasted hot dogs, corn on the cob, and marshmallows.

There has been a lot of talk about bringing down medical teams and how to help out more and what ministries to be a part of. So everyone, get your vacation days saved up for these trips! And even if you can’t come on one of these trips, any way that you wish to support is greatly appreciated! There will be a need for a great amount of support in the future! If you wish to support any of these ministries that I have been working with, let me know. And I can assure you that the money will go straight towards the ministry to help others and won’t be wasted in any way. Thank you so much for the support, love, and prayers! Here are some more random pictures from the past week-ish: new puppies, photos from the dump, and the last 2 are from our night out in Antigua.

Four letter words for the end of the week: Dump and Camp

Disclaimer: I started typing this right after our weekend at camp…and here it’s Thursday already. How? I have no flippin’ clue. And I got to give photo credit to Conner and Peter for 99% of these pictures. You're both beasts. 

Whew. It’s only been a few days since my last post, but I feel like so much has happened in the last few days that I need to start writing or else the blog will be way too long (probably too long to begin with) and I’m going to forget exactly how some of these hilarious moments happened. Many were probably had to be there moments and we were so stinking tired that made everything else hilarious. So I’ll begin with Thursday at some point. A bunch of people arrived at our house to drop off some more guests for the next few days. We were going to have 15 people living at our house. I whipped up some Bermuda brownies (in the cookbook) for supper for our rapidly expanding household. Micah couldn’t remember the name of the brownies and kept calling them “whities” even though I said you could just call them blondies. This was all going on while Conner kept flipping out that they were chocolate chip cookies but not in the cookie form. Micah asked if he could have another “whitie” and then proceeded to eat it and stated, “These whities are TIGHT!” I thought Kayla was going to fall off the stool from laughing so hard. I just shook my head and laughed. Wilmer brought down 14 seasons of ER for us to binge watch in my last few weeks here. I had gotten Yelsi addicted when I first arrived. We had a good time hanging out that night and playing apples to apples. At one point, a beetle dropped from the ceiling, landing directly on Kayla’s cards as she was taking a picture of them. She screamed and flew out of her seat so fast. Hysterical how these 2 (Conner and Kayla) can’t handle those beetles. There has been a lot of screaming this past week because of that.

On Friday, Conner and I went to the clinic at the dump. Conner was able to get great shots and videos while there. We had a bunch of kids and mothers with diarrhea, cough, and fever. There was one little girl, about 5 years old, who wanted to answer all the questions. Mom was concerned that the girl didn’t have much of an appetite, which could mean that she has worms…or just that she’s a picky eater. She piped up right away “solo pollo!” Only chicken. We asked if she likes to eat anything else. “Um, solo pollo con queso.” Ok, so she only likes chicken with cheese. Then we started talking to mom about what symptoms she was having: abdominal pain, worse after eating. We asked if she drank a lot of coffee and before mom could get a word in, the little girl piped up again, “Oh sí! Mucho, mucho café. Más, más!” We all started laughing as she basically threw her mom under the bus and said that she drinks way too much coffee…and continued to say she ate a lot of spicy food. Mom gave her the hairy eyeball look and shook her head. Another mother came with her 3 children who all had impetigo (really contagious rash) all over their faces…and of course they wanted to show you some love, hug you, hang all over you, crawl all over your lap, etc. In addition to treating the impetigo, they all had worms. As we started handing out the meds, other kids came and wanted the “candy.” We ended up deworming 8 people at one shot til it was all said and done. We had so many people who came by foot, walking for over 2 hours to be treated. We had a group from a Bible College in Indiana visiting who helped with the soup kitchen. One of the women on the trip was interested in going to nursing school. So, we chatted for a while, and she sat in at our clinic to see how it was run. The doctor that came with us (who plans on coming once a month) was great at explaining everything to them. While we were finishing up, a lot of the kids continued to hang around, play, and I had a few stragglers come over to say that they fell, twisted their knee and ankle, and wanted Tylenol. Another kid came over after we packed everything up to say that he had a headache. And then there was the mob of kids that came to tackle me to see if I had soap to hand out.

