Chapter 4

The first few days running my new little clinic were so full of cleaning and organizing the medicines that I hardly noticed the lack of patients.  The Petén was home to some of the largest rats I had ever seen, and during the last nurse’s absence, they had broken into the supply of laxatives and subsequently spread them and other unidentifiable materials over all the other shelves.  Every bottle had to be carefully wiped down and checked for expiration date. 

While I worked, I practiced my new Spanish vocabulary and tried not to jump at each new scratching sound in the thatch roof.  My clinic was inhabited not only by the rats, but by small lizards, innumerable bugs and the occasional tarantula or scorpion.  Focusing my thoughts away from the strange sounds, I dreamed of the many people I would help here.  The babies who stop crying, the smiling children, and the adults I would counsel.

I was content setting the little clinic to rights, but as the hours started to drift slowly by, I could only spend so many hours studying medical books and praying for the patients that God had sent me to care for.

You can imagine the thrill that came to me when I heard the slapping of running flip flops outside on cement porch and the call of “Buenas!”  God had finally answered my prayers.  My moment had come.   The moment I had sacrificed so much for, and prepared for, and dreamed of.  My moment to ease someone’s suffering and be their savior.

I hurried to the pharmacy.  The brown face staring in through the window was much smaller than I had expected, but I didn’t have much time to register this before the little girl cried,

“Mom says to come quickly.”

 My heart leapt.  Was my first case to be a real, live emergency?  When she saw my confusion, her words slowed down, but the urgency did not leave her voice. 

Slipping my feet into my rubber flip flops, I looked anxiously around my tiny clinic, adrenaline impeding my ability to choose supplies decisively.

“What’s wrong with your mother?” I demanded from the anxious little face, desperate for a clue as to what should be my next move. 

“It’s her goose.” she replied, “The neck is flopping.  It’s my brother’s fault, he hit it with a stick and now it might die!   Mom wants you to come and massage it.” 

My eyes widened and my face flushed.  My excitement turned to indignation.   Did I hear the word correctly?  Could my Spanish be the problem here, or did these people really think I had traveled 3000 miles to attend to their poultry?  

I grabbed my Spanish/English dictionary, but yes, ganso was the word, and yes, she was talking about a bird. 

“I am not a veterinarian,” I replied tersely, but then I suggested that when her mother had time, perhaps, she could bring the family by for a routine checkup and vitamins.  I saw the dread creep over her little face as she realized she would be conveying the bad news.  She turned and headed up the dirt road towards home, much more slowly than she had come.

I plopped back into my small plastic chair and retrieved my cumbersome textbook, but I was now unable to focus on the signs and symptoms of renal failure.  I had niggling thoughts all trying to get in around my concentrated effort to learn and prepare myself for future patients.

Finally breaking, I listened to the small voice asking me if pride was what was keeping me from attending the goose.  I admitted that my pride was hurt, but I was certainly not qualified in this type of medicine.  The longer I insisted that God could not possibly be asking this of me, the more convinced I became that I was turning down the first open door I had seen in a week. 

I slowly started looking at my supplies and questioningly began adding this and that to my bag. What do you need to massage a goose’s neck anyways?  Are they fuzzy?  Furry?  Feathery?  I had never seen a goose up close and it certainly wasn’t on my bucket list.  Little did I know that someday my list of actual life experiences would be much longer than my bucket list. 

A few minutes later I arrived at the simple home of saplings and tin.  This family of six had two small rooms for sleeping and cooking.  At the time, it seemed insufficient to me, but I did not yet realize how much of life in the tropics is lived outdoors. 

With little questioning on my part, a child pointed to a dark corner where the goose lay, with its distraught owner crouched at its side. 

She looked up at me with pain in her eyes and asked, “Is it a goner?” 

I felt a pang of fear and inadequacy as I realized I had no idea what normal goose vital signs were, or where to find them.  I clawed through my mental space realizing there was no box labeled ‘goose’.  For the first of many times, and I pulled my professionalism around me like a cloak and used the phrase that would become an old standby. 

“Well, now, let’s take a look.” 

