Midwives and a SPECIAL PATIENT

Good Evening Friends and family,

The Clinic is always busy.  More sick, more Poor with acute illnesses and less funds to help them.

One very special patient and her two young children come often to our clinic. Isabela, the Mom, is an epileptic whom we provide her medications.  She has several scars from falls and burns. She has two young children.  Their home is extremely poor and rarely is their food visible in the outdoor kitchen. Her husband is an alcoholic.  Isabela is in her ninth month of pregnancy. We have tried to convince her to go to the hospital to give birth but we know this will not happen.  I have become acquainted with her midwife and often visit and bring some food for her and the children.  I have gotten the infants clothes ready for birth and have seen the midwife materials for receiving the baby.  Manuela, the midwife, is visiting Isabela now every two days and her birth date nears.  She has at times slept in the home, even though Isabela is not yet with birth pains. Manuela is in her sixties and has been delivering babies in the area for the last 22 years. She lives about a fifteen minute walk from Isabela's home.

If you are following Facebook of the Clinica Maxeña, you are aware that Isabela did concede to go to Hospital for delivery of her baby.  She had a six pound baby boy, by Cesarean dilivery.  She is now back in the clinic and her two small children are accompanying her and enjoying their new baby brother, Diego.  A good ending makes all very well and all content.

Her living conditions of her home leave much to be desired. We hope to improve this situation when campus ministry students come in the Spring.  Stay tuned. Thank you for prayers and donations for our work in Health with Mayan population of this mountainous area.

Vacation Time

Good Morning!                                                                                July 27, 2013


I am leaving in a few days for MONTANA.  I am excited to be with my family, rest, but also to promote our Parish Clinic and Mission.  I will sell Guatemala Weavings and also beaded jewelry made here.  There are many more Poor and Sick and their financial resources just do not exist to pay for Medical Care.  The Failure of the Coffee Harvest has brought HUNGER to our Mission Area.

The night Clinic guards  begins to give out 25 numbers to see our Doctor at 6am.  Many mornings within a half hour, there are no numbers.  Two Auxiliary Nurses also triage patients, examine routine symptoms and treat, and attend the Emergency Room, do treatments, injections and IV infusions.

We now have a Sustainable Agricultural Team to look for solutions to HUNGER.  Part of the problem is many years ago field workers began not to plant corn and beans in their small plots but the cash crop of coffee.  When the coffee crop failed because of a fungus they were left with unemployment, no money, more illness.  There is less land available.

                                                                                              August 16, 2013

It is now a few weeks since I began this article. In just a few days I will be on my way back HOME to Guatemala.  It has been a joyous journey,  though exhausting. Our clinic is in need of donations and interest in MISSIONS is waning. This reality is for many reasons. Organizations in Europe are also experiencing a decrease in donations. The greatest need in our area is an answer to HUNGER and failure of crops. This reality has also caused more illness and greater call for free HEALTH CARE.

Selling beautiful Guatemalan weavings is profitable. Beaded jewelry also brings in extra cash.  I hope to send some beaded ornaments and a few other jewelry items for Christmas sales in our parishes, to continue this endeavor.

PLEASE CHECK CLINICA MAXEÑA FACEBOOK FOR MORE INFORMATION.

. THANK YOU FOR HELPING US HELP THE POOR IN OUR CLINIC.

50 YEARS OF MISSION!!

The 50th Anniversary of the Mission of the Diocese of Helena, MT. is to be celebrated on February 8, 2014.  It does not seem possible.  I was blessed to be one of the first missionaries, arriving as a lay Missionary in 1966.  I witnessed the construction of the buildings, the planting of the trees, the beginning of the Coffee Cooperative,  the beginnings of our Health Program, all part of our mission today.

There were many foriegn missionaries of the Catholic Church in the sixties.  Schools and clinics were built. We celebrated together on holidays.  We visited each others projects and shared ideas and faith.
Times changed. Most of the mission are now run by local Guatemalans. Spanish is the language most spoken and holidays now celebrated with local customs.  Many missionaries,  volunteers, visitors, friends, contributed time and talent to develop different aspects of our mission programs.  Most important donors and friends, family, and our Diocesean Mission office and parishes  contributed to make work and progress possible through donation and prayer.

