OWH Recent News

Outreach For World Hope

Recent News

I hope you are well. Randy and I just returned from Guatemala. We had a very successful and productive trip. Here is a update for you:

We arrived in Guatemala City last Wednesday. We remained in the city to complete the purchase of a 4 x 4 pick-up truck that will serve as an Emergency Medical Transport Vehicle with the hope of reducing maternal deaths that are resulting from child birth at home in remote mountain villages. This purchase was done in conjunction with our new midwife collaboration program described later in this update.

The following day began with an imminent meeting with a judge regarding one of our sponsored children, a four year old named Yanira, who has had a large tumor in her face for two years. We have offered to provide surgery to biopsy the tumor and have it removed many times. The last time I was in Guatemala I implored the parents to accept our offer and comply with our efforts to help her. They refused. The tumor has now become inflamed and infected such that the child is in constant pain and cannot eat. It became necessary to report the case to the authorities and force the parents to allow intervention. The judge ruled in our favor and sent a representative with us to Yanira’s home to collect her. The judge promised to take the child from the parents and place her in an orphanage if they refused to cooperate in the future. Pre-op work has now been done and the tumor will be removed on Monday. Please keep Yanira in your prayers.

Road to Yanira's Home

We then hosted a luncheon for 13 midwives as the initiation of our collaboration with them to reduce maternal mortality. They were each given basic medical equipment to assist in their volunteer services as midwives. Each of them received a colorful mesh bag including a delivery mat, large pot for boiling water, large bowl for bathing newborns, two towels,15 pairs of rubber gloves, hand sanitizer, flashlights and batteries, a bottle of alcohol, rain ponchos and umbrellas. The midwives were overjoyed and offered prayers of thanksgiving. They were given our emergency contact number for the rescue of women in need of hospitalization and/or c-section and each of them will be provided with a cell phone.

The next order of business was a visit to several Nutritional Enhancement Triad (NET) projects. The Bucket Kit gardens we saw all looked great. Many things had been harvested and new things had been planted. They are currently growing tomatoes, cabbage, cilantro, radishes, corn, and beans. One family had doubled the size of their garden, watering the additional rows by hand!

The hens project, which was begun as a pilot last year, is our pride and joy! Each hen house contained 7 chickens and a rooster. All had a fancy looking feeder in the middle of the hen house which was filled with food. Many had chicks! The hens looked fabulous. The families told us that they were eating some of the eggs and selling the surplus, just as we had hoped. There were 10 fruit trees planted at each home but they looked quite scrawny as they had just been planted. As we all know, these will take time to produce fruit and are an investment in the future. These three projects combined will lead to improved nutrition and health and self-sustained independence.

We then went to Plan De La Arada to begin our adult literacy program. We started with a meeting and celebration with cake and Pepsi as we spoke about the importance of literacy and education. We had 30 people signed up in advance, but when we got there, there were around 100 people waiting (some teenage girls whose parents had never sent them to school). We were so encouraged by the interest and turn out! Although the classes were begun with the goal of promoting women’s literacy, many men signed up. Fifty adults were enrolled and received notebooks and pencils. We will need to run two classes three times per week in groups of 25 per class! Skipping ahead in chronological order, the same thing happened the following afternoon in Pacren! We will be running 2 classes there as well, with a total of 100 people enrolled between the two villages. What amazing ambition and desire to learn!

Upon returning from Plan De La Arada, we had time to follow up on Otmar’s situation and pay him a visit. Otmar was neglected by his mother and weighed only 16 pounds at 4 years of age when we found him 2 years ago. We went to a judge and had him placed in a loving home for neglected children. As you know, we have been very concerned about him since his mother, who nearly caused his death by starvation two years ago, recently removed him from this home with permission from the judge. The mother is not fond of us because it was we that initiated the proceedings with the court system to remove him from his neglectful home 2 years ago. Upon hearing of his removal from the orphanage, we were suddenly faced with two options 1) fight her in court to return Otmar to the orphanage, which would have been risky in that if we had lost, we would never be able to help or support Otmar again, as the mother would eliminate us from his life or 2) make amends with the mother and offer to provide the sponsorship food supply each month in order to keep tabs on Otmar’s health and safety. We chose the latter. We bought Otmar an outfit, a toy truck, and some animal toys and headed to his home, not really sure how we would be received and quite frankly fearing for our lives! When we arrived, the mother was not at home but the OWH averse grandmother was. She was civil toward us, but certainly not friendly. Otmar came running with hugs and affection when he saw us. He seemed happy and well cared for but was notably thinner. He was clean and dressed including shoes. The weight loss may be a result of the change from a diet of pop-tarts, waffles and other treats provided by the orphanage, to beans and rice. We will continue to monitor him and provide food.

