Guatemala Medical Team 2207
DAY 3 June 9, 2022
The Team, in front of the trilingual Welcome sign
About the church, Iglesia Redentor del Mundo: This church was founded in 1986 and is the location of a K-6 Lutheran school, currently with 49 students and 7 teachers. Most of the families in this community and in the church, are subsistence farmers. They grow their own corn and beans; and they grow cash crops of coffee, peanuts, sweet potatoes and more.
Pastor Edmundo Auger was the original founder in 1985 of Lutheran Bible studies in this community. The church and then the school grew out of those studies. The public school in Santiago Zamora in those days was limited. The Lutheran church began a preschool and Bible studies, health & hygiene assistance, and a feeding program for the children in the community.
In 1989, the church opened the first trilingual school in the Department of Sacatepéquez, offering instruction in Cakchiquel, the local Maya language, and English, in addition to Spanish. After beginning with Kindergarten and grades 1-6, Jr. High grades were added in 1993, but had to close twenty years later because of funding challenges.
Now the church is working to update the physical plant to modern standards, with funding help from “LeadaChild” and other Lutheran congregations. New classrooms, bathrooms, and a school kitchen have been remodeled. With the Covid shutdown, teachers visited all the students regularly to give math, reading, and Bible studies. Pastor Steven Massey has been the church pastor for three years and says the church families and teachers are happy to see these improvements.
The plan for the future is to complete all seven classrooms
needed for the elementary school. After that, there are plans to build more
classrooms on the second floor of the school.
DAY 2 June 8, 2022
The Mission House is a short fifteen-min drive from the location of our clinic in Redentor del Mundo (Redeemer of the World) Lutheran Church, Santiago Zamora. Today is Day One of our clinic: we need time to organize the layout: registration; triage & treatment; nutrition education; pharmacy; and opportunity to sit with Pastor Massey to receive the message of the Gospel. We also assign our translators to the various staging points of the clinic. Today’s traffic through the clinic is light, on purpose, to help us get our rhythm. Today is because it is limited to church members & families. Tomorrow, ads on Facebook and other media should drive a larger group of patients.
DAY 1 June 7, 2022
The Dallas/Ft Worth airport, shortly before our plane departs for Guatemala.
On arrival, a two-hour van trip to the Mission House in Ciudad Vieja, Guatemala, at the end of a long day. Our meals and overnight accommodations are in a beautiful setting, at the base of three volcanoes, of which one is active. When not sleeping, eating, or showering, we fill bags with OTC medications to hand out as needed by Guatemalans who attend our clinic.
Our Mission Location: the church at Santiago Zamora
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