It was the third day of the village medical trip in eastern Guatemala. In the chancel area in the back of the Catholic parish hall where the clinic was set up, hanging high on the wall was a large red banner with vertical white lettering. "America, tu vida es mision." "America, your life is mission." It was humbling to read and a beautiful reminder to me and to our team that in this 400-year-old Central American community, reaching out to others as Jesus did was the source of their life together. In Paul's words, "We are God's work of art, created in Christ Jesus for the good works which God has already designated to make up our way of life." We met many of "God's works of art" that day and throughout the week.

Like spokes of a wheel, some exciting aspects have developed in the six years of our involvement in this mission partnership effort through Faith In Practice, our umbrella organization. At the center of the wheel, patients are seen in Antigua for surgery and in many out-lying small villages for medical and dental care and surgical preparation. United States staff work with Guatemalan medical professionals. On one spoke branching off from the center, Michael Haines and other team members have arranged for surplus hospital equipment from the old Novato Hospital to be sent to several hospitals in Guatemala. On another spoke, five team members have raised funds to build an orphanage and school near Antigua. On another, a new respite care center, the Casa de Fe, was built with the help of funds from Westminster and housed its first patients during our visit. On a fourth spoke, several church and team members sponsor students and families through CommonHope providing the opportunity for teens to stay in school and families to receive needed medical help and job training. On another spoke, John Bell, an ex-Peace Corps volunteer, was trained at San Francisco State in wheelchair building and repair and has developed a business called Transitions providing employment and wheelchairs for those in need. As the young Guatemalan woman, Chiqui, is quoted on your bulletin cover, it brings meaning to our lives to contribute where we can, to carry our grain of sand to the building site. Our team members this morning offer for you some "snapshots" of "God's beautiful works of art," people that they met who offer their grains of sand as they care for each other.

It was my friend, Jean Rodgers, who suggested going on this trip.  For that I will always be grateful to her because it was one of those "mountain top" experiences of my life.  From Antigua we saw a huge puff of smoke erupting from the nearby volcano, as if signaling our arrival.  It was a friendly puff, not at all ominous.

With the village team, we loaded our 42 trunks, which many of you helped to prepare for us, onto the top of our Hundai bus and headed out from Antigua into the mountains of central Guatemala.  The opportunity to help the Guatemalan people was very rewarding, just as I was told it would be.  They were warm, gentle people; very cooperative and appreciative.  I think we all felt like we gained more from helping them then we gave.

With Jean passing instruments and holding the flashlight I took out hopelessly decayed, aching teeth all day long.  The first day was in a schoolyard next to a big Disney painting of Goofy on the wall.  Each day was a new setup in a new location.  During the four days we looked into 85 mouths and took out 120 teeth.  We gave out 1000 tooth- brushes and preached preventive care hoping it would make a difference for some.  Losing teeth to decay begins in childhood there and continues throughout life.  Contributing factors are lack of education and health care, the remarkable prevalence of Coke and Pepsi everywhere, and chewing on sugar cane as a treat. 

Another reason I enjoyed this trip was the pleasure of being with this great team.  From Jesse Phillips, perhaps the most mature teenager I have known, to Jean Rogers, possibly the most youthful senior I know, everyone pitched in with enthusiasm.  Up at 5:30, we loaded the bus and set up our clinics in a different village each day.  We saw a total of about a thousand patients.  Andy Johnson and her pharmacy dispensed many pounds of medications which some of you helped to package.  Dr. Mickey and Toni Golbus, 5-year alumni of our team and members of Congregation Rodef Sholom, with Joe Wiatt, co-founder of Faith In Practice, were super organizers as well as inspirational leaders.

Everything went very well according to plan and schedule.  We worked hard but remained surprisingly healthy and energized.  At the end of each day we thoroughly enjoyed relaxing together back at the comfortable Hotel Atlantica. Some people tended to get a little crazy but Barbara always kept us focused with the nightly devotions.

