Friday, January 18, 2008


The Club de Amigos organized a raffle to raised funds for the construction of the Hospitalito. The drawing was held in the park on Tuesday. A six month old Zebu bull was donated for the grand prize, and second prize was this new bicycle, won by Gregorio a nurse that had volunteered at the Hospitalito. Traditional midwife Lucia Quieju won the bull. More than a thousand dollars was raised by selling tickets for 5 Quetzales each. The bull was more difficult to photograph than the bicycle.

Posted by Joel at 7:36 AM | | Comments

Friday, January 11, 2008


Hospitalito Atitlán received a group of 15 visitors from the Kyle of Kildare Presbytarian Church of Cary, North Carolina. The group brought five suitcases filled with items from the wish list. In the photo are Barney Hale, Pastor Stephanie Arnold, Susan Mazzara, and Hospitalito board member Lyn Dickey with Antonio Chichom from central supply unpacking the donation. We were thrilled to see the red knit caps lovingly made by women in the church who were with the travelers in spirit. The group was led by Dr. David Wiseman, a pastor in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. They asked to see the old Hospitalito in Panabaj, the temporary facility and the site of the construction of the permanent Hospitalito Atitlán. It is always great to meet new friends that want to help.

Posted by Joel at 4:15 PM | | Comments

Monday, January 07, 2008


Christian Campus House

Southern Missouri University

On December 27th, Dave Embree returned to Santiago Atitlán with another group of young people to help out with the Hospitalito. This is the fourth trip that he has made with ready to work student members of CCH. In 2005, they installed the tile on the walls at the old Hospitalito in Panabaj. For their second trip they were scheduled to build physicians on-call rooms and an education room on top of the new kitchen/laundry facility in Panabaj, but Stan changed that. Instead they built three small cabins for volunteers, located next to the temporary facility in Tzanchichum. In January 2007, they built the medical directors office, and shelving for the new library. This year Dave requested a BIG job... so they started the construction of the retaining walls where the permanent hospital is being built in XutChaaj. It was hard and dirty work! It was great to see so many familiar faces. A big MILTIOX (thanks in Tz'tujiil) to all of the hard workers and their friends and family that made it happen!

Posted by Joel at 3:57 AM | | Comments

Wednesday, January 02, 2008




We received the images above from U.S. artist Marjorie Taylor, who most graciously agreed to let us share them with you. Below is a portion of her heartfelt email that accompanied the paintings.


Hello,

 My name is Marjorie Taylor I am a painter who visited Panabaj in Feb. 2007, after the devastation of Hurricane Stan. It was something that I will never forget.

 These are some paintings that I created from that visit. These paintings are hanging in my studio, and I have told many people about the village and the people of Panabaj.
I wanted to send you these images so that the people of Panabaj know that they are not forgotten.

The two women in the top image are sisters-in-law. They had each lost their husband and other family members in the mudslide. They asked us to take a photo of them standing where their homes once were. Their story and others like it were heartbreaking, and I think about them often. The paintings of the children I painted because I was so touched by the children living there - after all of the loss that they had been through, their sweet smiles and trusting eyes expressed hope for the future.

I would love it if my art could be used somehow to help heal, raise awareness, raise money, or be of some help to the people struggling to rebuild their lives. Already, I donate a portion of any sales of paintings of Guatemala to your organization.

 I just wanted to let the people of Panabaj know that there is at least one person here in the USA who is telling their story. They are not forgotten.

 With best wishes,

Marjorie Taylor
taylorstudio at sbcglobal.net
www.taylorpaintings.com

Posted by Joel at 10:40 AM | | Comments