A Guatemalan Family Farm

After our visit to the Regional Hospital in Cuilapa yesterday, we were all invited to the farm home of Brother and Sister Pitri outside of Cuilapa.  They have a small, but nice, home on property on a mountainside.  We drove up an unimproved dirt road for a few miles to reach their property.  It was fascinating seeing how they live.  They get all their water from collected rain water, purify their drinking water by setting clear water jugs out in the sun, and grow a variety of tropical fruits and plants:  mango, limes, mandarin limes (didn't even know they exist--they are the color of mandarin oranges inside, but taste just like regular limes), lemons, oranges, guanabana, maracuyá, bananas of various varieties, including purple ones, plátanos, another fruit like a plátano whose name I can't recall, nuts, coffee, and many more.  They live in a tropical paradise!  We had a nice lunch and visited with these wonderful people.  It was enjoyable and interesting.

Our Visit to the Regional Hospital in Cuilapa

Yesterday morning, we accompanied a group of Senior Missionaries to the Regional Hospital in Cuilapa to give baby kits to the mothers of newborns in the maternity ward of the hospital and some gifts to the children in the pediatric unit.  It was an interesting drive down through rural areas on the road to El Salvador, CA1.  We drove through the towns of El Cerinal and Barbarena and finally arrived at the hospital in Cuilapa.  It is rated the third best public hospital in Guatemala, but it isn't a place you would want to have your child receive care.  The conditions of the hospital were nothing like you would see in the United States.  It makes you wonder why a country that has malls as nice as anything in the States has hospitals like the one we visited. Some say it is because there is drug money behind the malls and government corruption keeps public funds from getting to the hospitals.  I have no idea if there is any truth to that, but the difference between the malls and the hospitals is stark.  But the children in the hospital were beautiful, and Sister Smith was in her element sharing the gifts we had brought with the babies and their mothers.  She even suited up to visit the babies in the nursery.  She said that should be her job, just to hold and care for the babies in the nursery.

There were sights, however, that tore at our heart strings.  Two little infants in the hospital had been abandoned by their parents.  One infant boy of Quiché (a Mayan people) parents had serious heart problems, and his parents had left him, presumably because they felt they couldn't care for him.  The other was a little premie in an incubator whose twin had not survived.  He too had been abandoned by his parents. These two will be sent to an orphanage for adoption when they are healthy enough to leave the hospital.  Their chances for adoption, however, are not good.  The international adoption system in Guatemala was entirely shut down in 2008 due to widespread corruption, kidnapping, and baby selling.  In its hey day one of every 110 babies born in Guatemala ended up in the United States for adoption, many stolen from the birth parents.  Lawyers/notaries in Guatemala charged $35,000 plus expenses for every one of these babies placed for adoption, almost 5,000 per year.  It was big business, and subject to corruption.  Now since 2008, the system has been shut down while reforms are implemented.  So the chances for adoption of these and who knows how many children like them are bleak.  It broke our hearts to think of these two little ones abandoned like that.

Dental Clinic group

Today we say goodby to Dr. Call.  Elder Call was the brains and muscle behind getting the dental clinic here in Guatemala built and running.  This clinic was somewhat of an experiment.  It was built with humanitarian money and volunteers.  However it has served our LDS full-time Missionaries and future missionaries here in Guatemala and surrounding countries for the past 5 years.  We also serve 2 orphanages and one school.  It has and is staffed by full-time senior missionaries and donations from individuals and humanitarian groups.  Because of the success of this clinic the church has now put into motion the construction of a church sponsored dental clinic in the Philippians.  Dr. Call's hard work and dedication has paid off.  He is not alone in this.  All those that have served in anyway at this clinic for the past 5 years have had a big part in it's success.  This clinic has and is blessing the lives of all that have received services here.  From the full-time missionaries and future missionaries throughout Central America to the children we serve that see the church in action in blessing their lives and the lives of others.  I am so grateful to be able to rub shoulders with faithful dedicated people such as these.
Dr. Call is the one in the middle on the back row in the light blue tunic.

