Let’s talk about some stitches and soup.
But first, let’s talk about the drought.
Guatemala is one of many countries affected by drought as a result of the phenomenon known as El Niño. About six departments are especially affected, including parts of Quiché. Our town, for example, is a little desert valley surrounded by mountains. We often see rains passing through the mountains while none touches here.
This deeply impacts many in such an agricultural area, and crops and animals suffer. We praise God that the house we rent is built atop a small cistern, and we have not run out of water, though we frequently hear our friends didn’t have water until 2 a.m. when the rest of town was asleep.
Whether through economic hardship or daily activities, this is hard!
One advantage that low rainfall brings, however, is greater accessibility to the surrounding mountain communities.
These roads are steep, winding, and made of dirt and rock, so as rains get heavier, various areas wash out or develop mud patches deep enough for the chassis to bottom out. Although our little 4×4 is quite fantastic, we reach a point each rainy season when we can no longer access the communities.
So, an extended dry spell has given us some extra time in some communities we love.
Though, not always all the way up!
Right, back to the stitches and soup!!
Friday we packed up some bags (check out Katie’s Facebook feed for some fun packing videos this week, or reach out for an emailed version!), and we headed up to a community where we knew a mom needed a check-in after a rough hospital birth.
How did we know?
Well, now that’s another rabbit trail we’ll have to jump into!!
Hang in there, we will make it to the soup and stitches… eventually!!
Back up two more days to Wednesday!
So.
Wednesday we were making plans to visit one of our communities. There were two families we wanted to check in on, and another three we hoped to squeeze in. But we knew that rains could shut down our ability to get there.
Daniel has extensive experience off-roading in the rains by moto, so he could still get in, but Katie would not be able to join. That would limit our visits to postpartum check-ins (with “Telehealth” counseling from Katie, lol) or non-medical connections, which we still hold quite valuable.
So on Wednesday, while Katie was working on packing baby and mama bags during some slow clinic moments, Daniel was at his office, where he oversees several remote schools in the municipality. It turned out to be a big day near the office, and the park was full of people.
In fact, as community moms had come in as part of a program helping low-income mothers whose children attend the village schools, Daniel received several little visits and updates from the very families we hoped to go see!
Sadly, timing would not allow for a complete visit with Katie at the clinic before the final trucks left town, so our visits in the community were still needed. But several details were shared that helped our planning.
Do you remember meeting a little guy named Juan William? If not, go back and check out our post called The Way Is Good:
Although Juan would likely not be received in a normal village school, his little brother was apparently attending, hence Juan’s mom was in town!
We had been planning to check in on Juan and his family to see how they were doing. See, cerebral palsy in remote areas is a very heavy diagnosis for a single mom, so we had determined to routinely check in on her and encourage her however we can.
We’ve been praying that God would allow strong connections with this newly found mother, and just as we were planning a second visit, God brought her across Daniel’s path, reinforcing that we are members of the community- trustworthy. We praise God for that short conversation, allowing for our upcoming visit to have more personal connection behind it!
Another mom who made it to town that day was one of our patients we had been very concerned about. Lucia’s husband found Daniel at his office to share the update that she had had her baby at the hospital, and although baby boy was safe, she had been hemorrhaging and was kept in the hospital for days. So… maybe not the best that Lucia had come to town so soon, but moms do what they must to help their children. She was on our list to see too.
Another mom we were hoping to find, and for whom Katie was actively packing a bag, was Ventura. She too came to the park, and we learned that her baby was born and all was well. She had a girl!
Daniel also called to say he spotted Maria and Cesar, part of a family of seven we have been engaging with for some time. We generally connect through Caterina, Maria’s mom, because Maria has special needs. So we determined to visit them at home rather than send her over to the clinic, but it was still encouraging to find them in town and receiving aid from this program.
Right- so that was Wednesday.
So now we can jump back forward to Friday, when we headed up the road to the community where ALL these women are from!! Drought conditions meant the roads were passable. This time we checked with some of the teachers who are not form the communities, but travel there daily. The confirmed that the way was… ok.
We knew we would not likely see all of them, and the rest of the list Katie had, so we set priorities based on which side of the mountain bend they were on and who was the most critical- information we knew because of Daniel’s Wednesday encounters.
We visited with Caterina and family, confirming that all was well. Daniel has the stirring of a plan to help the boys attend school, something their community prohibited because they had no man to aid in community projects.
The boys have been walking over an hour to another community, but you’ll just have to stay tuned1 to see how Daniel’s love for these boys combines with his connections in these communities.
Although we would have loved to see Ventura and her baby, it seemed more critical to find a mom who had not yet delivered to confirm safe clinical factors. We decided to check in on Alicia, who would be in her final weeks, and called to find out that she was very close to Juan William’s area, another visit we felt necessary.
In fact, we left the car in the very same bend of the road and passed by the tienda of Maria, a mom who we found on a previous visit had lost her baby. If you remember form the post mentioned above, God opened the opportunity to pull her stitches at just the right time to prevent her from a painfully bumpy ride down the mountain, or an inexperienced neighbor from trying to remove them.
This same tienda is where we learned about Juan William, and in fact, they knew our next patient as well! Everyone seems to be family here!!
We received directions and headed out, only to find that Alicia had already had her baby! Actually… about 12 days earlier actually, and she also had a C-section and needed her stitches removed!!
Can you believe that in two visits to this mountain, our little car waited on the same hill as Daniel ran back to retrieve the general medical bag? Twice God brought us to a home in just the perfect window of time for an experienced nurse to safely remove stitches with clean equipment and a steady hand- as well as teach about c-section recovery; both restrictions and norms.
Our God is so good to arrange meetings like these!
Oh, and did we mention that Katie knows Alicia’s mom? Katie hadn’t connected the dots on previous visits, but this is one of the community comadronas, or midwives. She brings many patients to see us, just checking that all is well before a home delivery. We allow her, and other comadronas, to enter with their young moms so our patients feel more comfortable.
How God protects moms like Alicia by giving her a mother who knows when signs change and when it’s time to get further help. Though everything had looked good, Alicia needed up needed a C-section, and her experienced mother was able to recognize the need for intervention in time.
And the connections didn’t stop there! Alicia’s father was also a community leader and a pastor in a village church. Daniel recognized that he had taught some of their older children in the town high school!
We finished our visit with Alicia with our heads still spinning about all these God-connections that allowed us to be right here, right now.
So that’s the story of the stitches– with just a few side quests thrown in for fun.
Oh right… and the soup??
Well, that was also at Alicia’s house, where her sisters were preparing the family lunch and gave us some early bowls of fresh chicken soup before our trip home. So fresh was this soup, in fact, that this guy had been clucking just a few hours earlier!!
We sat and enjoyed a lovely early lunch as we learned more about the family. They knew the back way up to Juan William, because they were his family too!!!
Twice God brought us to exactly the right home at exactly the right time for stitches to be removed.
Along the way, He reminded us how deeply connected these communities are and how often He uses one relationship to open the door to another.
And after all that, He even provided fresh chicken soup before the trip home, allowing us to reached paved roads before any rains.
Our God is so good. He uses seemingly unrelated stories to weave together a grand narrative.
Thank God for rabbit trails and good connections!
- Congratulations- you found a footnote! I don’t know how I added it, or how to get rid of it. So consider this part of your rabbit trail journey! ↩︎
