A very busy October

Wow! What do we say about October? Guatemala was an incredible experience for Mommy and a tiring experience for Daddy and the B boys! I am so thankful to my husband for supporting me on this mission trip and for my boys for letting Mommy be gone for a whole week!

The trip was very successful - 71 surgeries in 5 days. The surgeries were OB/GYN and general surgery and everyone seemed to recover by the time we left.

Thank you for all of your prayers. It is impossible to capture the moments in a blog but I thought I'd show a few highlights to share the experience.

The bus we took for a 3 hour ride from the airport to the clinic. We stopped at a gas station for a little break. There was a guard inside the little snack store sporting a huge automatic rifle of some kind. Welcome to Guatemala!

Clinica Ezell. This is the compound where we worked and stayed. The accommodations were excellent. Of course, I don't know if I slept well because the bed was decent or because I was so tired! We showed up on Saturday late afternoon and the docs began pre-ops immediately. Surgery began as soon as church was over on Sunday. By Monday all beds were full.

A view from the truck on our way to a mobile clinic in a town about 30 minutes away. People show up at the clinics for a kinds of medical issues. I treated a few patients for occupational medical issues - achy joints and sore muscles from their hard lifestyle.

This is Valentine. He works for Health Talents one week a month during the surgical clinics. He lives in the town where we had the mobile clinic and invited us (Mike Martinez and me) for lunch. This is his one room house with a cook house in the back and a wash basin in the front. Clothes are washed on a washboard in what looked like dirty water but apparently clean for them. Chickens ran around at our feet in the house while we ate. I felt so guilty eating their food as lunch is their big meal of the day and all they can afford. Other meals consist of tortillas and beans.

This is a Cacao Tree with the Cacao seeds in Valentine's hand.

In other words, CHOCOLATE!

They roast the seeds to make chocolate. This is in his backyard.

This is what Valentine does when he's not working with Health Talents.

No wonder they all have achy muscles!

That's about 100 pounds worth of wood that they hike down the hill. They use the wood to cook. The pay is around 1-3 dollars a day.

This is a common site everywhere.

These women can carry loads on their heads and chase after their kids at the same time.

A local visiting one of the patients. I had to take his picture for Mom and Dad. All in all, it was a great trip. Everyone asks, "Would you do it again?". The answer is "YES", when my boys are older and my husband can join me!

A Jack O' Lantern party at the neighbors.

Daddy's marvelous Bat O' Lantern. Unfortunately, it was too rotten to use on Halloween.

I warned the neighbors it was too soon to make them!

The boys as Spider man 1 (Bryce) and Spider man 2 (Brendan).

They had a great evening with lots of candy. They loved their costumes!