Hello everyone from Guatemala.

Please keep us in your prayers as it is 87 degrees today and we all got sun burned yesterday. I don't know what it is like where you are but this heat is unbearable here but we feel like it is just a part of the sacrifice we must make. (OK now that you are calling me names). I'm just having some fun at your expense. We lived in Maine for 18 years where it gets so cold your mustache freezes when you breathe so I am just having some fun with my Northern friends.

OK, let me share some things with you. As you may know, I have a small emergency room and take care of the trauma and emergencies, delivery of babies etc. You honestly would not believe some the things we see here. Yesterday I had to cut the rest of mans finger and bone off with a pair of Paramedic Shears; (tough scissors) then sew what was left back together. His hand was wrapped around a rope and his horse took off tearing his finger off.

But those are not the ones that bother me. The ones that tear my heart out is when I have a patient with a sever fracture or burn patient or a mother who needed to deliver her baby 5 hours ago but could not get off the mountain. By the time I get her she needed to be in an operating room hours ago and now she needs to ride in the back of a pick up truck for 1½ hours. Sometimes she lives and sometimes she dies.

Do you know what it is like to have people that trust that you will save their life when they don't have any money or any where to go, and have a husband look you in the eye with a tear running down his cheek and ask you if his wife will live to get to the hospital and you have to clinch your jaw and hang your head and say I will pray she does. Then try and go back to bed and wonder all night long if she lived or died. I go to bed and put my face in the pillow and cry out God I need a hospital!

Well it's time! With Gods help, I am going to build a hospital. We need a hospital with an Emergency Room, an Operation Room, a Recovery Room, an X-ray Room, a 5 bed ward and a laboratory and a resident living area for staff. Here is what has happened to me in the last 3 months.

1. A group of Guatemalan families from Guatemala City who are connected with contacts in the government have sought me out to say they want to help me when I build a hospital. One is the former First Lady.

2. Then a company in the States contacts me and offers me a very expensive medical video camera system to communicate directly with hospitals in the States and Guatemala City directly with doctors and specialist.

3. Then the most prestigious private university teaching hospital in Guatemala says they want to help me in any way they can and send doctors down to help me with the hospital.

4. Then I have a medical school from Southern California contact me about sending resident med students and resident nurses down for 10 month rotations for free to learn and help in staffing my facility and work here in the jungle.

5. I honestly am overwhelmed with people wanting to help me! It is a good problem to have huh?

So this week I begin looking for a piece of land that I can afford. I have a few places in mind that would be perfect. So just keep us in your prayers that we will do His will and not ours. It is so easy for me to get excited and jump on a project and think I can do anything, but I have learned to wait on His guidance, because where is guides He provides, huh?

Firefighters

Last night was my first official class for the firemen to teach them to be EMT’s. (Emergency Medical Technicians). They are so excited and on fire to learn. (No pun intended). They all want to help and volunteer in the hospital.

Well

On another note. We are now back working on the original hand dug well and start drilling with a machine tomorrow. We really need water; we are almost out in our cistern and no more rain for months. So we need water.

Riechelle is getting excited about coming to the States. Everyone is writing and saying OH we want her to speak and take her out to get her hair done and a manicure and oh we love Riechelle. What the heck am I chopped liver here? No one is saying hey Bryan we are sad you are not coming; they are all saying OH great Riechelle is coming. I am going to just go eat a can of worms in the corner all by myself.

Seriously, I know you love me. (Right?) Don't answer that. I'm afraid to know the truth. But seriously, she needs to see our son and grand daughter and get pampered a little bit. You really cannot believe how hard she works down here. She deserves a break so if you see her there in the States please pamper her a little and then reminder her that I am down here watching the kids and doing clinics and hosting teams and take emergencies while she is living the life of Riley.

While she is gone I am going to have that father / daughter talk with Gaby and explain how to shoot any boy who looks at her with a 12 gauge shot gun, in Christian love of course. She is not dating yet and does not even wear make up yet but I think it is better to lay down the law while she is still 13 years old. I am setting up 5 rules for a boy to date my daughter.

1. She cannot date until she is 40 and only then double date with her mother and I.

2. While it is fashionable now days for boys to wear pants 20 times bigger than their size and show their underwear, if they come to my door like that I will promptly fasten their pants with my electric staple gun.

3. They are not allowed to take her anywhere there is dancing, holding of hands or laughing or happiness of any kind.

4. No movies with a romantic theme. Chain saw movies are OK.

5. If you fidget or mumble while Gaby is getting ready and are not patient you should not be dating. My daughter takes longer to get ready than it takes to paint the Golden Gate Bridge so while you are waiting you can do something constructive and change the oil in my bus.

Riechelle said "Why are you going to be so strict on these young men? You were young once"  I said, "That is exactly why I am making these rules." OK, Remember we have never had girls before so I am learning. Just pray for me, OK?

God Bless,
In His Service,

Bryan & Riechelle and Kids

Foot Note: Riechelle does not approve of this news letter and said it is not authorized by her or any of her supporters.

Junglemedic Missions
Rio Dulce, Izabal
Guatemala Central America

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

 This page was last updated 03/20/08

Copyright © 2004 Jungle Medic Missions. All rights reserved