When we got back home, the plan was to get a shower, grab our stuff, and go to Peter’s house to finish getting ready for camp. When we got back, Drew mentioned that we couldn’t get a shower because the pump was out. I said, “You’re kidding, right?” Peter’s house didn’t really have much water either since their pump was broken for a while tool. My skin was black from all the dust and smoke and you sweat like a pig…or like a DOG! (according to Yelsi. Video of that to come soon…as long as Conner holds up his end of the deal to post it!). Drew said, “Make it quick!” The shower after the dump is one of the most rewarding ones. Like when you get a shower after clipping 64 cows and body clip the ones who don’t believe in shedding on their own, or after a nasty night at work. By the time we got to Peter’s house, we were hungry. I made bacon wrapped chicken and potato wedges as fast as possible and we jumped right into cutting out the lions’ eyes for the masks the kids’ craft. We were laughing so much. I honestly don’t remember what all was considered funny. Pretty sure half of it was we were tired and the stuff that comes out of Conner and Yelsi’s mouths especially is just flat out entertaining. We finally went to bed around 1 or 2am after making 3 batches of brownies for the kids…and ourselves.

Saturday morning, we drove down to Peter’s hometown, set up, and got camp started! We had about 32 kids from age 3-12 ish. We had such a great time playing games, singing songs, watching Daniel and the lion’s den and Joseph’s stories being acted out, crafts to make lion masks and Joseph’s colored coat (And as much as it pained me, I sucked it up and used glitter. It was for the kids. That’s what I kept telling myself. At least it was the glue kind and not just straight up glitter that goes everywhere). As we were getting ready for lunch, the one girl who is autistic wasn’t feeling so hot. She was whiter than me (that’s saying something), dry heaving while talking to me, and looked like she just wanted to spew chunks, and pass out. Peter had already gotten her water to try to drink. I helped to get her upstairs to lie down for a while, and Peter grabbed me a…sock (He insisted it was clean) so we could put a cool rag on her forehead. After she was lying for a while, she was able to chug some water, eat, and then join the rest of the group for the afternoon of games and activities. That afternoon, we got one of the girls to say “Conner is cheesy.” It was great! Came out more like Conner es cheesy. But it works! So Conner ended up with 2 name tags: Conner is cheesy and Father Conner. Yelsi’s said Daughter Yelsi and mine was Grandma Donna. We’re bad.

After the kids left, we had a little bit of time to prepare for wave 2: the teens. We had over 30 kids from age 11-17 Saturday evening, about 24 for overnight, and 27 the following morning. We started out with ice breakers and the kids were to guess our ages. The kids guessed my age to be between 19 and 36. The reaction when we said that Conner was 15 was absolutely priceless! We split them up into 3 groups and had them put together a skit of a Bible story. They did such a great job. The older kids did awesome with leading and getting the others to act it out. That night, we played a ton of games. I have never gotten a grass stain playing duck, duck, goose. But it has been done now! And now Conner’s nickname is “ganso” (goose in Spanish). Another game we played consisted of groups of 3 and the middle person had to be carried by the other 2 people. Well, I got nominated to carry almost everyone in our group. This one kid, nicknamed Chilly Willy (Yes, Shake, I can’t get away from that name! He was later nicknamed Little Chicken), kept smacking my biceps while I was trying to pick up these kids and run. He kept asking me if I lifted weights. When I said no, he looked at me so confused and just kept saying about how big they were and that I had to have lifted weights. Nope. I told him I was a nurse and him and the kids around him were like, “WHAT!?” Later on, we had a neon party, blasted songs that we could dance to, had black lights, glow sticks, and Conner used highlighters to color on their skin to show up under the black lights. It took a while for the kids to get up and moving, but by the last song, they were all going nuts. After that, we played capture the flag, in the dark, with glow sticks attached to the soccer balls to semi-see them. Then, we settled down around a campfire, roasted marshmellows, sang songs, and Peter talked about how our lives can be a complete mess, but God can use us and bring good out of the crappiest situations. We went inside and put on the movie Home for the kids while the adults got bucket showers. (Hot water heater died. Water pumps not functioning have been a theme for the last month). Once again, amazing shower. We all looked like we were about to drop over from being so tired, hot, and sweaty. But after the shower, everyone said, “I could stay up another 3 hours!” We played apples to apples for a while that night, ate chips, salsa, and brownies. It was so funny when the kids started cheering as Peter’s mom started passing out the brownies. Shake, you will be happy to know that I won the card “ugly.” (My little sister, Danielle, aka Shake, has called me ugly for years as a nickname. I tell her that she looks just like me…so what’s that saying about her? So she has been really excited that pretty much every time we play apples to apples down here, I have won the card that says ugly). Around 2:30am, we finally tried to get the kids to bed. The girls went to bed without much push. The boys…well, I was tempted at one point to text Peter to see how it was going since we could still hear them running around and yelling upstairs. I figured he’d flip, so decided not to. They finally settled down around 3:30 ish. That was after they were asking Peter if I played sports since I was strong. He told them that I work in the ED and see and do all kinds of stuff. That appeased them for the time being.

