Mission Trip to La Esperanza de Jesus Children's Home in Honduras

Saint Mark's Episcopal Church in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

La Iglesia Episcopal San Marcos began offering Christian worship services to the English speaking community of Quetzaltenango in August 2009. Known as Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, we are the only Church in Xela that offers services in English. We have 34 members, with a Sunday attendance which ranges between 12 and 28 people.

"We have come together in the presence of Almighty God our Heavenly Father, to set forth his praise, to hear his holy Word, and to ask, for ourselves and on behalf of others, those things that are necessary for our life and our salvation." - The Book of Common Prayer -

WE ARE CHRISTIANS from a wide variety of faith communities and experiences. We join together on Sunday mornings to worship our Lord Jesus Christ through a blend of contemporary music and the ancient liturgy of Morning Prayer found in the Book of Common Prayer. We are an English speaking congregation of expatriates, students, missionaries, volunteers, students, Guatemalans, and visitors from nations around the world.

WE ARE LOCATED at 6a Calle 16-20, Zona 3, Quetzaltenango (Xela), Guatemala. St. Mark's is in Zone 3 at the corner of 6th Street and 16th Avenue. You can find us from MacDonald's in Zone 3 (on the corner of 4th Street and 17th Avenue) by going north on 17th Avenue for two blocks, then turn right on 6th Street. Saint Mark's is located at the end of the block on your left.

WE GATHER FOR WORSHIP at 9:00 am on Sunday Mornings. Coffee and refreshments are served at 10:00 am. during our fellowship hour.

IAS Community Service with the Medical Mission from the Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota

Felipe, Jimena, Maggie, Mr. McMarlin, Jessica, and Tamara

This summer the six of us formed a community service team from Inter-American School. We volunteered with the Medical Mission from the Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota in Xela and other locations around Western Guatemala. We primarily served as translators. The stories of our experiences follow:

Felipe's Story: Medical Team from the Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota

Felipe is a high school junior from Inter-American School in Xela, Guatemala. He, with four of his classmates volunteered to translate for the medical and dental teams from the Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota.

This is Felipe's story.

Daily Log

1) June 1 Monday: 8:00a.m.-12:00p.m.

Medicine Inventory

We arrived to Saint Marks Episcopal church and started arranging medicine supplies. Counting them and putting them where they belong.

2)June 29 Monday: 10:30a.m.-6:30p.m.

Medical Clinic(Xela)

We got there and waited for the Medical Team from The Episcopal Diocese of the North Dakota to arrived. When they arrived we helped them set up their equipment. I started Translating for Dr. Karen Rohr till 6:3op.

3)June 30 Tuesday: 7:30a.m.-8:oop.m.

Medical Clinic: Chuguexa(Chimaltenango)

We got there and started working with a hard storm over our heads. And worked with Dr. Karen Rohr Translating for her. Had to translate for entire families consisting of 10 members each.

4,5)June 1&2 Wednesday&Thursday: 7:30a.m.-8:oop.m both days

Dental Clinic:Nueva Chuatuj (coatepeque)

I worked with Dr. Anna Pranata and her assistant Jamee Weibe translating in the Dental Clinic.

Both days I worked for them and got many patients.

6)July 3 Friday : 7:30a.m.-9:30p.m.

Dental Clinic: Pachaj(CANTEL)

Worked with Dr. Anna Pranata and Jamme Weibe and also translating for Dr.Bryanne Hildebrandt. Translating in the Dental Clinic.

7)June 4 saturday: 7:30a.m.-2:30p.m.

Medical Clinic(xela)

Help nurse Pam Pranke in giving recipes for patients to follow. Also help other Doctors in translating.

8-11)July 6-9: 11:3oa.m.-1:30p.m.

(Ancianos)

We spend some time talking and eating with the elderly people.

12)July 10 Friday: 8:ooa.m.-12:00p.m.

(Inter American School)

We started making this blog

My Experience

Helping The Medical Team From The Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota made me experience many wonderful things I had never felt before. Spending some time with each one help me learn many new things. We had many difficulties, but we managed to resolve it and keep working.

