July 28, 2023
I’m so sorry this update took me so long to send out. The day after we got back from Guatemala, we had to fly to Wyoming for Sung’s work conference. After we got back home, it was a flurry of activity getting caught up with regular life, and then two family members had surgery last week!
There is so much to share, but I’m going to focus on highlights of our trip. We were profoundly blessed as a family to have the chance to go to Guatemala again this summer, and thank you all SO much for your prayers and your support!
Arrival:
Unlike last year, when we stepped on Guatemalan soil for the first time and did not know what to expect, this time it was like we were coming back to a familiar place and visiting old friends. Our 3 ½ hour flight was smooth, and we got settled into the ministry center of Medical Missions Ministries (MMM) near Guatemala City. However, the one big hiccup, as I mentioned briefly in my update, was that one of the 5 families never made it on our flight, as the wife suddenly started to pass a kidney stone and had excruciating pain on the way to the airport. So instead, they had to go straight to the ER. But as word began to spread of their situation, people began to pray, even that the stone would pass quickly and that they’d somehow be able to join our team. Kidney stones normally take weeks to pass, but miraculously hers passed within a day, and she was much better by the next day! So flights for their family of 4 were rebooked, and after another delay from a storm, causing them to have to spend the night in Miami, they finally arrived 3 days later. The experience taught us to value each member of our team and not take them for granted, made us more dependent upon God in prayer, and challenged us to trust Him even when things start to go south.
For the rest of the team, the day after we arrived, we worshipped in Antigua at a branch of Vida Real, a church that partners with MMM. There we experienced very spirit-filled worship and solid Biblical teaching. Last summer, people still seemed leery of strangers in the midst of the pandemic, but this time we were warmly welcomed into this vibrant church.
Our Team:
Before the trip, our family was honestly hesitant and uncertain about how well we would gel together. Since our good friends, the Tai’s, the original team leaders, had to drop out last minute due to a family death, we no longer knew anyone well. It seemed like we were a mishmash of people from different backgrounds. However, much to our surprise and delight, God enabled our team to bond quickly and strongly. There was honest and vulnerable sharing between the adults, in addition to much mutual encouragement and willingness to serve and be flexible. They made it a joy for Sung and me to be the team leaders. The children spent the evenings after our team debrief times playing basketball, cards, and various other “regular kid” games, with complete freedom from electronics. I think they were surprised how working together in Christ’s name helped them quickly overcome any outward differences, shyness, and assumptions. During our evening team meetings, we were challenged and encouraged by each other’s testimonies from the day, and the Lord was teaching us how to pray corporately. We prayed according to the ACTS format that I learned from Moms in Prayer (A-Adoration, C-confession (silent), T-Thanksgiving, and S-Supplication). At the end of the week, we closed with prayer with just our families, which was very healing and encouraging for our family, in particular. God drew close to us during these times, both individually and as a body of Christ. Several times, I felt like this was a small taste of heaven, when people from many different backgrounds would be fellowshipping in joy and harmony and worshipping God together!
We recently had a team reunion pool party and plan to keep on meeting regularly as a team throughout the year.
The Clinics:
The next day Monday, we began holding medical clinics. As with last year, a highlight of the trip was the daily devotions that Dr. Hermann gave each morning before we went out to the villages. As he helped us dig into God’s Word, we came away with pearls of wisdom. One that particularly struck me was when he pointed out that when a tree produces fruit, it is never for itself, but for others.
We began to see the truth of this statement when we saw how the doctors and staff of MMM served patients in clinics for the rest of the week. Each day we traveled to a different rural village to hold medical clinics at churches with which MMM partners. One village was in the lowlands in a malaria-endemic area, and the other three were in the mountains. Just as we experienced last year, each village seemed desperately poor, with tiny homes made of concrete blocks and sheet metal, no running water or indoor plumbing, torn-up dirt roads, and villagers who appeared very stunted in their growth. When driving to one village, our caravan of cars traveled round and round on the very bumpy, winding roads of the steep mountainside, as we navigated blocked roads and wrong turns. I was concerned we’d either break down, have a flat tire, or fall off a cliff. But the Lord was protecting and guiding us, and we finally made it there. Most of our team, including Elizabeth, were very prone to car sickness, but thankfully no one got that sick on any of the rides.
I (Linda) got to work in the clinic to see pediatric patients on 2 of the days, alongside the 3 main MMM doctors (Hermann, Hector, and Mario), in addition to 3 newly trained doctors who were just about to begin their residencies. As a specialist, Sung did not work in the clinics but was available for neurology consults and mostly worked in the sharing stations and pharmacy. Joshua, Caleb and Elizabeth rotated between working with the children’s ministry, pharmacy, dental clinic, sharing stations and serving as a runner. When working in the clinics, I saw patients with diseases related to unclean water (which was very difficult to access for most), growth concerns, respiratory infections, and the like. Amongst the adults, they also suffered from problems such as diabetes and high blood pressure, and free medicines were administered to treat these various conditions.