The following morning, the kids thought getting up at 6am was a great plan. So we started breakfast: eggs, nachos, refried beans, and fried plantains. The kids played soccer while we made the breakfast. And right as we were going to get started, I had an older teen challenge me to arm wrestling. If we weren’t getting started right then, I totally would have done it. 2 kids played their saxophones…from memory…to Hillsong songs. Um, what!? That’s not easy! Psh (just pulled a Yelsi…I’m doing more sound effects while talking). They did great! Afterwards, I shared about how crappy this past year has been, and how I felt like I wasn’t going to ever get back to how I was before all of this. But now I feel even better than before. God can bring something good from the crappiest situations. I shared that there may be times in this life that we may never understand why something happened, but we have to trust that God knows the big picture and we don’t. But there have been so many times that I have been able to use what I have experienced to help others going through something similar. We just need to keep trusting in God. Yelsi, Conner, and Peter all said what I shared was great and a lot of kids were touched by it. It was hard for me to tell since I was just trying to keep track of what I was saying between Peter translating and the fact that I was totally winging it. Didn’t plan out anything beforehand. Not like me at all, or at least I never used to be like that. I used to always write everything out ahead of time. Not anymore. Afterwards, we made cross necklaces, played volleyball and water balloon games. We tossed the balloons from one towel to another. When Conner, Yelsi, Peter, and I did it, this one white balloon would not pop for anything. The balloon went flying behind me and we couldn’t get the towel over there fast enough, so out of softball instinct, I reached with my left hand and as I’m grabbing for the balloon, I’m thinking, “Crap, this is totally going to pop in my face. I’m going to be soaked in about 2 seconds.” Nope. I caught it right in the middle with it twisting in the middle and it still didn’t pop. That balloon was a beast.

After camp ended and we cleaned up, we drove to a drive through safari. We were all so tired and hot. The stuff that flew out of our mouths…oh my wooooord (Thanks, Conner. We’re all saying that now). The giraffe walking right up to our car, the monkeys that Peter was convinced were going to throw poop, the goats that decided to…yup, that…in front of our truck, the toucan that started doing it’s mating call when Conner walked right up to it and Peter’s comment that just wasn’t thought through before it came out. “Conner, it must really like you. That’s their mating call.” Oh my word, we laughed so hard. When we went to eat, Conner was freaked out that Peter was going to send him into the wrong bathroom. (I told them about how Dad totally did that to Doreen years ago at the Meyersdale fairgrounds. We had both come out of the bathroom at the same time. She looked over at me and asked why I was in the other bathroom. I asked her why SHE was over there. Now, Doreen works there all the time. Ha). We got our ice cream and hung out at the pool, people watching. This peacock went up on the roof of this building and came into the pool area. It jumped up on a table and was eating someone’s food. Conner went to take a picture, got too close, and it flew off, scaring the crap out of Conner. I laughed so hard. He was shaking his head as he walked away since he could hear me the whole way across the pool. On the way home, we were all so tired, but needed to stay awake, and stuck in traffic for a bit, so that called for singing songs…loudly and laughing hysterically! I had officially lost all my marbles. We finally made it home after a long, but amazing weekend! I would do it again in a heartbeat! We packed so much in just such a short period of time. Can’t say thank you enough to my awesome friends who put that all together. You guys are awesome!

