Hello Everyone from Guatemala,
I am sorry I have not sent a News Letter out for quite some time but there is so much going on here I really have not had time to think let
alone write, but today I wanted to just touch base with you and let you know what is going on here in our part of the world. I realized from
some of my e-mail that I never finished the saga of the well and wanted to let you all know what happened.
As you know, we dug down 100 ft by hand, where a man would go down on a rope and with a small pick and shovel send up 5 gallon buckets of dirt
at a time. After 6 months of this I finally had to acknowledge that we just were not going to hit water and we needed to do something else. So
I hired a well driller from a town about 2 hours away and he came with a small portable rig. He said he could go down 200 feet. He and his crew
lived here and drilled all day and half the night for 2 months. They drilled a total of 3 wells and each time ran into problems with their equipment
or rock that they could not get through with that small rig. Finally the owner came to me very sad and said,
"Bryan I am sorry but we just cannot get water for you."
A small mission team from Charlotte had been here and the team leader knew a pastor in Guatemala City that owned a well drilling rig. He had a big
truck and said it was $20,000.00 US dollars but he would do it for half since I was a missionary. Through some Christian business folks in the states
like Eddie Wooden and Bob and Sherry Gordon and Jimmy and Robin Mc Cullen they raised the money for me to get this well drilled. They were here for
about 2 months also but went down 300 feet and put in steel casing and "Praise the Lord" hit WATER!. So now we can fill our cistern with clean fresh
well water and not have to worry when teams come that they can't take a shower. So thank you to everyone who contributed and thank you for all of
your prayers that we would hit water.
In between teams I am still getting more and more of an emergency patient load here in the Emergency room. Last night I had 5 trauma patients at once
and they were not all from the same accident. A mother and daughter walking down the road were hit by a car that just took off and left them. I had
to call my nurse in so I could sew the mothers scalp back together while my nurse sewed the 8 y/o girls face up. Then the ambulance brought two more
patients that were in a motorcycle accident and they were a mess. Then the police showed up with a young woman who had been pistol whipped by her
husband and was scared to death. Thankfully my nurse is also in her third year of
psychology and could help her. Then a 3 year old boy from so far
away you could not believe had muscle spasms like I have never seen before. I had to send him to the hospital to see a specialist. I just hope they
had one. So when I went to bed I said, "Lord, I really need that hospital".
There is good news I want to share with you. Last Monday night I met with 5 couples from Guatemala City. They are very successful business people
but most importantly they have good hearts and want to help the people of their own country. They are now forming a board of directors for
Junglemedic Missions and also forming a foundation. They are very interested in helping me and also in building a hospital for this area. So I am
thrilled at the way the Lord is putting things together.
I am sorry I have no new pictures this time but my camera broke and I am like a blind man with the camera. So I will try and have it fixed soon so I can
send some pictures next time.
The last thing I want to tell you is that I am now working with an organization called Helps International who brings in team of surgeons and does
all kinds of surgeries. We may be able to take Rodrigo to these teams of surgeons here in Guatemala every two or three months instead of having to
take him to the States. We have been trying to get him to the States for months and months now but the hospitals just will not help us. So pray we
can get him help here. Also I want to report something very strange to you. You may remember an 11 year old boy named Daniel. His liver is not
working and he was not a candidate for transplant surgery. So all we could do was put him on water pills for the fluid build up and pray. Well
I went to his village the other day to do a clinic and went up to his home and asked his mother if Daniel was still alive. She said,
"Yes". I said,
"Where is he?" She said, "Out playing with the other boys!" When I saw how much his stomach as gone down and how healthy he was all I could do was
thank the Lord. I don't know if he is totally healed or what but I do know he should have been dead by now and he is alive and well, so keep praying
for Daniel, OK? I’ll keep you posted.
OK, have to run but you all take care and Thanks for everything.
God Bless,
In His Service,
Bryan
Junglemedic Missions
Rio Dulce, Izabal
Guatemala Central America
E-Mail: Bryan@JungleMedicMissions.org
Web Site: http://www.junglemedicmissions.org/
This page was last updated 05/19/08
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