The children’s vitamins were a huge blessing! The team from Perimeter Church that was there right before us also brought some with them, and I learned that the very last bag of chewable vitamins went to the last child on the last day of their last clinic. For our week, too, we may have had only a handful of leftover bags of chewable vitamins after the last child was seen. God had provided just enough! The infant vitamin drops were also very useful and a small leftover supply was saved by the ministry, as it is rare to have ones like these with iron in them.
Access to medical care is so scarce amongst the poor in Guatemala, and so these churches often showed their appreciation for these free clinics by pooling together precious resources to cook us a delicious and exorbitant meal, usually a chicken and vegetable stew and rice. Even though we would normally want them save the food for themselves, we were told refusing it would be extremely offensive. So we gratefully accepted, as they served us with warm smiles.
After the patients saw the doctors, they went to sharing stations while their medicines were being prepared. I got to be in these stations twice during the week. We spent time getting to know the patients, asked them how we could pray for them, and shared the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I saw both in my station and in others nearby, sometimes faces with curiosity and yet hesitation at what was being shared, other times deep grief and flowing tears, and sometimes what appeared to be gratitude, relief, and joy during the times of sharing and prayer.
I wanted to highlight especially the last day of clinic when I was in a sharing station. One little girl who was 10 years old, if I remember correctly, came to us with her little brother (about 7) and her cousin (about 9). She said her mother had wanted to come but was too sick with abdominal pain and a toothache, so she sent her kids instead. With my memory not being so great anymore, I can’t recall her name. But I will never forget the intensity on her face, as she listened to me and my translator, Gabriela. We got to know them a little, and then Gabriela decided to ask the little girl if she knew Jesus, and she said yes. Then I asked the question, “If you were to die tonight, do you think you could go to heaven?” But Gabriela wisely changed it to “Who do you think in the whole world can go to heaven?” And the little girl answered that anyone who is good and is kind, and the like. This led to an opportunity to share the gospel – that God is holy and perfect, but we are all sinners. So no matter how much we try to be good, it will never be good enough to get us into heaven, and we all deserve to be punished and separated from him forever. But Jesus, who was God, came to take our punishment by dying on the cross for us, so that whoever believes in him will be forever forgiven of their sins and can go to heaven. I then shared John 3:16 and asked if she had ever heard it before, and she, her brother, and her cousin all said no, which stunned me, as it seems like many in the US have heard this verse before many times, no matter what their religious background.
Then Gabriela talked with them for a bit and said they were ready. And I said, “Ready for what?” And she said, “To accept Jesus into their hearts!” As I led them into prayer, I was surprised to hear a chorus of kids praying after each sentence, as a few other children had joined as we had started to pray. Even though I was long-winded and not too sure how to pray, they repeated each sentence with strong conviction. Afterwards, we asked if they had a Bible at home, and they said no, so we gave them each a New Testament Bible and marked John 3:16 for them.
When our team had a debrief about our day and I shared what happened, another team member said she also shared John 3:16 with another child that same afternoon. My son then said that as he played with kids outside that day, there was a child who was excitedly showing him John 3:16 in the Bible he had just gotten. We saw that John 3:16 was starting to spread like wildfire amongst the children! How incredibly inspiring it was for us to hear how they received this verse for the first time with such wonder and faith. It seemed that God had planted a seed of the gospel that was quickly sprouting and growing amongst the children in this village.
Later when I thought about what had happened, I realized that the reality is that many of their medical problems and the challenges of living in extreme poverty would probably never be completely solved in their lifetimes. And yet how different are we living in an affluent country? Will we ever completely overcome our problems of doubt, anxiety, despair, confusion, brokenness within ourselves and our families, dissatisfaction, and the list goes on and on? No, we will not. Whether we live in a remote village in rural Guatemala or in an affluent suburb of Atlanta, we are all afflicted with the disease of sin and have no ability to heal ourselves. Only if we have placed our full trust in Jesus Christ, can we find forgiveness and the eternal hope of salvation, which nothing can take away and has a value infinitely more than anything else in life. As John 3:16 says, \"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Prayer and Miracles:
There were 2 distinct instances of amazing answers of prayer that I wanted to share:
One of our team members shared her testimony of past addiction and deliverance when she came to know the Lord, and it really inspired our team, especially my boys. God was clearly using her in the sharing stations too. For instance, when she shared her testimony with one patient, the translator then suddenly said she also had a history of addiction, which then made the patient start to cry and share her struggle with addiction and falling away from God and the church. During their time of honest sharing and prayer, God allowed there to be much healing and restoration for this woman.