Here are some more pictures from camp: 

Finding a routine despite some craziness

This past week has been busy, but more of the typical day to day stuff. Definitely getting into a routine of going to clinic on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and helping my grandson with his school on Tuesday and Thursday. Yelsi and I met up with Marielle in Antigua and had a great time together last Tuesday. I finally met Noe’s dog, Misha Rivera. Marielle and I laughed so hard when her eyebrows were just going up and down as she was watching someone to her right and then left, while she had her head down. Oh my word, it was hilarious. She has the Rottweiler head and perfect brown eyebrows on her black head. We went out to this little place to eat the most amazing gringas and then got ice cream afterwards in this tiny store that sells crazy combinations that sound like they shouldn’t work, but they do. We talked a lot about missions, how God has been preparing our lives for what is to come, and how he is using our past experiences to help others. She asked me what percentage I was to make the plunge. For the record, I didn’t give an exact percentage on that day. That day was something I needed. Marielle, you are a huge blessing to so many, especially me! Thank you! Everything you said, I really took to heart. Love you!

On Wednesday, we walked into clinic to find that 2 of the rooms were flooded from the rain the previous night. Leaves fall off the trees during the dry season and then when rainy season starts, the leaves clog the drain and then we flood. I had to laugh, thinking about when we flooded in the ED this past year and how I asked the one doc how it was going. He asked if he should start collecting animals 2 by 2. I told him that they should probably build an ark first. Apparently, another doc was building the ark. It didn’t take long for us to clean up the clinic and then get started with seeing the patients. We continued our usual that I see the kids, who mostly have cough and diarrhea. In the afternoons, the boy staying with us for the month (well, now month and a half) works on his school. That evening, we had a semi-impromptu family worship night. Just right there at the dinner table while eating brownies in a mug and ice cream. I didn’t expect to get emotional, but I did. While we were singing “Good, Good Father,” I was thinking about how much crap I had been through this past year, and how I felt like I would never get back to my old self. But here I am feeling even better than before. He is a good, good father. He has used so many of you to help get me to where I am today. So, thank you.

Thursday, Yelsi, Jenny, and I cleaned the house and made food for our game night while my grandson worked on his school. Peter came over early to help make biscuits with ham and cheese inside. Mine were a hot mess. He has way more patience for that than I do. I told him about how we watch chopped and I would be chopped on presentation alone. People just need to eat my food with a blindfold and then I’d be ok. That night, we had a great time laughing, pigging out on food, playing twister, fishbowl, apples to apples, and this clapping game with animal motions…and then noises. Oh my word, we laughed so hard! We ended the night by going out to the lookout to see the lights of Guatemala City. We climbed up this concrete wall that had silo steps on the outside.

The following day, we did our usual clinic in the morning and my grandson’s school in the afternoon. We pretty much keep seeing the typical stuff: coughs, diarrhea, fever, abdominal pain, etc. After clinic, my grandson and I picked up Yelsi in town and we went to Peter’s house to plan for the camp that we’re going to do this coming weekend in his hometown. We ended up helping to move some furniture out of a house and had some fun with taking pictures at different places as we moved the furniture from one house to another…and then another. That evening, we planned out camp and attempted to sing some songs that would be good for camp. That was some quality entertainment right there. Ha. On our way back from youth group, I saw Addisyn opening the gate along the road. It was great to see her for a few minutes. Addisyn is the one who took in Emma last year as her own daughter after Emma was abandoned at birth at the hospital. Emma had a really short life (she had hydroanencephaly and lived 31 days. I talked about her in a previous post), but made a huge impact on so many people all over the world and continues to do so.

