Our Guatemalan Children

Hello from Guatemala,

Recently I noticed it was no longer July. So I thought I would send out a new letter. I have to tell you these Guatemalan children God has given us are truly a blessing from heaven. As most of you know our Guatemalan children have no parents. They never knew their fathers and when their mother died four years ago, we took them in for what we thought would be a temporary stay. You may also know that no one in their family had ever gone past the 3rd grade. (I know, if you are from NC this is no big deal to you all.)

Well, thanks to the Lord and some very good folks in the States, Beto and Gaby have been attending a Private Christian School. Today is the last day of school for them and then they are off for 3 months. This is just the way it is here in Central America.

Beto was chosen as one of the 3 top students in his class and so was Gaby. They had the privilege of raising the flag on their independence day at a school ceremony.


Gaby was very happy we came to watch.	Beto is very quite and hey he is a boy.

But we are very proud of their hard work and accomplishments. When I think where they came from you would not believe it. I talked with Gaby the other night and we talked about her mother’s death. She misses her but knows if she had lived they would be living on the streets, with no chance of ever getting an education. They went from living in a rats nest to top students in their class…. Riechelle and I believe God has big plans for these kids.


Beto and Gaby with their proud parents, Tom Cruise and Riechelle Buchanan.

Ok now before you start rolling your eyes and saying Bryan has to wake up some day and just face the fact he is a fat guy, let me say this… I have started walking an hour now every morning. I have lost 10 lbs and feel great…. My BP has gone down and I only have 40 more lbs to go, so keep me in your prayers. I still love to eat, but I am getting there.


African Palm Trees	These are the olives full of oil

We recently had our pastor and a Paramedic friend of our come to visit and we took some time off with them and the family and went to a palm olive farm. Remember the Soap called Palm Olive? Well it is made from the oil extracted from the African Palm.

They make 27 different products from this and one is Bio-Fuel. They think this will be one of the alternative fuels in the future. It is amazing how they harvest the olives. A guy takes a cart drown by a water buffalo into the trees. He cuts the bundle of olives down and then loads them in a cart. Then they load a big container for a truck to take to the processing plant. These water buffalo only know the native Quetchi language, so the men speak to them in Questchi and the buffalo do exactly as they are told. It is amazing to watch.

These water buffalo only know the native Quetchi language, so the men speak to them in Quetchi and the buffalo do exactly as they are told. It is amazing to watch.

The truck takes them to the processing plant where it is literally taken into a pressure cooker that a train goes into.

The train cars go into the long cooking oven and then it is processed into oil from there. The farm houses and feeds 1500 workers of which they feed three meals a day.


This cooker is full of rice and beans	This one is brewing coffee


This machine makes 10,000 tortillas a day. Each worker eats 15 tortillas a day with their meals.

After we went to the farm we then went to one of the owners private farms where he raises over 25,000 Iguanas. These babies are now big enough to eat huh? Oops sorry old habits are hard to change.



This is a male Iguana (No not Riechelle)	This is a wild boar that the owner has as a pet. Looks like a walking smoked ham to me).

While we are at his farm he grew a lot of different plants and fruits. One vegetable that is a root similar to a potato is called Yucca (some countries call it Cassava) Well the top of the plant looks like Marijuana. So I got my pastor (Dave, in the hat ) and my paramedic friend Donald to just stand in the middle.

That night I made up a story about finding them in the chiefs Marijuana patch and sent this picture back to the folks at their church. The bad part is no one at their church thought it was unusual. It was like going into a Waffle House with fake Bubba teeth and no one noticing. Then I remembered they are from North Carolina, way back up in them thar hills……hummmmm. They are two great guys and have a great sense of humor. (but for some reason they had a really good sense of humor when they came out of the patch.) (Just kidding Pastor). You know I pick on the folks from NC because they love it and they pick on me and I love it.

OK, I just got back to my computer (5 hours later and one baby delivered in the back of my pick up truck) unfortunately had complications and the baby did not make it. However I do have some good news to report. Remember the little twin boys that we did not think would make it? Well Look at them now!


Mom and Babies doing fine. Is GOD good or What?

The mother came over to the clinic the other day to show us how well they were doing. Riechelle had to hold them of course.

Then the mother told Riechelle she wanted to name the babies after our two sons. So the babies' names are Luke and Lance. Riechelle started crying but I told the lady she did not know what she was in for. Our son Luke has finished his 4 years in the United States Coast Guard and is now in the Police Academy. He will be a police officer and our other son Lance is in the United States Coast Guard somewhere in the Middle East. Every time he contacts us he is in a different location so we are not sure exactly where he is. So let's hope these two grow up and do something safe, like being a Paramedic / Firefighter or something.

Also many of you may remember me telling you about a man named Aldolpho who had TB and could not work. We started buying his carvings and crafts and letting the teams buy them to support his family. Well I have to confess something to you. I have been calling him Aldolpho since I met him and just found out his name is Alfredo. I said "Why didn't you correct me when I was calling you Aldolpho"? He said, "I didn't want to offend you because you talk like a baby." (OK so my Spanish is not that good and my Quetchie is even worse.) Also my memory is not as good as it used to be and my memory is not as good as it used to be. Did I write this in another news letter? Anyway, he got up at 3:00 am to get in a canoe with his wife and their oldest daughter and her 1 year old son to come up river to our home. It is a 3 hour ride in a canoe. They brought lots of carvings and crafts for me to sell to the teams. So far all of the teams have loved being able to buy gifts to take home that are hand made by a Quetchi Indian man to support his family. It has been a God thing from the beginning.

Alfredo makes everything from the jungle. Even the books and pages are made from paste made from banana leaves. It is awesome and he is so grateful to God for helping him. Also I recently found out that his TB is inactive but he has Cystic Fibrosis in his lungs. You can see how skinny he is. I gave him money for everything he brought and said we have teams coming that will probably want some more of these things. Make more for January. He received more money today than he has ever made in his life. When he left we held each other and thanked the Lord. God is so faithful huh? I can also report to you that Little Jose is doing fine and seems to be getting stronger every day.

I have a couple of prayer request that I would like to ask you to pray for OK? I know when we ask the Lord, He hears us. As many of you know I have a medical bus that we take into the remote villages to do medical work with. But I also have to get there when there are hurricanes, floods mudslides, earthquakes, etc. There are places we have to get to that get muddy and my bus can get stuck and sometimes in storms and hurricanes trees fall across the road, so I really need a winch for this bus and one for our Ambulance/Truck. I am so tired of having to ask Riechelle to get out of the bus and move the tree. (She is next to me rolling her eyes.) Please pray with us that we can get these two items so we can get to the people no one else will go to. Also please keep our family in your prayers for our health. We have both turned 50 this year and so we are very very old now. We are going through some medical changes and we need a 100,000 mile tune up from the Lord. Also please keep our two sons in your prayers. It is not easy sometimes being so far away from them. I know this is the life we have chosen but we still miss our boys.

Alright you guys, I have to get back to work, got a team coming in and have to get ready. Thanks again for all you do and for your prayers, we really appreciate it.

God Bless,
In His Service,

Bryan & Riechelle and Kids

Junglemedic Missions
Rio Dulce, Izabal
Guatemala Central America

E-Mail: Bryan@JungleMedicMissions.org
Web Site: http://www.junglemedicmissions.org/

This page was last updated 11/26/07