I had no hope for this goose, and even less for my reputation, but I reached out my hands and touched the limp neck.  It was fluffy and feathery, making massage difficult.  After a few moments of awkward stroking, I wrapped it carefully in an ace bandage.  I then introduced myself to Doña Mima and her little tribe of adorable children.  A talkative woman, she explained to me how she spent her weekends selling tacos and other small food items at her mother’s store to make ends meet.  After many months of working and saving, she purchased this goose and was fattening it for Christmas.  Losing the goose would be a terrible loss for her family and might mean no celebration in December.  How could she and her family face Christmas without tamales?

As I started to realize the importance of the animal lying at my feet, I said a quick prayer that God would heal the sprained goose’s neck so this family could reap the benefits of their mother’s hustling.  After several cups of fresco and another forty-five minutes of chatting, I returned to the clinic to scrub my hands clean and try to re-gather some of my dignity.  I hoped this would be the last I would hear of geese.

The next morning, I had only been in the clinic for a few minutes when I heard the slapping of many flip flops on the front porch. 

“Buenas!”  shouted Flor, their oldest daughter.

   Five smiling faces with hair slicked back and perfumed with baby oil smiled in at me from the bench on the front porch. 

“We’re here for our checkups,” said Flor, “And my brother has some weird skin patches that Mom wants you to look at.   Oh, and by the way, the goose was up and walking around like new this morning!”

Over the next several weeks, new patients dribbled in as Doña Mima spread the news to her taco customers the new nurse cared about patients.  I never again was called on to treat a goose, but I am thankful for the goose that gave me the chance to spend my first hour in a village home.

 I learned that things are often more than they seem, and when in doubt, follow your patient’s lead.  Had I allowed my pride to win, I may have never found my way into the hearts of the people of Santa Rosita.       

El Chal

My hands shook as I once more pulled out and tightly re-rolled the new cape dresses trying to fit one more rice crispy treat or granola bar into my suitcase.  There were 10 dresses total, sewn in a flurry over the past three weeks by Mom and Gramma.  Five plain white ones for nursing duty and five with small floral print and sleeves below the elbows to comply with the stricter dress code of the Mennonite mission. 

“It doesn’t matter how many more granola bars I stuff in here,” I thought to myself.  “It’ll never be enough to keep me alive for six months.”

The members of my congregation had been surprisingly dismal when I announced my decision for a short-term mission trip. 

“You’ll never make it,” and “What will you eat?” were comments I heard more than once.  While it was very strange for my church not to fully support a young person’s mission dream, it made sense when you took into account who they were talking to.  It was no secret that at church potlucks I ate only from the dishes my mother prepared.  My unwillingness to try even the most basic foods made it hard for them to imagine me thriving in another culture.    

I knew they weren’t crazy to wonder how I would survive my six-month commitment to the Guatemalan jungle clinic.  I wasn’t prepared for this.  Aside from a single ten-minute phone call to the pastor of the small church in El Chal, I had not spoken to, much less met the missionaries with whom I would be living for the next six months.  I patted the epi pen carefully stowed next to an emergency supply of antibiotics and several bottles of bug spray.  Having no idea what I was getting myself into, I clung to the one thing I knew for sure. 

“This was what God wanted me to do.  Surely, he would provide everything I needed, including the faith to get me there.”  But even this knowledge didn’t keep my hands from shaking as I folded and repacked everything once again.

A few days later upon arrival at La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala City, I located a small cart for my two 50 pound suitcases, a 40 pound carry on and an overloaded backpack.  Reaching the curb, a small man talked rapidly at me in Spanish, and I tried to ignore him.  He then graduated to wild gesturing, until I understood that I must leave the cart at the door.  Physically unable to move with my mountain of luggage, I created a small pile on the sidewalk and settled myself to wait.  The foot traffic flowed around me, child vendors, taxi drivers, and other unknown parties accosted me from various sides.  Armed with only one year of high school Spanish and my lack of local currency limited my interactions.  I didn’t know what my ride would look like, but I was sure whoever was picking me up would stand out from the crowd.  Anabaptists don’t tend to blend in anywhere with their blatant head coverings and long dresses. 

