Best...Worst

It was the best of times: it was the worst of times.

Ah, no one would write anything starting like that.

Let’s see, it was a great week, it was a disappointing week.

Yes!  That is much better.

It was a great week, it was a disappointing week.

The past week has been great.  The double vision has diminished greatly.  As long as I do not roll my eyes and I just look straight forward things are fine.  However, if I roll my eyes instead of turning my head my right eye gets all out of sorts.  I then must close my eyes and open them slowly.  This gives my brain a chance to realign my eyes and reset things correctly.   Some have wondered if my brain was ever aligned correctly but I am talking now about my eyes.

The past week has been disappointing.  Maybe not disappointing but frustrating.  This was the week I was to go to Guatemala with a mission team from church.  It would have been my seventh trip there and as with every other time I was looking forward to it.

Several years ago our church established a partnership with Clubhouse Guatemala, a mission organization ministering to the people of Guatemala.  Each year, sometimes more often, we send a team who participates in a number of different ministries.   The large projects take place within the schools and the feeding centers.  Smaller ones are in individual homes.

Clubhouse has feeding centers in both Guatemala City and in a number of the outlying villages.  Each center caters to school age children who would not have enough to eat if not for the center.  There the children get a meal as well as being tutored with their school work.  Once a quarter each center holds a birthday party for all of the kids who have had a birthday the previous three months.  Each birthday child receives a gift and all the kids go home with a party bag. Pizza, cake and ice cream is truly a special treat for kids everywhere.  But it is especially special when the child lives in a two maybe three room house with as many as six, eight, or more family members and Mom cooks over an open fire on the dirt floor in the middle of the living room.

That prompts other ministries of Clubhouse.  Due to cooking over an open fire many of the homes are full of smoke.  This causes a number of health problems for the family members regardless of their age.  Two things are done to help alleviate this problem.  First is the installation of wood burning stoves: stoves with a flu which exits the smoke from the house.  Second are medical clinics.

The ministry which takes place in the public schools is conducting Bible School.  The principals of the public schools invite Clubhouse to come into the school for a week and have Bible School for the kids.  It is just like Bible School here in the States.  We do music, crafts, recreation, refreshments, and most importantly a Bible story.  You would think that having to work through an interpreter would make it difficult but kids are kids the world over.  They are all eager to make new friends and will try their best to communicate, be it in English, Spanish, or just a big smile.

I had known since January that a team was going to be sent this week and I had been making plans to go.  During my first trip to Memphis I spoke to the oncologist/surgeon about traveling so soon after the surgery.  He told me that he had a good friend who is an ophthalmologist in Guatemala City.  He then added that while his friend is an excellent doctor that he himself would not want to be in Guatemala and have some post-surgery problem arise.  I took that to mean he thought it best I not go: real bummer.

As I sit and write this my phone has started indicating I have text messages.  The team returning has just arrived in Atlanta.  As disappointed as I am about not being able to go I am eager to hear about their trip.  I am sure that God did marvelous things as He always does.

So, while the week has been great as far as my eye is concerned and I am sure that it has been great for the mission team, I will just get over the fact that I did not get to go this time.  Plans are already in the works for a later trip.