Since the beginning it was very hard waking up at 6:30a.m, but i had a strong opinion of helping people who really needed it. I now understand that many people apparent to be healthy, but in reality they have some kind of illness. My first experience was to fight against weather, I had to support heavy rains( but i still kept working). When we finish I had to carry the heaviest thing i had ever carried. With rain pouring and mud all over me I took it safely toward the van. I learn that if you endeavor something you really want to do you can can do it no matter what is opposed to it. I realize some people cannot really drive in this world, our drivers had too many problems. If I had never tried this before, I would still be thinking people are healthy over the world.

For me community service was awesome, we kept learning more and more everyday. Helping people who needed it, can make you feel wonderful. I really encourage people to have this class, you will never experience community service as much as we did.

Jimena's Story: Medical Team from the Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota

Guest Blogger: Jimena

Jimena is a high school junior at Inter-American School in Xela, Guatemala. Jimena and four of her classmates volunteered to translate for the medical and dental teams from the Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota. This is the story of her experience, in her own words.

Community Service really opened my eyes. I learned to appreciate what I have. When I saw all of those people making a line to see the doctor I just thought about one thing. I am so glad I don`t have to pass by these to go to the doctor or the dentist. But then I thought how selfish I was being by thinking that and I realized that we were all here to help all of these people and I really got excited to start because I wanted to help this people get better.

I had some good times, Some bad times, some fun times, and some hard times. I really enjoyed to have had the opportunity to be in the Community Service of North Dakota. I learned many things while being in the mission. Some of the most funny and good times while being in the mission for me was that when we went near Solola, there was a hill in which our vans couldn`t pass through and so we had to walk down hill to get to the place were we were going to do our service. When we finally finished our job there, a big rain storm started pouring over us and we had to carry all of the equipment up hill again. So we started carrying all of the equipment and since we were down hill a huge river started flowing down hill. All of the village was made of dirt and so when it rained all of the dirt was made into a great puddle of mud. I honestly didn`t see a great lake of mud and so I started walkinh faster because it was raining harder. When I finally got near the vans I just felt that I started sinking. I didn`t know what was going on until I looked down. I was sinking in a mud lake. I started to force myself out of the mud lake and found out that my friends had not seen me. So I told them about what had happend to me in the lake and they started laughing at me. We laughed about my accident all the way home. Some of my hard times over the mission was getting up so early to be on time. I had to wake up at 6:00 a.m. every day to get dressed up, eat some brakefast,and brush my teeth. We had to be at the church by 7:30 a.m. to be ready to live to our next mission. Another hard part in the mission was being able to support the change of climate in the places we went.

This Mission really taught me to appreciate my style of life more. It also taught me to help people when ever you can, because there are some people that really need help. They don`t even have money to buy food, a toothbrush, or medicine. I would defenetly do community service again because you can learn alot of stuff about it. For me I learned to be greatful with the things I have because there are people that don`t have food everyday, and it was so sad to see. I can`t wait to go to the Florida mission. I liked helping people with some of thier problems.

1) June 1 Monday: 8:00a.m- 12:00p.m. (Medicine Inventory)*This day we had to be at the Saint Marks Episcopal Church at 8:30a.m. We had to organize all of the medicines that we were going to use in the medical mission. We had to count all of the medicine that was on each box. We finished at 12:00p.m.

2) June 29 Monday: 10:30a.m-6:30p.m. Medical Clinic(Xela)

* When they arrived we started working right away.I worked with Jennifer Risan, a medical student, that day. She was a nice lady. I had the honor to translate for her.

3) June 30 Tuesday: 7:30a.m.-8:00p.m. Medical Clinic(Chuguexa)

* Tuesday we had to be at the Episcopal Church at 7:30a.m. to go to Chuguexa and start working again. When we arrived I had the pleasure to work in the Dental station. I got to watch how they pulled people's teeth out.

4) July 1&2 Wednesday&Thursday: 7:30-9:30 Medical Clinic(Nuevo Chuatuj)

* Wednesday and Thursday we went to Coatepeque and I had the pleasure to work both days with Pam Pranke, a nurse. I was her translator and we told people how to take there medicines.

