A team of missioners just returned from its mission to Guatemala. Four people from St. Mark’s parish (including me, the pastor,) along with 12 from other parishes in the Fort Worth Diocese, spent 7 days working in the Carmelite mission in Patzun. While a few of us had been there before, the majority had not.
This was a medical mission and we went to about 6 different villages (on our day off, one doctor and some other team members attended another village) and met with about 150 patients over that time. Many of the complaints were pretty low level problems, muscle aches and pains, sore throats and ear infections but a few always come forward with very serious problems: the beginning of diabetes, high blood pressure, a heart condition and the like. These are the more challenging problems since they are much more difficult to treat and follow-up on. Paula, a local indigenous woman, does follow up on the patients who are on blood pressure medications or diabetes treatment but her supplies of medicine are limited as is her medical training. I admire her commitment and willingness to try.
Guatemala is a beautiful but very poor country. (You can read more about it on the other page of this blog.) We had a very elderly woman come to the clinic with her own complaints but then said that her daughter had not gotten out of bed for 2 weeks and was very sick. A doctor, a translator and I agreed to visit her. Very poor people. The two women lived in two mud huts with a dirt floor. The sick woman met us at the door but then went back to bed. The doctor attended to her while I waited outside. As I was standing there talking with the local catechist, a man came carrying a heavy load of corn on his back. He looked desperately poor, wearing only rags. He dropped the bag of corn next to the house (he actually fell to the ground with the corn on his back) and then said something incomprehensible. The catechist told me that he cannot speak but that his name was Pedro. He called his name and he left. The catechist told me that the man had nowhere to live but stayed here with the two women, presumably helping them by gathering food from the garden. He was a startling sight for me.
We had a fun day in Santiago-Attitlan, Guatemala. It is more of a tourist town with a beautiful church, gorgeous view of the lake and a nice restaurant owned by an American couple. After a nice lunch (taquitos for me) we did some shopping for souvenirs.
We also visited the church where
Fr. Stanley Rother, a missionary from Oklahoma, was shot to death in 1981. He dedicated his life to the indigenous people of Guatemala.
Fr. Tim
Photos by Bill Bufkins.
Posts
