Tahdziu, Mexico
A New Ministry Joins the Luke Society
He roams the halls of the hospital in Merida in Yucatan, Mexico – searching for Mayan voices, Mayan faces, from his hometown two hours away in Tahdziú. He searches for relatives of patients who will be admitted overnight. Relatives often accompany patients in order to subsidize payment for the hospital bill (the patient must pay a small sum and a relative must donate blood). When night comes and visiting hours are over, relatives do not have anywhere to sleep or anything to eat. When the man finds a patient from Tahdziú, he takes the patient’s relative(s) to his own apartment and provides food and a place to sleep.
As a dedicated student at the medical university in Merida, Abraham Ake always made time to open up his home in order to care for others – to make their burdens a little less heavy and create some semblance of comfort. A professor once asked Ake what he wanted to do after he obtained his degree in medicine. Ake told her he wanted to return to Tahdziú to provide medical care for the people in the town and surrounding villages. Not a glamorous position, the professor doubted Ake’s dream to serve the people of Tahdziú would last. The professor smiled and told Ake he should come back to her when he was finished with his schooling and tell her then whether he still wanted to pursue his dream of running a clinic in the poverty stricken town.
Now a licensed physician, Dr. Ake continues in his God-given passion to care for people in need – for people at risk of neglect. He proved his professor wrong by coming directly to his hometown and opening the Siloam Clinic in his own home. The government clinic in Tahdziú has very limited hours. The nearest hospital with limited surgical and obstetrical capacity is in Peto, which is 5 miles from Tahdziú. The hospital in Merida, which offers more extensive urgent care and surgical capacity, is two hours from Tahdziú. Dr. Ake’s clinic, providing 24 hour service, is filling a very real need.
When Regional Coordinator for South America, Dr. Jose Luis Guerrero, heard about Dr. Ake’s desire to partner with the Luke Society he was elated. In the months following the initial contact, Dr. Guerrero made two preliminary visits to Tahdziú, accomplishing much of the organizational preparation needed for a potential ministry. When everything was in order, Dr. Guerrero and Dr. Greg Kuiper decided to journey to Tahdziú, Mexico to evaluate Dr. Ake’s ministry. While in Mexico they spent a few days experiencing life as Dr. Ake does each day.
A Mayan Indian who was born and raised in Tahdziu, Dr. Ake has strong connections with his people and his command of both the Mayan and Spanish languages eliminates cultural barriers. Since the majority of the people in Tahdziu are Mayan and speak little to no Spanish, they often experience problems in communicating with doctors in the hospital in Merida. Patients have difficulty describing their symptoms to these doctors, which makes it difficult for the doctors to make an accurate diagnosis. Also, patients often misunderstand the instructions that accompany prescriptions.
Additional problems pervade the treatment people receive at the hospital in Merida. According to Dr. Ake, doctors are permitted to choose which patients they want to treat first. A number of doctors characterize patients from Tahdziú as dirty – from a lower class. Dr. Ake has seen the injustice and inefficiencies in healthcare at the hospital. He desires to meet the needs of the people in Tahdziú by filling the gaps the hospital leaves wide open. He wants them to understand healthcare – to learn the proper view of medicine and how to use preventative measures to stay healthy.
Dr. Ake finds guidance and motivation in the Scripture passage about the “Pool of Siloam” in John 9:1-12, 35-38. He believes this passage depicts the work he is called to do in Tahdziú. This passage focuses on healing both spiritual and physical wounds – wounds Dr. Ake believes are especially prominent in Tahdziú. Dr. Ake has a firm spiritual foundation nurtured by his parents, Luis and Sara Ake. Luis Ake is the pastor of the Presbyterian Reformed Church in Tahdziú as well as three daughter churches in an area extending two hours to the coast. The entire family works with a strong sense of hospitality and calling to support the community. Following in his parents’ footsteps, Dr. Ake eagerly and tirelessly serves his patients. Just as his apartment in Merida was always open, so his clinic door is always open. He often sets aside his dinner while attending to the needs of a patient.
Dr. Ake’s work includes visits to several of the surrounding villages. Drs. Guerrero and Kuiper joined Dr. Ake in a tour of three of the villages he plans to serve with his ministry.
