Holy Week Approaches

Friends and family,

I have not sat to write much of happenings about us. We are very busy with patients. They seem to plan the day. Our sustainable agriculture project is progressing about us. Some of our workers are doing a lot on their own time. Yesterday one of workers left work to go home and deliver ten little piggies. A few others also have pigs, chickens, and corn fields and vegetables to help supplement their own incomes. They help set good example for neighbors and friends. Five workers formed an association and high up in the mountains they have vegetables, herbs, corn and today were to plant some fish in a pond they have created. In our own Mission grounds last week mothers of malnourished children attended class and worked in the garden, planting radishes and cauliflower.

Yesterday was Palm sunday and the beginning of Holy Week. Processions are every day now with the stations during Holy Week. A beautiful dramatization of the passion and crucifixion happens in towns all throughout the country.

It is raining early which helps our harvest of our garden. We will put a booth up near our Clinic during the Eye Brigade surgeries and sell our nutritious drink and other snacks. We will make tortillas on an ONIL STOVE and promote the stove and raffle two. We are also donating them to poor widows and will also be gifting them through our Nutrition program. We hope also to sell patties of a local herb between two tortillas and chat with the public of the importance of organic vegetables and sustainable agriculture. We have signed up over fifty patients daily from surrounding communities for our Eye Brigade team from Montana and California.

Thank You for your presence in our Lives and HAPPY EASTER!

I attach a few photos; one of the procession in town on Palm Sunday; the mothers of malnourished children planting veggies, and our own Pharmacist promoter after delivering his ten piggies. He also had a baby daughter last week so he is a happy man. We all have many blessings in our lives.

Love Sheila and all, from the Clinica Maxeña.

CoCo also sends greetings for Easter.

Love Sheila

A new spot in the Clinic

Friends and Family,

Since beginning of year I moved my desk to an available space on the first floor to be closer to the action. We are very busy and being closer it is easier to be of greater assist. As we have shared, we had to decrease our staff, due to decrease in donations and increase in poverty.

Just this week we have seen some sad cases and have been able to assist. A malnourished infant, with cleft lip and palate, who has to gain weight prior to surgery; a young man disabled from childhood, fell, fractured his hip; we donated a wheel chair for his recovery. Esmeralda, a mom with teen age children and thyroid cancer; she requires all her dental caries cared for before radiation can begin. We have set up a dental exam at another Mission Dental Clinic for her. Micaela had another eye operation this week that could not be done during the Eye Surgeries by our team from Montana. Her husband faithfully worked in our garden, in gratitude for the surgeries, since he could not pay us. Our doctor Ever visited a patient we sent to the hospital, last week, following a fall where his intestines were ruptured and he has a compound fracture in his femur. He is not coping well in the hospital, yet he has a long recovery and hospitalization ahead of him. We hope to visit him often and monitor his healing.

We are not sure how we do it, but with God's help and yours, we do meet each days needs, as completely as possible. Thank You for journeying with us and we hope you can continue to donate to our cause. Donate at: http://catalog.diocesehelena.org/Guatemala-Mission-c10

Thank You! remember to note for the Clinica Maxeña

Back Home in Guatemala

Friends and Family,

Greetings from Guatemala and from the Clinic. I recently returned from a journey to Seattle and to our Diocese in Helena Montana. I have been off line a bit. Life is busy in the clinic with reduced staff for financial reasons, my journey, and the reality I have been posting on our page on Facebook as rapid. Life goes on here for us with much illness, poverty, but also faith and joy of the people we serve. We are enriched to be part of their lives.

We are preparing for the Eye surgeries in April after Holy Week; our nutrition project, sustainable agriculture and Diabetic Club continue, so we are busy. On Easter Sunday a team of

11 will arrive at the Clinic for eye surgeries. The team leader is Dr. Joe Kupko from Victor, Montana. Joe built the Operating room for eye surgeries almost 20 years ago in the Clinica Maxeña. His wife Diane will accompany him. The Clinic staff will dawn new royal blue shirts to begin the Easter celebration.

Holy Week here and Lent is also very busy time for the parish and for the people of the community. Each Friday there is a procession of prayer and preparation for the suffering, death of our Lord Jesus and his glorious Resurrection.

Thank You for being a part of our Lives in Mission. Please pray for the people in their sufferings of poverty, hunger, and illness. We are most richly blessed. Thank You!