A third reason this trip was so special for me was unexpected.  It was the opportunity to get a glimpse of the broader picture of volunteerism in this poor country and the powerful effect the work of many very dedicated people is having.  There is so much need in Guatemala, as in many other areas around the world, that it seems overwhelming.  And yet when you see the great things being accomplished by kind, loving, dedicated people - such as John Bell and his wheelchair factory called Transitions, John Huebsch and his education and outreach center CommonHope, the Golbuses and their orphanage Casa de Angeles, along with Faith In Practice and many other organizations, including Westminster Presbyterian Church - you begin to feel there may be hope for a better world after all. 

From my mountaintop experience, I came back with some ideas for improving international relations which I think would work much better than bombs.

Thank you so much for helping to make our trip possible with your financial support, your help with preparations and your prayers.  I hope I can do it again.

Me llamo Abril Verde y soy una enfermera. My name is April Green. I'm a nurse practitioner. I have functioned as that, an OR nurse, a pharmacist and this year a patient advocate. My first medical mission trip was to Ecuador, then Haiti and for the past 6 years to Guatemala. Mission trips, like life, are full of surprises. My first surprise this year was that suddenly I wasn't going to Guatemala. On February 10^th I sat in the choir section watching the rest of the group being commissioned. Our dining room was completely covered with medications that many of you had packaged. The living room was filled with trunks in various stages of packing. We'd been preparing for months but…. My mom had suddenly been diagnosed with a rapidly spreading cancer. I was her caregiver. Together we had a tremendous journey to travel that didn't involve airplanes. I was staying behind, my husband, John, and our friends would tend to the patients waiting for us in Progresso. The following Saturday the team departed. The same day my mom slipped into a coma and died the next day. Her death was peaceful, her final days full of love and caring. Within the week, I was on an airplane bound for Guatemala City. The next surprise was that I went! There are moments so touched by grace that you can only stand in awe. I was sad and exhausted but also so opened up and ready to give. When John met me at the airport and it felt like coming home.

Surprises continued through our week in Antigua. On Sunday of a surgical mission trip patients are triaged and the OR schedule is filled for the week. Like schedules everywhere this is fairly strictly adhered to. Surgery begins at 7am on Monday morning and proceeds through the week. We were part way into the week when our relative quiet and calm was pierced by a screaming eight month old baby boy. Loud, piteous and incessant. The family of Tecun Macario Ju had taken him to the National Hospital where he was diagnosed as having a hernia. But the National Hospital wasn't doing much surgery because they were running out of money. Fortunately in Antigua, Guatemala, there is an alternative for 36 weeks of the year, even if you are poor, or especially if you are poor. The family brought their child to Obras Sociales de Hermano Pedro where, Gracias a Dios, our team from California included Ron Golbus, a general surgeon from Ohio. It also included Paul Preston , our veteran anesthesiologist who commented that the baby cried every time anyone came near him, but Paul was able to quiet him and relieve his pain. Our anesthesiologists have always been our heroes.

Amidst the baby's cries, changes were made in the day's OR schedule. What could be moved was moved, what could be postponed was postponed. Our wonderful recovery room nurses held Tecun and sang to him as he was prepared for surgery. They brought his young mother in to be close by. Finally he was taken to the OR. He had an incarcerated hernia. This condition is fatal without surgery but we just happened to be there. Twenty-four hours later, after a successful operation, the baby was nursing normally and the day after that he returned to his pueblo. This child is alive today because we "happened" to be there. How does one think of such events? With surprise and certainly with gratitude, with blessing.

Many patients had the quality of their lives improved by the fifty surgeries that we did the week on February 23^rd. One, for sure, had his life saved. This is the dramatic illustration of why we go. The greater reason however is To BE there, to participate and bear witness. Many people this year have asked me how I could go to Guatemala especially so soon after my mother's death. I think that the real question is how could I not go? Mickey and Toni Golbus, our trip leaders this year, have taught us in Judaism one has a RESPONSIBILITY to heal the world. De acuerdo. I agree. But we all have different skills and talents.