                With my ingrained German-American background, I couldn’t imagine being late to pick someone up at the airport, let alone an international arrival.   Maybe they weren’t coming.  Did they forget?  Trying not to think about the fact that I didn’t have a phone number for anyone in Guatemala, I alternated between mounting worry and calming prayer to control my panic.  Just slightly short of an hour later, a van pulled up and out jumped Holly Long, the LPN that I would be working with.  Her arms were full of roses which she placed in my hands.  They seemed ludicrous to me at the time as I was barely able to manhandle my luggage and now I had an armful of flowers.  I never understood why cut flowers, slowly wilting away and dying, were considered beautiful by most people.  Recognizing this as a demonstration of welcome, however, I knew enough to keep this thought to myself.  Holly, the mission driver, and I hurriedly climbed in and pulled away from the crazed pickup zone.

The traffic of Guatemala City was just as I remembered it.  The smog and motorcycles swirling around the tightly packed vehicles made me feel slightly dizzy.  Deciding it was better not to look, as our vehicle repeatedly screeched to a halt inches from the bumper in front of us, I tried to focus on the conversation coming at me from Holly and the young man who was driving.  The awareness that this was real, that I was 3000 miles away from home and that I had to navigate this on my own, hit me even as I tried to politely answer the general travel questions. 

Holly was sincerely excited to get to know me, and had carefully executed all her medicine shopping before my pickup.  The errands caused the delay, but she knew it was worth it as we now could head straight to the mission headquarters for me to get some rest.   She purchased overnight bus tickets hoping to sleep on the trip back before her full clinic hours the next day.  This was my first exposure to mission life.  With outposts 6-8 hours from the city, doctor visits and supply runs were packed into one day to minimize Holly’s absence from the clinic. 

Previously two or more nurses always staffed the clinic, but recently Holly had been left alone when Charlotte G married.  Elizabeth M, a local, who started working in the clinic as secretary and then chose to enter nursing school, would be graduating in the next month.  To replace her as secretary, Holly hired a 14-year-old neighbor girl who, a few weeks before my arrival, abandoned her job and family to run off with a man.  Mark Andrew, the missionary’s son was temporarily filling the position until I could take over.  My head swirled from all the new information and names of people I didn’t know.  The night on the bus passed in a haze of exhaustion and culture shock. 

Arriving in El Chal in the wee hours of the next day, Holly directed me to a room across the hall from hers where I registered nothing of my surroundings except the warm, humid air as I crashed onto the bed.  Waking several hours later, I wandered downstairs to be greeted by Norma G, the house mother.  A woman with 30 years’ experience in Guatemala, I must have seemed a truly raw bit of help.  She offered me some reheated scrambled eggs for breakfast, but they were laced with green pieces of something.  Having never seen cilantro before, I hardly touched them, and instead asked about Holly.  She had slept only a couple of hours before heading over to the clinic to see patients.  Norma encouraged me to take some time to make myself at home in my room before checking out my new workplace. 

My bedroom was small and bare, but very clean.  I had never seen a bare room before.  My mother always decorated my room attractively with increasing input from me as I aged.  I unpacked my belongings, and what had seemed like so much luggage when I was hauling it through the airport now barely made an impression on the room.  The one decorative detail, a woven textile on the wall, drew my attention.  As I fingered the warm, beautiful colors so foreign to my culture and so telling of the one I was entering, I remembered the warnings of friends from home about tarantulas and scorpions in the jungle.  Wondering if this could be a hiding place, I gently pulled the tapestry away from the wall, exposing to my surprise a large hole in the wall, studs exposed.  How was I going to sleep tonight, not knowing what could crawl into my room from the depths of the house?  I turned away in shock and considered the worn sheets on my bed and the simple furnishings.  While my Anabaptist parents were never extravagant, I realized I was facing a much more frugal lifestyle.  Evident in every decision was Mark and Norma G’s careful consideration of God’s money.  They administered it frugally, pinching pennies wherever possible even when it meant their own discomfort. 

