El Pepinal Welcomes Us

 Dear Family and Friends,

Our clinic week finished up today after 4 1/2 days in the Iglesia Confesional Guatemala with Dr. Elry, and one day in the Catholic Church fellowship hall in El Pepinal, 1000 ft higher than our usual location, and situated on the back side of the Volcano we visited Sunday.

This town has no clinic, no pharmacy, and is not visited by the personnel of the Centro de Salud (Public Health Center) 20 minutes down the road. But it has fabulous vistas of four volcanoes, cornfields perched on the side of steep mountains, and refreshing air. One of the town residents is a TV personality and is quite eager to help his town move into the twenty-first century. He stayed with us all day helping with crowd control, moving chairs from sun to shade, and assisting with our suitcases of medications and equipment. We were visited by more people today than we could help.

The variety of illnesses and injuries was what we are accustomed to seeing: injuries from a burn and a fall; infections; babies and small children with respiratory infections; impacted ear canals; and quite a few cases of diabetes. We departed at 4 pm, just as the day’s downpour was starting.

See some of our photos from the last couple of days. Friday we visit a Maya home and then tour Antigua, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Psalm 121:1. “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?”                                          We know our help comes from the Lord. We give him thanks for our safety and strength this week and we ask his blessing on the people we have treated and worked with this week.























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