Some of us go physically but many more are there in spirit because they have helped. Like the grains of sand to the building site that Barb referred to, we build a mission trip and a better world. Everyone who helps bag medicines, sponsors the trip at the Alternative Christmas Faire, donates toothbrushes or pens for the kids to color with, or a stuffed toy to comfort a child before surgery brings a grain of sand. So, if you accept your responsibility to heal the world, how can you help with our commitment in Guatemala? What grain of sand will you bring to the building site? The possibilities are endless. We are only limited by our imaginations. Que le vaya bien. Go well.

I would like to tell you a Chicken Story. but first I should back up a bit.

I've been participating in Guatemala mission trips for the past 7 years. Since I have no medical background and don't speak Spanish, I usually wind up doing something other than operating or translating. In fact, over the years I've worked a lot with Joe and Vera Wiatt, the founders of Faith In Practice. Working with them we typically carry out administrative duties including arranging for food, transportation and housing as well as numerous other tasks. This year part of my duties included what is called "cash management" which involves doling out the monies for the group. We started out with plenty of money .. that was the good news. The bad news was we arrived late into Guatemala airport and the banks were closed. Our instructions were to bring Travelers checks and cash them at the airport or at a bank in town, which makes a lot of sense assuming the banks are open. Anyway, we started our Village trip with a whole lot of travelers checks and no money. Joe, Mickey and I did manage to score some Quetzals in the local ATM machines, but not nearly enough to finance the Village trip. It turns out that ATM machines as well as banks are pretty non-existent outside the big cities so we had to make do, which became a very interesting experience throughout the week.

Joe and I have had a pretty good relationship throughout the years and typically have the ability to see the humor in situations. He would come to me for money, knowing full well I didn't have much and I would complain all his money demands were straining our relationship.

On the third day in San Augustine, Joe came to me and asked for 700Q (about $100) for some chickens. I said "Chickens? you want Chickens?" He laughed and said come with me. We went over to Dr. Vicki Martinez's office or area if you will and saw Vicki talking to a women with several children standing nearby. It turns out she and her children were pretty destitute, malnourished and in pretty rough shape. We had scraped up a years worth of vitamins and some money for food. Joe's plan was to provide her with the 700Q, which would buy her a group of chickens and chicken food. Jesus, the local contact for our Village clinic had volunteered to help her get fencing and set up to raise chickens. I never found out the women's name, but will never forget her face .. it was as if she'd won the lottery.

Mickey summed it up nicely in the next morning's devotions by quoting from the Talmud. "Give someone a fish and you have fed them for a day. Teach them to fish and you have fed them for a lifetime".

One might ask why we were giving out chickens on a medical mission. Well, a lot of the effort on the Village trips has to do with general health care. If we can teach people how to take better care of themselves and provide them with things such as vitamins and toothbrushes, we solve problems that we don't have to fix later. In fact we put good emphasis on health care with Betty Obata's health care road show.

We put together a little slide show, which is currently being shown upstairs in the Christian Education room. It gives you a pretty good idea what the Village trip looks like. Additionally we have included some pictures of some of the other charitable entities we are loosely associated with. April and I are very proud of our Godchild of 7 years who recently graduated from High School. The godchild program is an organization in Antigua, which is now called Common Hope. There are pictures of John Bell's organization called Transitions Foundation who's mission is to give care to young crippled people. Transitions has worked closely with Faith in Practice over the years providing wheel chairs and prosthetics when needed. Finally there are numerous pictures of Casa de Angles which is an orphanage run by two Sisters just outside Antigua. Mickey and Toni have been instrumental in their growth and success these last few years.

The point of all of this is we view our mission trips as opportunities to help those in need and the "medical" portion is simply one aspect. We thank you for your support of our mission effort. We invite you to participate more. Take a look at the slide show. I have CD's if you want. Visit the various web sites. It's worth doing.