Paco – our main ministry worker – grave heart condition

Paco is the husband of Rosario, who has worked with us in the clinic for ten years. We rely on Paco so much, and he is in the hospital in serious condition, with an enlarged heart; endocarditis.

Paco is the super-dynamic leader of the Boy/Girl Scouts, leading activities and teaching and training upwards off 200 children each weekend. Paco’s children, Alejandra and Paquito, wife Rosario and three local village volunteers do all the work. Paco does in-home ministry visits to the villagers, too. He is loved and respected by all the villagers.

His condition is serious and if he lives long enough – another two weeks – he will then need more tests before he can get the surgery he will need to repair a heart valve.

Please pray for Paco to recover, and that his family will somehow have the financial resources to survive; Paco is basically the only wage-earrner for the family. We are helping as we can, but we can’t support the entire family.

We really need to raise funds to help Paco’s family and to help pay for his heart surgery -  about $5,000. 

 A small amount for heart surgery that will save his life, but a huge amount of money to any Guatemalan family.

The 1,000,000 Banana Give-Away

 We received access to 1,000,000 bananas (and one container was stolen)  thanks to the Chiquita Banana Company; the program is managed by the Rotary Club.  Each container has 96,000 bananas, packed in 45 pound boxes – about 900 boxes for a total of 40,000 pounds.

One container was stolen – someone intercepted the tractor trailer and convinced the driver to unload 40,000 pounds of bananas at a nearby warehouse.  The driver simply backed up and started to unload – I guess he was glad to get unloaded and didn’t check the address.  Or perhaps he was threatened or bribed… we don’t know.

But Chiquita was super-understanding and gracious and sent a replacement container of bananas the next day!!

So far, we have distributed almost 400,000 bananas to the villagers where we have our clinic and through many other missions with whom we work, in  a sort of mission network.  

The bananas have been distributed to many feeding centers, in the poorest areas of Guatemala – thousands of children received bananas to take home to their families, too.  Other missions have given bananas to poor families in their areas, including the roughest, toughest and poorest areas of Guatemala City.

More than 4,000 poor families have already received bananas!

 To read all blog posts and news go <here>

Crippled by Bus

 

This family might qualify as perhaps the poorest family we’ve met.  The father was a “helper” on a bus, but fell off and was run over. He did not receive any compensation for the accident, and has endured 8 operations. He can’t walk at all, and due to nerve damage, he can’t speak, either. They have 5 children and no source of income.

The father can’t work and the 16 yr-old son can’t find any jobs to do on a steady basis.  
           So the mother buys firewood in bulk, delivered to her shack. Then she and her son chop it in smaller pieces and re-bundle the wood in smaller bundles for resell to the villagers. After working hard all day, she only  makes about $2.
       We visited recently to drop off  some rice, protein milk and beans and it was so sad to see that they have no other food than simple tortillas, with no meat, no vegetables, no sauce… no money for even a little salt.  The only corn they have is what they scavenge from the fields after harvest… the tiny little cobs that the owner didn’t think were worth harvesting.

    Sadly, the daughter got pregant, and her baby was stillborn. But the ordeal was made more horrible by the fact that the hospital didn’t want to admit her, and, then the doctors there didn’t do anything the first two days. The baby had been dead six days before the hospital took any action.  Greg wore his suit and went to see the doctors. With our intervention she did get care, but the situation was of course still sad.

I took this photo the day we brought the family back from the hospital, so they look a little solemn, but there isn’t much to smile about in their life anyway.

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Little Burn Victim

Boys & Girls Scouts – now 167 children!

Paco - along with his wife Rosario and their two teens Alejandra and Paco, Jr. – work all day each Saturday to hold a day of activities for the Boys & Girls Scouts program we are sponsoring.

The Scouts started in May with 34 children registered. But it became so popular that 167 children attended last week!

The programs include all of the things Scouts would learn in the USA, with a heavy emphasis here on obeying your parents, good moral teachings,keeping the environment clean and some other locally-important lessons. 

Paco has been a Scout leader for 13 years. The children love him and yell out “Paco, Paco” when he drives into the village.

 

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