My meager belongings were soon distributed around the room and it still didn’t feel like mine.  Who was I without my pink ruffled curtains and Himalayan cat? 

No answer immediately forthcoming, I decided to check out the clinic.  Twenty yards from the mission house sat a small building with a porch full of milling people and a sign, Clínica El Buen Samaritano.   The clinic was small, with two exam rooms, a pharmacy, and a reception area.  Seeing me in the doorway, and sensing his time in the clinic might finally end, Mark Andrew quickly brought me to the small table and filing cabinet that consisted the reception area. 

Handing me a carefully printed sheet with questions in Spanish, he hoped I would immediately jump in and take over.   He was sadly disappointed.  Even if I could have read the questions in Spanish to the patients without feeling self-conscious, understanding their answers was impossible.  Not comprehending my limited Spanish, they digressed, explaining symptoms, and trying to impress upon me the importance of being seen soon since they came from so far away.  I was unable to distinguish these speeches from the information I sought, leaving me wholly overwhelmed. 

My responsibilities included checking each patient into a log book and then locating their chart from a previous visit or creating one.  This was quite a bit more complicated than it sounds.  Many considered themselves long time patients, however, extended searches revealed no chart in their name.  Family relationships also were much more complicated than my brain could comprehend.  In my world, the lines of mother, father, children, and extended family made for easy identification.  Guatemalans, however, as I was later to discover, had a much more fluid understanding of family.  Many children lived with their grandparents or aunts, especially if their mother was working ‘in the States.’  Sometimes, aunts or even uncles who had errands near the clinic would offer to bring the child while the mother stayed at home, limiting the medical history we could obtain.  Some children born to the same mother had different last names.  Our filing system of nearly 10,000 charts depended completely on each individual complying with the cultural norm of two last names.  As many of our patients were illiterate, they were unable to help me with the spellings.  

After several bumbling weeks of practice, my job became easier.  I learned which questions to ask, and what possibilities to consider.  Weighing each patient before admitting them to an exam room helped me fix the Spanish numbers in my head.  Some days focusing was hard as visions of C & C’s pizzas danced through my head.  I couldn’t remember a time when I had missed my family’s weekly ritual of takeout from our favorite local restaurant.  What I would give for a hot slice of pepperoni pizza.

After the first few days of finding cilantro in everything, I worried over my quickly depleting stash of granola bars.  I noticed that the corn tortillas were served with almost every meal.  Still unconvinced that I could learn to like Guatemalan food, I decided that my survival depended on my ability to tolerate tortillas.  Valiantly forcing myself to take a tortilla each meal, I graduated from swallowing ¼ of it to ½ and in a few weeks, I was consuming an entire tortilla with each meal.  I didn’t know it then, but Norma was sincerely worried about my calorie intake.  Considering herself responsible for my health and unaware of my secret stash, she prepared special family favorites that I only picked at.  I felt only disapproval from her and tried to hide how little I was eating even while she (a nurse herself) tried to monitor my intake.

A few months later, I became aware that I was not longer forcing the tortillas, but enjoying them, and the small bits of rice and eggs, and even black beans were going down easier at each meal.  Now I could focus my energy on language learning and medicine study.

From the beginning, Holly asked me to study what seemed to me to be large amounts of medical information.  To my surprise, my LPN training seemed to be of little use here.  Had I realized that just a year later I would be prescribing medication, I would have paid more attention in pharmacology class.

 Because all of Holly’s time was occupied in patient care, the pharmacy was cluttered and confusing when I first arrived.  On three walls, there were bottles and tubes, inhalers and sample packets, boxes and labels.  She soon assigned me the task of organizing the jumbled shelves.  This organization appealed to my obsessive side, and while she was grateful for the help, Holly had another motive.  Reading each of the labels, I slowly learned the most common medications used in her practice and I realized that while Holly didn’t prioritize straight lines, there was a definite order to the chaos.  The antibiotics had a shelf of their own, as did the anti-hypertensives and the antipyretics. 

