7 October 2014
We are now on break from clinics for a week. We have traveled to Quiché, which is where we lived for part of our time here beginning in 2009. Not much has changed with the town. Very tight streets. No sidewalks. People walking in the streets. Can’t see around the corners. Big trucks in small spaces. Our main plan for the week is to visit some old friends around the area before heading back to Canillá.
Many clinic days have a gastritis and body pain theme. Some have a sick baby theme. Saturday’s clinic had a mental/emotional/spiritual health theme. I took the picture below because the little boy was pulling at my camera case. I figured this gave me permission to take his picture.
First I saw the mom (to the left of the boy). The best I could gather from my Quiché—Spanish interpreter (to the far left), she was complaining of feeling nervous all of the time. She didn’t sleep well. She had pain all over. And felt pain in her chest at times as if there were something wrong with her heart. It is often impossible to nail down a timeframe but this began about 8 months ago when she would have been pregnant with the little boy. However, she attributes it to the gall bladder surgery she had about 2 years ago even though her symptoms didn’t start for another year and a half. Two culture points that I have gathered through experience: 1. Most Mayans don’t have a linear sense of time like Americans, 2. Everything needs to be blamed on something (which rarely is the actual cause), and 3. Surgery or a severe illness drains the body from vitamins that need to be replaced—even years later. So as often happens, I had no idea what if anything was going on. Social, emotional, psychological, psychiatric, physical, spiritual, or a big mix. I ended up giving her some Tylenol for her pains, Benadryl (the strongest sedative we have) for her nerves and insomnia, and some vitamins.
Her daughter (who was holding the little boy) was next. For whatever reason the father, mother, and the baby left when it was the daughter’s turn. She again through my Quiché—Spanish translate began to say that she to gets nervous at times. But only when something frightening happens like an altercation or someone yelling. “O.K.,” I thought, “this is normal.” She had some other soft symptoms and I cannot honestly remember what medicine I gave her. She left and shortly after, the mom returned with the baby who they had not originally was sick enough to buy a number for ($1.30). Apparently, they liked my treatment and wanted something for him, too.
As you can see, there are many barriers to communication for the patients we see: language, cultural beliefs, ideas of truth, and many others. Due to these, it is often difficult to get to a deeper level. The interpreters help a lot but we will never understand each other deeply in this life. Yet the amazing thing is that truth of the gospel has reached so many of different groups of Mayans. Many who do not have the Bible in their language receive the story of Jesus and are saved. Many Mayan pastors and believers share with their neighbors and pray for them in their language and the Word goes forth.
Before this Saturday clinic, I shared a brief message in Spanish focusing on the debt that we carry to God due to our sins and the fact that Jesus paid this debt (Romans 6:23) and we we can receive forgiveness for our sins through Him. And we sang a couple of songs in Spanish. I don’t know how many people were listening or could even understand Spanish, but I pray that God will use it and by whatever means that He will bring people to Him and sanctify them through and through.