5) July 3 Friday:7:30-9:30 Medical Clinic (Pachaj)

* We were going to go to Santa Maria but the place were we were going to was occupied so we went to Pachaj! I once more had the pleasure to work with Pam Pranke.

6) July 4 Saturday:7:30-2:30 Medical Clinic(Xela)

* This was our last day with the Medical Team and we worked at the Episcopal Church. I worked half time with Jessica Risan helping her translate to the patients. Then I went to work at theDental Station with Anna Pranata, a dentist, and her assistant Jamee Weibe.

7) July 6-9 Monday- Thursday: 11:30-1:30(Ancianos)

* We got to eat Lunch with old people and got to know them a little. we spoke to different people there.

8)July 10 Friday: 8:00-12:oop.m. (School)

*We got to school at 8:00 and wrote in our blog our experiences in this Community Service.

Tamara's Story: Medical Mission Team from the Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota

Guest Blogger: Tamara Torrez-Koll

Tamara is a high school junior at Inter-American School in Xela, Guatemala. She, along with four classmates, volunteered as translators for the medical and dental teams from the Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota.

This is Tamara's story:

June 29, 2009: We were in the San Marcos Episcopal Chruch, Xela and I was placed with the Dental Team in the ballet studio/comedor/Sunday school. I worked with Bryanne Hildebrandt. The eight hours went rather smoothly, a few extractions and one filling.

June 30, 2009: We went to Chugüexa Chimaltenango. It was cold and dreary, raining a lot. I was placed at the nurse's station with Pam Pranke for the first half of the day. After she and I had lunch I was placed with Jennifer Risan, a medical provider. We had a patient with a build-up of wax she thought was a piece of garlic.

July 1, 2009: Wednesday found us in Nuevo Chuatuj, Coatepeque. I was placed again with the Dental Team, specifically with Bryanne Hildebrandt. The day was hot and humid with a

torrential rain in the afternoon. The rain forced us to move the equipment since the zinc roof had holes in it. After dinner we headed home.

July 2, 2009: Again in Nuevo Chuatuj, Coatepeque. I was with the Dental Team (Bryanne Hildebrandt) again. The day was even warmer than the day before. There was blood and gore and teeth and needles. I learned a lot. It rained again but by then we had a black cover keeping out the rain.

July 3, 2009: Friday we ended up in Pachaj, Cantel. We had been programmed to go to Santa Maria de Jesus, but due to complication we were re-routed to Pachaj. In Pachaj I worked with Darlene Bartz. She was very nice and we had pleasant chats in between the patients. We had one patient with an "aching heart." She was bent and old and white, passed gray. She told us her sad story; I don't think I'll forget her any time soon.

July 4, 2009: I awoke Saturday morning refreshed and still dreaming about Friday night's amazing dinner. I forced myself out of a bed that wasn't mine and went to the Episcopal Church, San Marcos, Xela (after a detour for breakfast). I passed the morning and noon in the company of the Dental Team; again with Bryanne Hildebrandt. After I went home and wrote an essay.

July 10, 2009: Today I sit, accompanied by my fellow classmates at IAS. The smell of the coming school year hangs in the air...

Jessica's Story: Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota Medical Mission 2009: Jessica' Story

Guest Blogger: Jessica

Jessica is a high school junior at Inter-American School in Xela, Guatemala. She volunteered, along with four of her classmates to translate for the medical and dental teams from the Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota.

This is Jessica's story.

Well, my very first day of community service was on June 1st. My classmates, Mr. Mac and I

sorted the medicines at the Episcopal Church of San Marcos for the Medical Team for whom we

were supposed to translate.

Monday, June 29 This was the actual first day of being a translator for the Medical Team. The Medical Team was from North Dakota, but the dentists were actually from Canada. The first day was at the Episcopal Church and started at 10:30. As the first day, I was given a really really bright yellow shirt to wear and assigned to translate to Anna Pranata and her assistant Jamee Weibe in the

dental team. It was quite entertaining(?) to see mouths bleeding out (just kidding). Then after a exhausting day of work, I went home.