Before I was ready, she had typed up a list of questions for me to ask each patient in Spanish.  I memorized the questions, but panicked the first time I was alone in the exam room with a patient.

The patients just didn’t seem to understand my limited abilities.  When asked “Tienes tos?” “Do you have a cough?” rather than answering with “Si” or “No,” they would run off into long paragraphs where I was quickly lost.  Politely allowing them to finish, I then repeated my question.  “Tienes tos?”   While a confused look was common in the beginning of each interview, most patients soon realized I was only looking for yes or no answers.  This documented partial-interview was then handed to Holly for her to complete along with a physical exam, diagnosis, and prescription.

I learned to hold down squirming three-year-old asthmatics for nebulization treatments, to test urine for pregnancy and infection with dipsticks, and to anesthetize and remove ingrown toenails.  I watched Holly clean machete wounds before stitching them up.  Since many of her patients came from far away, they often stanched the bleeding by stuffing the wound with the nearest substance.  We scrubbed out toothpaste, coffee grounds, medicinal herbs, and even dirt that patients had used as a temporary bandage until they reached the clinic.    

I also began to fill prescriptions from Holly’s notes, counting out the pills, preparing the bottles, and handwriting the labels.  Elizabeth picked up the slack when my Spanish was insufficient to verbally explain the medications.   

Elizabeth’s patience was unending as she put up with my faltering Spanish as well as my occasional superior remark.  Ignoring my ethnocentric behavior, she taught me, gently corrected me, and became my friend.  Her years as secretary in the clinic as well Spanish being her first language put her light years ahead of me in ministering to patients.  However, both she and Holly saw the potential in me that I in my arrogance never doubted. 

Most days there were overwhelming numbers of patients to be seen, and all three of us, as well as the newly hired secretary Silvia worked until we were exhausted.  We became a team, and as I grew in knowledge and cultural understanding, the work became less overwhelming for all of us.     

Chapter 1

In 1985, I was born two years into my parent’s marriage when my mother was just 20 years old.  They brought me home from the Reading Hospital to the old tan house that my father renovated during his engagement to my mother.  Brought up in an Anabaptist community, both of my parents, during their teenage years, had made a personal decision to follow Jesus Christ and a public decision to join the Dunkard Brethren Church. 

Occasionally in public they were approached by excited strangers, thinking they had spotted their first Amish family.  While both groups reject much of mainstream American culture, the Brethren church is very different from the Amish.  Both groups have Anabaptist roots, consider themselves to be evangelical Christians, and promote a close family culture.  Both wear plain clothing, and head coverings but avoid television, divorce and remarriage, and violence. 

The Dunkard Brethren Church is considered more liberal, allowing the use of technology such as cellphones, computers, vehicles, and electricity.  Many of the members also wear store bought skirts and blouses rather than homemade dresses. 

The churches are small, usually one hundred members or less plus children who gathering each week to worship, pray for each other, and listen to a sermon preached from God’s word.  This lifelong commitment to God and each other creates a community and safety net where joys are celebrated together and sorrows are shared.

In the weeks that followed my birth, family, friends, and members of the Anabaptist community came to visit, usually bringing baby gifts and a home-cooked meal.  My grandmother and aunt came in to assist with the housework and hold me while my mother napped.  All of this was meant to ease my mother’s burden as housewife and new mother. 

However, the scene was not idyllic.  For the first four months, I tortured my parents, crying inconsolably during every waking moment.  The pediatrician dismissed my symptoms and said they were due to colic and a nervous mother.  This difficult time eventually resolved itself, and soon I was developing as expected. 

Growing up in an Anabaptist community, my mother had ample experience babysitting the children of other members of the church.  After surviving the traumatic initiation of my first few months, my mother began to recognize my behaviors as strange.  Now looking back, she thinks the first clue was when, during my eighth month, she rearranged my nursery furniture.  While most infants wouldn’t notice such a change, I screamed, unable to be calmed.  Desperately trying to figure out what set off this particular crying session, my mother mentally reviewed our day.  Nothing stuck out to her until she considered the new layout of the nursery.  She rushed around the room until everything was moved back into place.  The effect was immediate.  My sobs subsided into hiccups, and I gently fell asleep. 