Just a few miles off the main road, the car pulls down a rocky, narrow road into the first village, San Lorenzo. The village is small – consisting of 22 Christian Mayan people. On the edge of town is a one room schoolhouse where the eight children from the village attend school every weekday. A woman diligently sweeps a large open area, clearing the small pieces of litter on the ground. Chickens and small dogs wander around the village. The residents of San Lorenzo strive to keep a well-organized village and sell gasoline and raise honeybees. The water is relatively safe for drinking. By comparison, this village appears to be doing relatively well, but signs of poverty are clear in the children’s dress and lack of cleanliness.
After a short visit in San Lorenzo, the group is ready to journey to the next destination. They find the road to be extremely rough as the vehicle scrapes against rocks that jut out of the dirt. Finally, the village of Cisteil peeks through a covering of trees. In the distance, a machine spurts and softly rumbles as the women use a corn grinder to make dough for tortillas. The village appears to be modern with high wired electrical lines and street lamps, but none of these are functional. Far across the village is a large cream colored building trimmed with dull red paint. The building remains empty and unused, accented by the dead electrical lines and lights. The government provided funds for the townspeople to build the clinic six years ago in order to support a traveling doctor. The doctor, however, only visits after multiple complaints are made about his absence. Similarly, in the six years since being installed, the electrical lines have never been connected to the electrical grid and remain unused.
The residents of Cisteil are happy to see Dr. Ake who brings them the hope of better healthcare, which is a high priority for them. One resident brings the visitors two large, juicy watermelons that drip onto the rock as they fall open with the slight touch of a knife. Residents sell watermelons at the market and thus earn part of their livelihood from their crop of watermelons. Dr. Ake explains that the people have the resources to obtain healthy food, but they lack the knowledge, both agriculturally and nutritionally, of which foods are healthy and practical to grow. The final village the group visited was also full of potential and ready to receive instruction.
The car putters past ears of struggling dry corn in the hot, humid atmosphere. The driver soon pulls up to the village of Mocté. Here the residents guide the visitors across the muddy ground spotted with chicken and dog feces. In the first hut, the residents have piled their sole livelihood – bags of chili peppers. These chilies are only harvested once a year because of the amount of water needed to grow them. The residents of Mocté have limited resources to fill their needs. Even small changes in the way the village is operated, however, would make a tremendous difference in the quality and amount of resources the residents possess.
Inside the circle of huts that form the village, several tiny dogs roam around and others are tied with small strings to roots and tree limbs surrounding the outskirts of the village. The villagers use the dogs to draw deer out of the woods. The animals are small and extremely malnourished – their ribs prominently jut out from their tiny bodies. When the pups bark and whimper at visitors, residents throw rocks at the dogs, often hitting them directly in the face. The residents do not clean up the dogs’ excrement deposited all over the ground in the village, which could easily contaminate water supply and increase the risk of infection with food preparation. Adding to this sanitation problem, the village does not have latrines. Another danger is the electrical lines that run across the village strung from tree to tree at shoulder level.
The diet of the residents in Mocté varies, but the main staples are beans, chilies, local fruit, corn tortillas, and sometimes chicken. Though there is usually plenty of food, the quality and nutritional value of the food is very poor. The children ride their bikes four miles down a rocky, uneven, dirt road every weekday to get to school. Mocté has a similar healthcare situation as Cisteil. The same doctor is supposed to visit their community, but he seldom comes to the village.
The tour of these villages made it clear to Drs. Guerrero and Kuiper there is a need for Dr. Ake’s ministry in Tahdziú. Dr. Ake has developed a plan to attend to these needs. To compensate for shortcomings in the health services available in Peto and Merida, he intends to be available for 24 hour emergency care and have clinic hours available on the weekends. He also plans to instruct non-licensed healthcare providers, such as midwives and “bone doctors,” by teaching them proper hygiene and aftercare. He will make regular trips to a number of the villages near Tahdziú where community leaders will be chosen to help improve health and living conditions. The leaders will meet at Dr. Ake’s clinic on a regular basis for classes and evaluations regarding hygiene, healthy diets, agricultural progress, and educational needs. Dr. Ake intends to partner with specialists (i.e. agronomists, nutritionists) to make life-changing improvements in these villages.
In addition, Dr. Ake plans to work with various churches in the community to assist in providing educational information on hygiene, Biblical sexual behavior, etc. Dr. Ake’s passion, enthusiasm, and love for the people of Tahdziú and for his one and only Savior Jesus Christ give him the hope and perseverance to carry out his calling to a medical ministry in Tahdziú. Through the work he has planned, Dr. Ake plans to focus on the spiritual, physical, and social elements that result in holistic care.
Bridget Smith