Chattanooga Medical Team - Guatemala Trip - Day 6

The final day of surgeries and Spanish education – we are all excited but tired.  The morning began as normal eating breakfast around 7 and the team was off to begin surgeries and I started my Spanish class. My class was great – Jose is very gracious as I keep forgetting the things that I should be remembering.  It is coming a little at a time.

After class I had the responsibility to collect the pictures from the team and prepare an Animoto video. The team has about a thousand pictures – which is a ton less than usual, but they did spend 12 hours a day doing the same thing over and over.  Actually, by the end of today, they will have performed 44 surgeries!  By the time they finish working and have dinner, it is dark outside – not much of a good time for pictures.  Anyway, the process was simple, but coming up with what I was going to do was a little more difficult.  Coleman had an idea of what he was wanting, so meeting his expectation made the task a little more difficult.  By dinner time, I had finished it, but I had a terrible time trying to get it to download.  The internet seemed to know what I was doing, and when I got around 90% downloaded, it would shut down and I would have to start all over again.

In the mean time, Del Ashcraft had a case where a woman was supposed to have fibroids, but when he opened her up, he found a large mass of cancer that he believes will eventually kill her.  He did say that even in the states, with this late of detection and being this far along, it is most likely that she would die there as well.  A number of the people on his team were upset, but it was a good time of encouraging one another and resting in the fact that this is not a surprise to God.

As the team began completing their tasks, you could see the relief of the tension they had been living with for the past few days.  Kristen pulled out here fake tattoos that she was putting on the children all week and she put one on Coleman.  That began what can be described as just silliness as everyone on the team received a tattoo.  From roses on the arms to butterflies on the top of the back to a “kissing lips” tattoo on the top of Coleman’s head.  Tattoos were everywhere.  Since I was still working on the Animoto thing, they picked my tattoo and put it on my arm.  It was a heart with wings that spread from the front of my arm to the back of my tricep.  Yeah, I am thrilled with the fact that it is temporary.

Before dinner, I was trying to skype with Caleb (Kendra’s friend) and just as we finally connected, Del asked me to join him and Julio as they went to talk with the family of Pauline (the lady with cancer) and pray with the family.  When we arrived in the room, her husband, Francisco was the only family she has here.  They have 8 children, but they were not here.  Pauline is only 51 years old.  Del did a wonderful job of breaking the news of the bad diagnosis to Francisco and Pauline, and through Karina (the interpreter) he told them that they could possibly pursue treatment, but it doesn’t look good.  They took it very well, but we are wondering if they really understand the permanence of the diagnosis.  I think it might have been some shock since they had believed it was only a fibroid originally.  I prayed with them, and we left for dinner. 

My computer again had lost signal so Animoto still was not downloaded!!  Go figure.  We ate dinner, Jami gave her testimony and showed her video – this is Julio’s daughter who broke her back in the car accident in 2010, and was told she wouldn’t walk again, but one year later was walking.  Praise the Lord.

After the movie, some went for a walk, some sat and talked, I worked on Animoto and finally got it done.  It does look good – praise the Lord, and I hope it helps others in choosing to go on a mission in the future.

Tomorrow we head to Guatemala City – Fuego erupted again today, so  we are praying that going home on Sunday is still possible.  We will know soon…