Arrival in NH

We're back! After a long day we arrived in NH at about 3:30/3:45am.

Miami International Airport was a challenge but we finally got through. There was about an hour delay from the original flying time but overall, that wasn't bad at all.

-knme

Homeward Bound...

Sorry for the delay in the posting. We've had a whirlwind couple of weeks. Back on June 4th we moved into our "new" home. It was a good move and we're very grateful for all the help we had.

The following week Joy came down with a "slew" of amoebas which wrecked havoc on her -- even to today. She felt awful. We had a very difficult time locating the medicine Joy's OB prescribed for her. Eventually it was found and Joy did start the recovery. Until...

Tuesday, 15 June, Joy was hospitalized with a hemorrhage and clot near the baby. Later we found out that the clot pretty much saved the baby. The Doctor originally said she'd be in the hospital for three days and then bed rest for likely four to five weeks.

Friday, instead of getting on a plane to return to the USA, Joy was having another ultrasound to see if there was any change in the clot. One of our CAG friends, who is a mid-wife, had come to visit and helped to explain the drawing our doctor had left. She thought, however, Joy might be on bed rest for ten to fifteen weeks. None of us was prepared for how God was about to work.

Friday morning the ultrasound showed nothing. No blood. No clot. Nothing -- except a healthy baby. Both the doctor and the sonographer had no idea where the blood and clot went.

A follow up ultrasound on Tuesday showed the same results. At that time we received clearance for Joy to fly (w00t)!

We have tickets for Tuesday which will land us in Boston at 1am Wednesday morning. We will return to Guatemala on Monday, 2 August.

We look forward to seeing all of you next week.

In Christ,

-knme

Now that's some dirt!

These are pictures of our drive home from Chichi today. The drive up was even worse, but they worked all weekend to get things cleared up. In this picture you can tell that the mud was at one point across the whole highway due to the amount that is still in the center median.




Ken took this next picture out the passenger window. That dirt is covering 2 lanes of the four lane highway. We were traveling on the "incorrect" side for this time. No way it had stopped there, it must have been covering the whole thing at one point. This will take some serious time to clean up!
















This picture just shows a small bit of how they are cleaning everything up.













So, can anyone else see the four lanes of the highway? Yeah, we couldn't either. There were other parts of the highway that were just washed away. Overall they did a very good job making the roads passable and keeping us away from any danger. We did still avoid the outside lanes though, because you just never knew when you might turn a corner and run into a small mud slide.

Vista Hermosa Photos

This photo shows the steep grade of the hill on which this village is built. The people who live here are very poor, beyond the comprehension of most North Americans. A comment was apparently made on one of the news channels -"Well, what can they expect if they build their houses in places like that." One might think that, but these people have no choice. Because all of Guatemala's wealth is held by only 40% of the population, the other 60% suffer. It is heartbreaking to see people driving around in Jaguars and BMWs who will do nothing to help their own countrymen.


Standing in Vista Hermosa, amongst the tin shacks, the wealth of the city beyond can be seen at the bottom of the hill. Flat ground with no danger of landslides wiping out the homes.



Inside one of the homes are students from Escuela Integrada. The parents are both working and the young boy at right is in charge of the family for the day. We delivered a bag of food and hygiene staples and then took time to pray over the children. They had a lot of water in their home after the storm, but no mud thanks to a new roof that was put on by a missions team.


The father of this home, like so many here, is an alcoholic and often absent from the family.





These pics are of the river that flooded the town with 2-3 feet of water. This is its normal height, or depth, or whatever - so you can see how crazy this storm was. They are trying to repair the river bed as quickly as possible before any more storms hit.

Agua

When using that word as a title I get this image of someone crawling through the desert, desperate for a drink. There are many people here desperate for water right now. We learned through our friends Don and Heather last night (the ones we visit in Chichicastenango - say that three times fast) that the entire town up there is without water due to the storm. Worse than that they have been told it will be two to six MONTHS before they get water again. They have water because they live on the grounds of a hotel with a well. Unfortunately hotel policy is that they can't even share the water with their employees.
Please join us in praying today that the hotel owners will modify their stance in this time of crisis, and for the ministries in the area trying to get water to distribute.

Off to clean the old condo - joy, joy.

Great Pictures

This article has some great pics of what was going on around the country. It was nowhere near this bad where we live.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/a_rough_week_for_guatemala.html

Please take a minute and check them out, and pray for the people that are still digging out.