The people are still very poor.  Injustice is as common as it was almost 50 years ago. Education is more available to both girls and boys and the majority of children finish primary school in public schools.
Fr Jim Hazelton contributed immensely to the reality to education in the area of our mission.  He initiated primary schools in most of the communities, where no primary local schools previously existed.  He established two successful junior and senior high schools, in Santa Maria Visitacion and Asuncion in Xejuyup, Nahuala, Solola.

The armed struggle, which terminated in a peace accord in 1996, was accredited much to Cardinal Quedzada Torruno. THERE are MORE MEDICAL CENTERS OF HEALTH of the government present in the rural area but there are NO MEDICINES!  Narcotraffic, Extorsion, Gold Mines and Hidroelectric plants are the reality of exploitation of the poor and their lands in the present reality. THE POOR ARE MORE POOR!  The violence continues. PRAY FOR US!

THE CHURCH IS VERY PRESENT!! ACCOMPANY US WITH PRAYER AND DONATION.

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TALENTED, COMMITTED WORKERS MULTIPLY RESULTS OF WEEKS ACCOMPLISHMENT!

This past week has been busy.  Many patients passed consult with our Doctor.  Preparations of wood for clinic roof has begun as more wood is ordered and brought to the Mission Property in large town trucks.  Workshop and area of Maintenance is cleaned and secured for wood arrival.

The Day of the WORKER is celebrated in our "BUEN VIVIR" Booth on MAY 1st.  Juana and Metchas, Clinic Cooks, rise early to prepare Tamalitos of the Plant Izote, which grows on our Mission Property.  Miguel Guarchaj, experienced WORKER in Sustainable Agriculture, welcomes patients to listen to Health advice, with a loud speaker, from the Buen Vivir Booth. Tamalitos quickly disappear at 2 quetzales each. Workers come out to relax for a few minutes and also enjoy tamalitos and organic coffee.  Diego Tunay brings Bamboo Baskets to the Booth to advertise them and market them.
He is a young, unemployed, Insulin dependent Diabetic, known well by the Clinica Maxeña.

A week later.

Saturday, Diego Tunay traveled with myself, and Cirilo to Panajachel.  We left him with a friend who has a beaded jewelry shop and who had agreed to teach some jewelry making to Diego. Diego was eager and quick to learn.  He was delighted as he made two rings and a necklace.  They invited him to return so to learn bracelets and other items.  Meanwhile myself and Cirilo visited the sidewalk shops and bought many beautiful Mayan craft items for my scheduled visit to my home in Montana.  I hope to be able to sell some Guatemala weavings and jewelry, hopefully at the Irish Festival in Butte, Montana on August 9, 10, and 11th.

Today six field workers left for a course at IMAP, three of them clinic workers.  IMAP is the Institute of Permaculture whose focus is sharing knowledge of Mayan Ancestral customs and organic sustainable gardening.  The Clinica Maxeña's Sustainable Agriculture team hopes to form a local Association to expand and share their knowledge with local farmers, from different communities, to work together in solidarity, to improve their lives and grow local herbs, and vegetables.  Todays course is on diversification in planting and will focus on corn fields.  The cost of the course is twelve dollars per individual; the clinic is paying the inscription for all who went with the clinic team.

Today, myself and Cirilo, the accountant, and the clinic kitchen crew will plan for the visit of Pastoral Ministry Students, from Carroll College, in Helena, Montana to our Mission; 16 students will arrive on May 13th for 8 days.

At dawn our 18 year old patient, Magdalena, left by the town ambulance, accompanied by Chico, a clinic worker, for re consult following chemotherapy.  She has a severe advanced Lymphoma on her face, covering one eye. Please remember her in PRAYER.

HAVE A GOOD WEEK!  GREETINGS FROM THE CLINICA MAXEÑA.

FOLLOW UPDATES ON FACEBOOK OF THE CLINICA MAXEÑA.  THANKS.

Sheila McShane
Director
Clinica Maxeña