I wrote a lovely fall newsletter!…. Only to see I already wrote a fall newsletter!! SO- Bonus Fall Newsletter!

On the ground: 

At the end of September, I moved 4 hours farther out- into the mountains of Quiche to spend a year working with Peniel and Stephanie Tix at Sion Maternity and Pediatric Nutrition clinic.  I’m enjoying the clinical setting to stretch my nursing mind while working my Spanish quite a bit more, and consulting with our kids cases back home. 

Sion also travels out into the surrounding mountains to visit, encourage, and consult with families experiencing nutritional crises. 

Back home in the department of Sacatepequez, Hope for home has begun prepping in earnest for the move to the town where Community of Hope will be built.  Renting locally is a ministry in the waiting as the community will be introduced to children with special needs.  These kids are so valuable and God uses them to impact communities such as this! 

I thought you might be interested in:  

Quiche’ is a mountainous department filled with Mayan villages.  Many folks coming to the clinic or in the villages speak the local Mayan dialect K’ekchi, and require a translator.  Logistically, it can sometimes take hours to get somewhere we can see from our town. 

One mom we visited on while I visited many months ago would travel for an hour and a half walking, bussing, then walking again with 2 little ones, and a baby sister strapped to her back.  Her husband works several hours away harvesting, and is gone weeks at a time.  This is one mama who needs medical and emotional support to come to her! 

I’ve been encouraged by:  

Although I love the clinical focus’s deeper expression of nursing skills for this season, one of my biggest encouragements has been the natural limits implemented when at a clinic.  No more midnight phone calls to troubleshoot feeding tube problems! 

I am still consulting on some cases from afar with Nurse Carissa, who now arrived in the country shortly before I moved farther out!  It is a blessing from God to see that in my absence, He provides for the medical needs of the kids through the hands of others.  

I also thoroughly enjoy frequent visits home (10 years in Guatemala is long enough to create another home in my heart!) and hugs that fill my arms to the brim again!  

Prayer requests:  

– Please pray for continued learning and rest and ministry/life balance in this season. 

– On the homefront, continue to pray for Hope for Home’s transition to Community of Hope, the special needs village being built.  

– Pray also for our little Humberto.  He has been more and more tense as he grows, and his neurologist shares there is nothing more he can do to bring him comfort.  It’s hard to see our little guy so tense all of the time.