On the way back down the mountain a miraculous thing happened. We passed by Otmar’s mother on the side of the road as she was returning home. I jumped out of the car and gave her a big hug, against my better judgment. I asked her if she remembered me and she said yes. The last time I had seen her was two years ago when I refused to leave her hut without permission to take Otmar and hospitalize him, because he was dying imminently! She remembered that night. I told her that we had just come from her home, and had visited Otmar, that he looked great and that we were happy that she was willing to recommit to her son (although I was still skeptical). After a short conversation she told me that a 4 year old girl in a neighboring community was severely malnourished and she asked if I would come and see her. I almost fainted. The rescue and hospitalization of Otmar was almost a kidnapping and now she was asking me to hospitalize a neighbor! We went with her to the home of the child, who could not walk or talk. Otmar’s mother actually helped us to convince the child’s mother to let us take the her to the hospital, telling her that we had saved Otmar’s life. I choked back tears. We did get permission to hospitalize the child and the mother came with us. We will keep you posted on her progress!

The following morning we were invited by Drs. Velarde and Mejia (Directors of Inpatient Nutritional Rehabilitation Center and Centro De Salud) to meet with them. They had heard we were in town and couldn't wait to show us their new birthing suite. With help from World Bank, they had opened a beautiful maternity ward, delivery room and nursery. Unfortunately, they are having a bit of trouble with promotion because the place was empty. They are aware of the trust we have earned in the communities and asked us to help us promote “inpatient delivery”. We whole heartedly agreed to do this. They asked us to “put pressure” on the village women to change their culture and move from midwifery to inpatient delivery. We would love to see this happen but politely explained to them that we have had, and will continue to have success, not by pressuring, but by winning trust and confidence by caring for, loving and respecting the women on their own level while sharing information and gently leading. They agreed and we promised to speak to all of our midwives about accompanying their patients in the birthing center (they are welcome there). A major step forward! This will take time and many will still deliver at home, but thanks to our new vehicle, there will be fewer deaths. Thank you Mike Morin, Mark Griswold and Judah Rinzel for your generous contributions!

Following that meeting we interviewed a candidate for employment because Elsa indicated that with only 5 staff members, we are shorthanded, especially with the doubling in size of our reading program, which will take up many of Alexander’s and Wilma’s afternoons, and the increase in number of families receiving the Nutritional Enhancement Triad (NET) program. The candidate was a young woman (22 years old) who wore a skin tight, very low cut shirt which showed way too much on top and did not reach all the way down to the top of her pants. She wore lots of make-up and huge earrings. No matter what she said, she would not have been able to convince me that she would have had a positive effect on the image of the ministry. Conversely, many of you have met Trini, Elsa’s (45ish) friend and ministry volunteer. Every time I have been in Guatemala with a team or otherwise, this humble woman has done everything she could to help and to facilitate whatever projects we have engaged in, including being on the front lines at every distribution. Elsa calls her, often in the middle of the night, with medical emergencies involving sponsored children when she is in need of a travel companion. Trini comes running! She has proven to be trustworthy and loyal and obviously loves and respects the poor we serve. She has been offered a part time job for three months with the possibility of extension. She has already earned that amount of pay as a volunteer!

The trip also included a lunch with Alma’s family (our scoliosis patient). We explained to them that Alma’s recent MRI revealed that the spinal cord cyst still exists, making scoliosis surgery too dangerous at the moment. However, according to Dr Iskandar, her UW Hospital volunteer Neurosurgeon, and Dr Noonan (UW Orthopedic surgeon who will do the scoliosis surgery), the cyst had decreased in size significantly which means that the first surgery was a success. It has been recommended that we repeat the MRI in October and based on the results, hopefully schedule her return for scoliosis surgery in January. The family was very happy. Roman (Alma’s father) looked great and is recovering from his stroke gradually. He hopes to be able to be of help to us with our Agriculture projects within 6 months.

On our way back from the Pacren reading program initiation we stopped by the home of one our sponsored children named Joaquin. His mother had just given birth with complications and was rushed to the hospital. Joaquin and his father were at hospital with her, while their three other children had been left at home alone outside, with the house locked for security reasons. They had been outside all day until late afternoon with no food. We had food with us and gave them each chicken, tortillas, vegetables and rice along with salted nut rolls and granola bars from our backpacks (see photo). The next morning the father showed up at our office in need of formula for his newborn infant since the mother was not producing milk. He thanked us profusely for providing the meal for his children. We gave him formula and took him to a pharmacy and bought him a baby bottle, and he was on his way. This is another example of the extreme need and desperation our sponsored families are facing.

The trip ended with the purchase of two silos (yes silos) to house hundreds of pounds of beans and corn that was given to the Centro de Salud by the first lady (Colom’s wife) to be given to families after nutritional rehabilitation. Dr Mejia requested our help with the purchase in order to prevent the food supplies from spoiling before distribution during the difficult months of late summer, before the fall harvest. On a side note, I have been poling everyone I see in Guatemala about the popularity and performance of President Colom and the majority seem to think that he and his wife are doing good things to help the country’s poor...or at least more than past presidents.

Sorry this got so long. Thanks to all of you for your love, support and prayers! Please remember to pray for our ministry and families daily!

Peace and Blessings,

Kim & Randy Tews

Thank You

We at Outreach for World Hope wish to thank you, our sponsors and financial partners, for your support, encouragement and prayers. None of what we do would be possible without your generosity and true love and concern for the poor. We hope you have been blessed by the opportunity to be a part of all that OWH has accomplished in Guatemala. May God bless you.