On Saturday, since Drew, Cindy, and family were away Friday into Saturday, Peter and I worked with the horse for a while and gave her a bath…and our hands turned black. We got her to look a little whiter at least. I’m used to cows. We all know this. My dad says that my co-workers should do the Hoard’s Dairyman contest for dairy judging and could probably win for how much I have taught them about cows. But I know squat about horses. So when you look at their manes and think that it can’t be that thick, think again. Good grief. I worked on that sucker for a long time and it still was matted with dirt and fly repellant. Peter translated the rest of the cards for apples to apples into Spanish so we can play that this coming weekend and just in general in the future. My grandson was working on math all day. He says he focused better while being upstairs. But when I went to check on him, the binoculars were beside him and the bird book was lying there as well…yeah. Focused. He claims he only did it for 51 seconds. I’m sure he counted that out.

Sunday morning, I woke up feeling like a truck hit me. I finally caught what everyone else had: gripe. Excellent. I downed some ibuprofen and dragged myself out of bed to get ready for church. After church, Siana, Yelsi, Peter, and I went to the city to get supplies for camp. Since the food court at the mall was jammed packed at lunch, we walked around for a while. Once we finally found a place to eat, it was later in the afternoon and Yelsi was about to go nuts if we didn’t eat soon. So we went to this restaurant that looked like it had great food for decent price. We all ordered and as the waiter put the plate down in front of me, Yelsi exclaimed, “That’s all you ordered!?” Well, the amusing part is that we got 4 tiny pieces of chicken, but she only got 2 small pieces of steak. We all started laughing. Siana ordered octopus and we tried it. It was ok. Tasted like chewy fish. The joke all day was that the octopus was what was making us laugh at everything for no reason at all (we literally laughed the whole way home) and if someone started coughing, it was the octopus crawling back up our throats. Do you know how to kill an octopus? Look it up. Go ahead and google that right now. You won’t be disappointed. That night, we went back to Siana’s house and had a good time singing obnoxiously to 90’s music, played dutch blitz, watched a movie, and just hung out. When Yelsi and I got back that night, Conner (aka Coroner, corner, conquer, father, grandson) and Kayla (aka aunt) had arrived from PA. Yelsi and I couldn’t find them when we got home. We figured they were upstairs getting settled in. Nope. Yelsi said she was going to go to the kitchen to get some food. I was still upstairs at this point, heard her scream, and then everyone laughing. Apparently, Conner, Kayla, and Carla hid and then popped out when Yelsi came into the kitchen. We stayed up for a while talking. Conner was annoyed that I wasn’t talking fast enough about my whole time here. I asked if he read this blog at all. He said, “No, I don’t read!” and then he laughed. What a punk. So really, it’s your own fault Conner that you don’t know what all that has happened since I arrived. (And yes, I know that he won’t be reading this).

On Monday, my grandson and I went to clinic in the morning. More kids with diarrhea, cough, and fever. It wasn’t too busy that day and I was able to play with some of the kids waiting at the clinic for their meds from the pharmacy. Afterwards, we went to visit one our patients at her house, gave her clean drinking water, brought meds to her, put on cream for her arthritis, swept out her house, changed her bedsheets, washed her hair, took her outside to get some sun, and prayed with her. She is always so happy and thankful for everything. She lives such a simple life and has a smile on her face no matter what. I think we can all learn from her attitude. That night, we played apples to apples on the roof after some of the other kids played basketball. My grandson found out that Conner and Kayla were not fans of these ridiculously large beetles that are around. He went to throw one at Conner, and Conner got up from the table, ran around the roof, yelling in a high pitch voice, “GRANDMA! GRANDMA! SAVE ME! HELP ME!” I was laughing so hard. Kayla was hanging on my arm, laughing and half freaked out that my grandson was going to throw a beetle at her. So now, I have 2 grandsons. And Yelsi is calling Conner her father and Kayla her aunt. So, we have quite the family dynamics going on. And I guess I have a great-granddaughter now too if Conner is Yelsi’s dad. I made brownies that night, put them in the oven, went up to the roof to talk and hang out, and totally forgot about the brownies. I was midsentence, yelled, “CRAP! THE BROWNIES!” and went running downstairs. As I was going down the steps, the timer went off. Whew! We polished them off within 10 minutes. Earlier when I was making the brownies, I had said that I would make them gluten free so Yelsi could eat them. Conner asked what kind of flour I was using. I said rice flour. He said, "Yeah. But what kind of flour are you using?" Kayla and I both say at the same time, "Rice flour." He said, "No. What kind of flour are you using." Kayla and I look at each other and yell, "RICE FLOUR!" We had an intern for Casa Shalom over for dinner. Sammy is going to be helping at Casa Shalom in one of the girls’ homes for the next 6 weeks.

