Juana came into the clinic on Sunday with her friend Candalaria, a woman who I have know for many years and whose family we have helped on several occasions. Juana is the mother of 5 small children. Her husband recently became ill and has been hospitalized and unable to work. Juana and her children have been living on a little piece of property which they bought on payments. It does not have a house, so they have been living under a 10x10 piece of plastic...which is fine until the rains begin in just a few weeks. She came with Candalaria asking for help. So today we flew out to their village, met with one of the local pastors and went to visit Juana. What she said was true and her pastor came as well. The church is willing to help with the labor and some of the materials and we will help them with the roof. So it becomes not just the "rich Americans" helping, but the body of believers reaching out to a family in need....just the way it is supposed to be. The best part of this morning however was to see Candalaria. She is a woman for whom we have prayed for for years. Her husband drank, was unfaithful, left her for a time, beat her and the children - in short, they have been a family in great distress since I met them. Recently however, Felipe (her husband) gave his life to the Lord, has stopped drinking and is working to feed and care for his children. They live in a tiny adobe one room house...but it is theirs. It is such a testimony of the faithfulness of God to hear our prayers and His power to change hearts! Please continue to pray for them though, they are so poor. We have reached the time of year now where the corn, which is the main staple of their diet, is gone. No one can plant until the rains begin and then there is the 5 month wait for harvest. So folks who are out of corn now have almost 6 months in which they will need to buy corn - which is unaffordable for some...like this family. In the last month I have noticed the change, the desperation in the faces of women who come into the clinic, battling for their children. It happens every year but every year it hits us the same. The burden to help overwhelms us. Knowing how is the problem. So pray for us too if you think of it. We need His wisdom and His provision. "Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Hebrews 4:16

Cruz Chich

This has been a really busy month with lots of visitors. As the last group left, we did too. We spent a couple of days resting with our daughter Hannah and her husband Matt in Costa Rica. It was just what we needed! Hannah had a continuing education course that she needed to take and we couldn't miss the opportunity to see them when they were so close! I am including the post that I wrote and never sent before we left. We were so thankful for all the help from the Destiny team! "In the fullness of time" was the phrase that kept going through my mind as we climbed up to Cruz Chich yesterday. Cruz Chich is a large village at the top of the mountain that I have prayed for for many years now. I have always asked that Lord to open a door into that community as we have felt that it is an area in great need. It is on the outermost edge of the township of Joyaba but closer to us here in Canilla so we often see folks from this community in our Saturday clinic here. And although it is a good sized village of about 5,ooo, it has been neglected. There is very little government help there, no government clinic, they are just now building a school, and only recently have electricity. Three weeks ago we met with the community leaders to ask if we could bring a large medical team in December. They responded that they would not only welcome the team but asked if we could start monthly clinics there. So yesterday we went for the first time with the help of the team that has been here all week from Destiny Church. I expected to see only a few patients but was surprised by the well organized reception of the community and we saw 120 people. The village is very strongly Catholic - there is only one very small congregation of evangelical Christians - so I was unsure how our request to speak to the people about salvation would be received but they were very open and receptive. We prayed with many people...planting seeds and we pray that the Lord of the harvest brings many out of the darkness into the Light! Please pray for David and Aaron as they are in the US preparing a load of equipment to be brought down in the next month or so. Joseph will go to help as well this week. They will load two tractor trailers of donated equipment and drive them to the Mexican border where our friend Martin from here in Guatemala will meet them. He will drive the loads through Mexico as we have been advised that it is not safe for us to make that trip. We are so grateful to those who have donated this equipment and have been talking and planning for months about how to make all of this happen. It is a huge undertaking to get two tractor trailers...and to get them loaded and down the road safely. We are sorry that we cannot get our blogger to put this post in paragraph format! So, you can put in the paragraphs wherever you see fit :)

New Email Address!

Our Fickerfam@intelnett.com email address is no longer working, but please use Fickerfam@gmail.com to contact us from now on. If you have tried to email us on Fickerfam @intelnett.com anytime in the last 6 weeks, we have probably not received it, so if you would not mind resending it to our new email address, that would be great.

Thanks so much!