Tuesday, June 30 This day we went to Chuguexa, a little town near Chimaltenango. It took 3 hours to us to get there, I almost felt we were reaching Guatemala City!!! This day I was

assigned to translate for Jennifer Risan, a medical provider; and

after lunch, for Pam Pranke and Marilyn Schroeder, on the nursing team. There were two things that caught my interest. The first thing is that Pam was quite fluent in Spanish so I didn't really had to say anything. Though I still had to explain a some things because mainly Pam spoke in traditional Spanish and a few of the people couldn't understand her well. The second thing happened during lunch, when the Father

of the church there told me that the people of Chugüexa did not prepare good lunch for the Medical Team as there were previous cases in which they had made meals for the Americans coming down here and the Americans wouldn't eat. I don't know if there were hygiene issues that bothered them but that was the main reason why the Chugüexans did not make us "proper" lunch. Well, anyways, we got frijoles, boiled egg, and tamalitos, and all of us ate happily. When we were done with everything, it rained so hard that we weren't able to move nor hear. The rain delayed us all and when we got back to Xela, it was about 9 pm.

Wednesday, July 1 We went to Chuatuj in Coatepeque and we were escorted by cops due to the terrible circumstances of violence there. It was really hot there and I worked for Karen Rohr, a medical provider, whom I worked for for the next 3 days. I had a pretty decent day, except for the haunting experience of the bathroom, which was smelly and it was not flush-able, it literally just let drop the "things" on the deep floor. Well. I didn't really use it though. Karen and I saw a lady patient, who had watery eyes and claimed to have random headaches and generalized muscle pain. We were just about to give her some pain killers when she told us her tragic story of why she had those random aches. Four years ago, the lady had a 16-year old son who was assassinated by the gangs. She really loved the son, as he was her last one. But the gangs were not satisfied just killing her son, but they cut his throat and showed her the headless body bleeding in front of her house. Since then she started hallucinating her son and being unable to sleep. After hearing all of her tragic story, Karen knew what she really had and she prescribed her an anxiety-killing drug to calm her down. We were very sorry to hear that.

Thursday, July 2 We went to the same place in Chuatuj and I worked with Karen again. It was

similar to the last day but there was a patient who is engraved in my memory. This was a man of almost 80-years old who had problems with his hernia. At first, he went with a nearby doctor. The doctor told him that he needed three surgeries because he had such huge hernias but that the doctor himself couldn't do it because of his lack of equipments. So he went to the doctors in Xela but they didn't help him at all; instead they "got his money out" and at least they wanted him to do three more exams which cost almost Q1000 each. The man felt "tricked" by the doctors because what he wanted to do was to remove the hernias, not to do the unnecessary exams. So he stopped going to the doctors and blamed them for everything, until he came with us to do a medical examination. Obviously he had the hernia where we (Karen and I) couldn't examine so we called Dr. John Baird to check his hernias. After I translated Dr. Baird all the things the man told me, he told the man that the surgeries weren't necessary due to his age because the hernias did not threat his life but doing the surgeries could probably threat his life more than the hernias do. He suggested the man that it was much better to live the rest of his life as happy as possible and not endanger it with unnecessary surgeries. At hearing this, the man got relieved that he heard what he needed to hear and thanked Dr. Baird, Karen and me so much that even Karen took a picture with him to take it home. He made me feel so proud of myself of being such help to the man. I felt really good that day, even though I went home very late.

Friday, July 3 This day we went to Pachaj, Cantel. We were working at a school. I worked with

Karen again and it was a pretty decent day, I guess.

Saturday, July 4 As the final day of the medical mission, the Medical Team worked at the Episcopal Church of San Marcos. This day I worked with Karen too. Well, we didn't have as much patients as the other days but we were happy that we could work for the people.

CONCLUSION> I really liked to be in community service class, I learned so many things and I'm glad that I could be helpful for needy people. I would definitely do it again next year though with no credit.