Journey to Jalapa

On Wednesday, we left the beautiful El Faro and began our journey to Jalapa, which was supposed to take about 4 hours. Like all our other car rides in Guatemala, the roads were bumpy and recently muddy after all the thunderstorms. Despite all that, we made it through without any difficulties. Thank you for your prayers. As it turns out, 6 hours later we were in Impala to make a pit stop at the house of our new dentist, Leonel. He joined us since we lost a dentist in El Faro. After eating some pizza, we traveled 2 more hours to the hotel in Jalapa. One thing we've learned throughout this week is that Guatemalan time is not the same as American time. We were very blessed in El Faro and the "nicest hotel in Jalapa" paled in comparison.

Thursday we drove 20 minutes to Monjas, where we had set up our clinic yesterday. The clinic was a lot more spacious providing a better set up, but we missed the fun interactions with the children that we had in El Faro. Here we are serving the pastors and their families. The appointments were scheduled, so the whole day was less chaotic and very relaxed. One of our most difficult patients today was a young woman, who needed two teeth extracted. What seemed like a rather routine procedure, turned into an hour and a half nightmare. Not only were both teeth difficult to extract, she had also received around ten shots of anesthesia and was still in pain. However, she was very brave, and by the grace of God, Doctor Grieco was finally able to extract them both. We finished around 4pm and then went to Chochy's cousin's house for a delicious dinner. After we got back to the hotel, the group decided to go to the corner to get ice cream and then walk a few blocks to the central park. It is a little unsettling walking around any city at night, but we felt safe in our group. The park was pretty at night, and we took a group photo by the fountain.

In other news, to give you a taste of our environment, while we were writing this blog post, Laura felt something on her leg. She turned to brush it off and saw a GIANT cockroach scramble under the entertainment center...it was completely terrifying! I don't know if any of us will be able to sleep tonight, but we'll try our best!

Tomorrow is our last day in Guatemala! We are very sad to be leaving so soon. God has really blessed our time here with so many wonderful things. Please pray, however, that we will have the energy and focus to finish well. Rachel has been struggling a little with some hives that have been causing her discomfort. Please pray that her symptoms would dissipate, and she will be able to assist tomorrow as her usual joyful self. Praise God that so far everyone else has been in relatively good health! Pray also for smooth travels over the next two days, as we travel back to Guatemala City tomorrow and home on Saturday. Thank you all so much again for your support and prayers!

Que Dios los bendiga

(P.S. The blogs are written by Heidi, Nikki, and Laura)