Preparing for Our First Christmas in Guatemala

Christmas is wonderful time of year!  As we approach our first Christmas in Guatemala, I thought I would share what we are seeing and learning about Christmas here.

Much is the same:

In some ways Guatemala looks very much like Christmas at home.  There are Christmas decorations all over town with the decorated Christmas trees and lights we are used to seeing at home.  The stores are decked out in Christmas decorations just like we see at home.  There is a huge Christmas tree (mechanical one, not a real one) in the plaza at the Obelisco, and Christmas programs are all around us just like at home.  We watched the First Presidency Christmas devotional (via BYU TV) just like we do every year at home.  We had a wonderful Christmas devotional and luncheon at the Montúfar chapel yesterday for all the Church employees and the Senior Missionaries who work in the Area Office.  It was beautiful and very much like home.  We attended a Christmas party for our ward last night, just like we would have done at home.  We will have an Office Christmas party on Monday for the legal office.  Things really slow down at Christmas time, just like at home.  We have a small decorated tree in our apartment, and we listen to Christmas music every day.  We are excited to have Robert and his family visit us at Christmas time.

But some things are very different:

It is sunny and nice every day here, more like a Christmas in Hawaii than what we were used to in Salt Lake.  At our ward Christmas party last night, we had very tough, thin beef and chorizos (a spicy sausage), frijoles (refried black beans), rice, corn tortillas, salad, and horchata to drink.  It was a typical Guatemalan meal.  All over town there are stands selling fireworks, mountains of fireworks, and every night there are fireworks going off all over the city.  This will culminate on Christmas Eve (Nochebuena) with a spectacular fireworks show all over the city at midnight, or so I am told.  At first this seemed quite a strange way to celebrate Christmas to me.  We certainly don't have that tradition at home.  But as in all traditions, there is some truth underlying it all.  In the night before He was born there was no darkness on this land; it was as light as at mid-day.  And a new star was seen in the sky.  This Christmas Eve the people here will light up the sky all night with their fireworks.  He is the Light of the World, and they will celebrate His birth with lights in the sky.

All over town, we see traffic stopped as processions walk down the streets carrying one of their Saints, the Virgin of Guadalupe or the Virgin Mary or another.  This is a very Catholic tradition and quite strange to us.  We are told that on Christmas Eve, families will gather and eat mountains of tomales and drink "ponche" their traditional hot fruit punch.  Late that night after the fireworks, the children will open their Christmas gifts.  Both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day along with New Years Eve and New Years Day are holidays.  I'm sure there will be many other things this Christmas that will be new to us.

But for us, this Christmas will be like all Christmases, a special time to remember Our Saviors birth and worship Him.  He is the gift of Christmas, and we love this special time of year when the world joins us in Honoring Him.  May you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The Chacón Family

Last night we had a dinner invitation from the Chacón family.  Brother Chacón is the Stake Patriarch in the Molino Stake and the family are members of the Santa Luisa Ward where we attend we church.  They live in a small home not far from the church where brother Chacón has lived all of his life.  He is a convert to the Church of more than 50 years, and his family is an example of the remarkable difference that the Gospel can make in the lives of people.  His children have served missions (the youngest is still serving in Salt Lake City) and are faithful members of the Church.  The Spirit in their home was wonderful.  We visited all evening, and I enjoyed very much getting to know them and hearing Brother Chacón's testimony.  He is a CPA and works for a subsidiary of General Electric, but notwithstanding that, their circumstances are humble by American standards.  As a young man he was challenged in his poverty to live the law of tithing, and he tells of going for a walk in the street and weeping.  He could barely care for himself and his family, including his parents, but He told His Heavenly Father that if He wanted him to pay tithing, he would do it, but he would need His help.  He began to pay his tithing and shortly thereafter was blessed with a job opportunity that more than doubled his income.  He bore a strong testimony of the law of tithing and how it has blessed his family.  We pay tithing with faith, not with money.