Warm Days, Hotter Lava

We finally got a real taste of the kind of work that Salud y Paz does this past week, and we loved it! Carey and I spent 8 days helping host a work team from Utah in "southern" Guatemala in a town called San Antonio Suchi...name continues for about 7 more syllables. Once again earning my man-card, I drove us about 3 hours through the mean streets of Guate. After meeting the team, which consisted of 2 doctors, 1 dentist, lots of nurses, and several construction grunts, we all attended a local Methodist Church (Guatemalan Methodists have "slightly" more exciting worship services than American Methodists do - when Guatemaltecos sing...they really sing!) That week we worked three days at the Salud y Paz clinic and 2 days at off-site/make-shift clinics (at local churches, road sides, etc). It was such a blast seeing the team in action. Despite the extreme heat, they worked long days and inspired me with their compassion. Here's the final tally of big and small miracles they performed: 271 patients seen and given medication, 355 rotten teeth pulled, and two new rooms added on to clinic! I think God decided to show-off a bit.

Here are some more pics and a video of our big adventure...

Outside the John Wesley Clinic in San Antonio Suchi. It's one of our newer clinics and is only open on Fridays and when teams come into town now, but in the near future we hope to see patients several days a week. Carey was a huge hit at the clinic reading to the kids while their parents were with the doctors. The children here are crazy cute. A view from the future patio/waiting area for patients looking into the two new dental rooms. The new rooms are just to the right of the existing clinic. My job was to lay the bricks you see in the background - they're "mostly" straight.

After the week was over, we stayed a night in Antigua with the team and got to climb Volcan Pacaya. It's very active, as you can see in the background of this pic and in this video...

Our guide Felix was kind enough to roast some marshmallows ("angelitos" in Spanish) that I brought with us in case we were able to get close enough to the lava. I know what you're thinking, but he actually looked better without eyebrows.

Have a great week and thanks for checking in! We'll post some pics of Carey's b-day this Saturday and hopefully a short video I made of a "typical" day at the clinic. Love, J & C