Tuesday morning, I worked with my 1^st grandson with his math and that afternoon, Yelsi, Kayla, and I went to Peter’s house to get stuff ready for camp. We cut out lion faces for the kids to make after we talk about Daniel and the lion’s den, and made the letters for the camp title. We set up the projector to watch a movie, while eating bacon wrapped chicken, parmesan potatoes, chocolate zucchini cake, and ice cream. Yeah, we ate well. We facetimed Kayla’s family for a while too. Her sister, Lauren, had to hide in the bathroom for the majority of the conversation since she couldn’t hear with so many people around her. I love her family. Her five year old brother from China thought it was rude that she went into the bathroom to talk to us.

The following day, we went to clinic as usual. But the highway was blocked from construction and everyone had to take the new highway as a detour. It’s a nice road and beautiful view, but we were in standstill or crawling traffic the whole way. So our normal 20 minute trip took about an hour. We started about an hour late, but we kept the flow going and quickly made up for lost time. It was crazy busy though since we had a dental team from the States at the clinic working as well. While the doctor was finishing up with the last few patients, Jeamy (sister to my 1^st grandson) and I went to our patient’s house that we visited on Monday to trim her fingernails and toenails. While her hands and feet were soaking to soften her nails, Jeamy colored with the kids who live nearby. The kids absolutely loved it and even the shy ones eventually talked a little. After I finished cutting our patient’s nails, I filled up another water jug for her, took it back to her, and prayed with her and the kids. Our day may not have started as planned and we had the same detour on the way back, but it still turned out to be a great day. That night, we had family worship night and once again I got a little teary. I don’t know what it is with worship night and me being a hot mess. But happens pretty much every time down here. Earlier that day, I had thought a lot about my friend Glenna and the walk that is coming up next week to raise awareness for postpartum depression. We were singing “It is well” and I was thinking about how messy life can be, you miss people like crazy, but have to wait to see them again in Heaven. But through it all, you can still have a sense of peace and say “It is well with my soul.” We prayed with Jenny and welcomed her into the We Help Children ministry with Drew and Cindy. Yelsi and I stayed up pretty late talking about the future and next steps in our lives, and how frustrating and great it is at the same time that we don’t always know the next step, but God will provide and show us the way.

 Conner has been doing a great job taking pictures, videos, and working on the website for We Help Children. We all were laughing hysterically while Yelsi was doing her video segment late last night. She wanted us to sit in the kitchen with her so she felt like she was talking to people and not at a camera. She has some of the best facial expressions and one liners. Oh my, that video was straight up Yelsi in a nutshell. At one point, I choked on my hot chocolate from what she said. She kept calling it the “shut up and listen show.” (Don’t worry, we’re cutting that part out of the official video). Kayla has been a beast at working with the horse and is now going to make a stable for the horse as well. They did their first equine therapy session with some of the girls from Casa Shalom yesterday, which went really well! Today, I have been working on math with my first grandson and we’re preparing to have 5 more people come live with us for the next few days. We’ll have 15 people living here for a little while. Packed house and bunch of things going on over the next few days. Again thank you for your support. We’re in the works to start having medical teams come down in October. So keep your vacation days spared for some of that and be a part of a life changing experience for you and for those you serve while down here!