This was not the end my panicked tantrums.  Fiercely opposing any uninitiated change, the transition from one season to another was especially traumatic during my early years.  As my first and second summer ended, fall brought on violent battles between my mother and me.  Resisting shoes and long sleeves, I fought and bit my arms until she feared for my safety. 

In 1985, few people had heard of the term Asperger’s Syndrome, and it is doubtful that even now a baby so young would be correctly diagnosed.  So, without the plethora of books and articles by qualified and experienced, my mother faced my abnormalities alone. 

Heartily blessed with practicality, she did the only thing that made sense to her.  She removed and replaced the clothing that caused the new sensations for five minutes at a time until my panic subsided.  Then, by incrementally increasing the time frame, I slowly adjusted to the new apparel.

This scientific pattern of her empirical understandings for introducing me to change by measured degrees characterized my childhood.  She announced every event of my day, hours ahead of time as well as all possible differing scenarios.  This time to process and question our schedule prevented the huge discussions that were necessary to deviate from the plan later.

She claims I was conversing as clearly and complexly as a teenager at 18 months of age, and I had an attitude to match.  When at two and half years I was reciting entire verses and the Lord’s Prayer without prompting, my mother thought I was a little genius, until upon reaching kindergarten the lopsidedness of my abilities became apparent.  I enjoyed the tasks and tests, and I related well to the teacher, but the other children remained a puzzle to me. Every day after school during my afternoon snack, I recounted verbatim the conversations of the day.  Seeing my confusion, my mother patiently explained what the other children meant by their comments, and we ran through the various scenarios of ways I could respond. 

She got another glimpse into my ‘strange’ little mind at the beginning of second grade.  On one of the first days of school my new teacher spent some time reviewing nouns and adjectives.  I told my mother I hadn’t felt prepared for the day as I hadn’t yet unpacked the box in my mind where that information was stored.  When she questioned me further, she learned that all of first grade was stored in boxes in my head, and that each box had many files.  Over the summer, I had moved many of the boxes from first grade to the back of my mental room.  That night, while I lay in bed, I mentally checked each box to see what I might need for tomorrow.    

My little brother was born when I was two and a half, and as he grew, my opportunities for social learning increased.  No matter how rough my day at school was, his presence assured me that I would have a friend once I got home.  We spent our summers in the woods around our house, acting out the few scenes of cowboys and Indians we had managed to watch in the electronics section of Walmart.  Our winter evenings were full of Legos, rubber band guns, and the Farming Game. 

One spring evening, my mother, father, little brother, and I sat around the kitchen table, wolfing down the roast beef, carrots, and baked potatoes my mother prepared.  Anxious to get outside and start enjoying the lengthening daylight, my brother and I focused on cleaning our plates when my mother cleared her throat suspiciously.  My head flew up.  At nine years old, I had noticed her declining health.  My brother and I were worried about the vomiting that had become a new part of our supper routine.  Unwilling to prolong my torture, my parents decided to tell us the news and risk our disappointment if things didn’t work out.  

                Not suspecting that my years of pleading for another sibling were at an end, my heart leapt with the news.  It was a miracle.  We were expecting not just one baby, but twins!  With one for each of us, my brother and I wouldn’t have to fight or take turns.  

                Their safe arrival was as marvelous as my brother and I had always known it would be.  Our family finally felt complete.  The twins were born in October, and my mother no longer had to struggle to get my brother and I ready in time for school.  Knowing that if we got ready in plenty of time,we would be allowed to give the babies their 8 am bottle was all the incentive we needed.  My morning Lucky Charms were consumed in record speed, and I waited in front of the bathroom mirror for my mother to wind my hair up into a bun underneath my white prayer covering.

+++

The pleasure my family took in watching the twins develop offset my continued social difficulties at school.  In fact, the ever-increasing anxiety from social disparity with my peers caused my mother to withdraw me from my private school for most of sixth grade.  While few believed that this would remedy the problem, the break from social pressures was just what I needed. 