After a couple of days like this for our team member, she then started to experience an intractable and severe headache in the middle of the night. She took 2 large doses of Tylenol and hydrated aggressively, but nothing seemed to touch it. For clinic that day, some last minute seat rearrangements were made and she ended up riding miserably in the front seat with Dr. Hermann, along with myself, Sung, Elizabeth, and a few others from our team. When Hermann heard about her headache, he started to pray for her and asked others to pray. Hermann is very persistent in prayer and has seen many miraculous healings in almost 3 decades of ministry. So what ensued was about 12 more prayers, with requests ranging from physical healing of her headache to spiritual healing of past hurts. After his last prayer, she suddenly exclaimed, “The pain is gone!” Her severe, intractable headache was instantly healed, and she began to cry, along with everyone else in the van. Hermann didn’t know her almost at all, but she said that he prayed things that no one else knew and that she had only prayed silently to God about. We know that things like this don’t happen often and were all astounded and humbled by this miracle, which we believed was an inspiration for us to learn about prayer.
Another amazing thing that happened involved the vitamins that Joshua has been raising money for. We already had the infant drops shipped to us. However, the chewable children’s vitamins were on backorder, and so we had to buy more expensive ones from Walmart, which wasn’t ideal. Then during our trip, we were so disappointed to learn that they were still on backorder, which wasn’t expected. This disappointment was compounded greatly while we were in Wyoming, when we learned they would remain on backorder indefinitely, which meant for the rest of the summer clinics, we wouldn’t be able to provide chewable vitamins. These were a draw for the clinics and such a blessing for a great need, as most children in these villages were malnourished. The representative from the ministry that provides the vitamins wholesale, Blessings, let me know over the phone that they wouldn’t have time to even call me with an update, as they were so busy with other orders, including from other churches who had been waiting for these vitamins, like we were. Apparently, the main hold up was that there was manufacturer’s paperwork that was being withheld for some reason for the past month or so, and they had been unsuccessful getting the paperwork approved despite many attempts.
I had to break the news to Joshua, who seemed devastated. But then a few minutes later, we said we needed to pray, as we had learned so much about prayer while in Guatemala. As Sung was at his conference, the four of us got down on our knees and prayed very specifically that the paperwork would get released and the vitamins would be able to be sent to us quickly. We actually needed to get the vitamins ordered and shipped in the next 2 days, in order for them to get to Perimeter Church in time for 2 large groups from Georgia to receive them and distribute them amongst their team’s luggage. It is very hard to get any kind of medicines or vitamins to Guatemala now, and so the best way is for each person to carry a few in their luggage to avoid confiscation. If the vitamins didn’t get shipped out out very soon, then we wouldn’t be able to supply enough vitamins for the rest of the summer clinics.
The children prayed with conviction for the vitamins to be released right away, for whatever was holding it up to be removed, and that no matter whatever happened, that they would see God in it. Well, we finished praying and started to go about our day, but then 5 minutes later, the representative from Blessings called me and asked me to sit down, because I wouldn’t believe what she was going to tell me. First of all, I was stunned that she even called, as she just said she wouldn’t have time to. After I sat down, she announced that the paperwork was just released, after being on hold for over a month, and the vitamins would be shipped out the next day! I started to cry and told her how we prayed, and she said goosebumps rose up everywhere on her. We rejoiced that God had clearly answered our prayers! After I got off the phone, I told the children, and they were so filled with joy and gratitude. This miracle again deeply humbled us and boosted our faith in our God, who works in mysterious ways and for whom nothing is impossible.
My Mom:
I shared in my previous update that I received my mom’s breast cancer diagnosis the day before we flew to Guatemala, and I let her know the news that night. While we were in WY, I found out that the cancer did not appear to have spread and can hopefully be removed by lumpectomy (versus mastectomy). In addition, her cancer is responsive to hormones, which make it more treatable, so she will start on hormone-receptor blocking drugs with an oncologist after the surgery.
*I am now finishing this update a week after the surgery, and I just heard from the surgeon that it appears they got all of the cancer with the surgery, praise the Lord!
Joshua got his wisdom teeth out the day of my mom’s surgery, which sounds like insanity but was difficult to avoid scheduling-wise and doable only because my sister was here from CA to help. Her help was absolutely critical the day after the surgeries, too, as our basement flooded! Thankfully, we cleaned everything up and everyone is healing well.
Thank you so much for reading through this long update, and again, thank you for your generous prayers and support. Please continue to pray for Medical Ministries Ministries and their faithful work with the poor of rural Guatemala. Please also pray for our family, that God would teach us to live in gratitude for the truth of John 3:16 that he so beautifully and powerfully showed us in Guatemala: that He “so loved the world that he gave his only beloved Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