The mornings in my room with my schoolwork and the afternoons playing with the babies somehow gave my brain the space it needed to mature.  My return to school at the beginning of seventh grade wasn’t without difficulty, but now somehow, I was able to form tentative friendships with the other girls. 

+++

In February of my seventh-grade year, when I was fourteen, my parents took me with them on a 10-day mission trip to Guatemala after Hurricane Mitch displaced 730,000 people with mudslides and flooding.  Our days were spent purchasing supplies and­­ distributing donated items to small refugee villages. 

 Growing up in an Anabaptist home and church, I regularly heard and read about mission work. My childhood dreams of being a veterinarian or horse trainer quickly morphed into more humanitarian desires as I witnessed real people struggling to survive. 

I saw how the Guatemalan government provided four posts and two sheets of tin to each family uprooted by the weather.  Those who had no additional materials to add found this devastatingly flimsy structure no match against the rains and winds that constituted the aftermath of Mitch.  The refugee children lit up at our gifts of stuffed animals even though the parents’ tired eyes rested with gratitude upon the sacks of rice and jugs of oil.  It was as I watched them haul their new possessions back to the saddest of makeshift dwellings that I felt the first tug.  It was then that I knew I could never live contentedly in the USA and accept the suffering that was inescapable for so many in the rest of the world.  I realized that my idyllic life in the Pennsylvanian countryside was not the standard.  This new knowledge created a sense of responsibility and a determination to change the world. 

Once back in Pennsylvania, I was unable to forget the devastation and suffering I had seen.  My life as a seventh grader, which focused on tests and birthday parties seemed to lack meaning.  I began to plan my return to Guatemala.  Astounded by my determination and foolishness, my parents convinced me that I could do much more good in the world if I would first finish high school.  All I knew was that God had called me to Guatemala, and I wasn’t very worried about the particulars.  I reluctantly agreed to finish high school and graduated through an advanced track from my private church school at age sixteen.

Much to my parent’s relief, I was unable to find a mission willing to take on a sixteen-year old girl.  My parents then persuaded me that the best way to prepare for mission work was to become a nurse.  Lebanon Valley Career Technology Center had an eleven-month program that fit the bill.  Nothing had prepared me for the culture shock of my non-religious classmates view of life.  Growing up without a television and limited contact with the outside world, their loud recounting of weekend parties and custody battles felt like another world to me.  Their disrupted lives seemed full of unnecessary pain and selfishness as I compared them to the peace and unity of my community.  They discussed their tattoos and piercings, as well as past lovers and ex-husbands without shame.

 I welcomed their questions about my clothes, abstinence, my hair covering, and even my cosmetic use (or lack thereof).  While my Anabaptist upbringing was just normal life to me, their looks and questions were my first inclination of how strange I seemed to the rest of the world.  I freely shared my convictions and opinions, convinced that just knowing how good my life was would immediately convert them by the dozens.   

My dozens of converts never materialized, and I began to suspect that missionary work might not be straight forward.  Newly fitted with my license as an LPN, I was accepted by Mennonite Air Missions for a temporary six-month trial.  A conservative Anabaptist mission established 30 years prior, my family and I had only learned of its existence a year before.  The fact that they were willing to overlook my age, two years below their 20-year limit, was a testimony to their need for nurses.

I was to join another LPN at a clinic in the wilds of Petén.  I knew nearly nothing about the mission or what my job description was to be, but I was determined, and my naivete was as powerful as my determination. 

My parents worried themselves sick even as they purchased the plane ticket, and my church gathered for a going away party/commissioning service.  There was no detaining me now.

Suddenly the knowledge I had about the mission field felt incredibly sparse.  Could reading about Amy Carmichael, Mary Slessor, and Elizabeth Elliot really help me at all in Guatemala?  What did missionaries really do? What did they do on a day to day basis, in between the incredible events that they told when they got back home?  

Getting Started

Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, I moved to Central America as a missionary nurse at age eighteen.  After ten years abroad, I moved home due to health complications.  Now, several years later I am moved to write about my time there, the things I saw and the people who touched my life.