Patzun, Guatemala
Changing A Country One Community At a Time
Between 1960 and 1996, Guatemala experienced a devastating 36-year-long civil war that left many in its rural areas disillusioned with life. The dispute between right-wing government and left-wing guerrillas threw the country into chaos. Government armies were sent into rural communities to kill the guerrillas. But without knowing who was involved, many innocent men, women and children were needlessly killed.
The heartache experienced during that time still resonates with those who survived. A Cakchiquel Indian woman told her story: “When I was pregnant, my husband was kidnapped and slaughtered. I went to the hospital to deliver my baby. I was suffering so much. When I came home, other people were living there and told me I did not belong there. I have been forced to work with my machete and hoe as a man to find work to feed my children. We found the place where my husband was buried. He was obviously tortured after he was kidnapped. Everything that has happened has been like a shadow.”
Another woman says, “We were between two fires - those against the law and the soldiers who were persecuting us.”
During the aftermath of the war, there was also a Cakchiquel man living in poverty and witnessing the hardship war had left behind. At the age of 19, he went to military school and was on the road to becoming a military leader. But God had different plans for this man. When a friend invited him to church, he heard the Gospel and was transformed! He changed his plans and went to medical school, ready to reach out to his people, the Cakchiquel, and transform Guatemala. This man is Dr. Axel Suquen, who has since partnered with the Luke Society, which has allowed him to build the ministry of Asociación VIDA, a medical/dental clinic staffed with men and women who share his vision.
The vision for change is not passive. Dr. Suquen and his staff seek out people by visiting rural communities in order to start health education programs. The programs focus on disease prevention, nutrition, hygiene, but most importantly, they introduce Jesus.
Dr. Suqen has discovered the most effective way to be introduced into a community is through the local pastor. Pastors encourage their congregations to attend health lectures given by VIDA staff. During the first meeting in a new community, the VIDA staff is usually met with skepticism. It is hard for them to believe that learning about hygiene can improve their quality of life. Dr. Suquen has realized that to make an impact on the people, he has to be visible to them, consistent with them and treat them as valuable people.
In a meeting with community health promoters, one of the attendees, Obispo Catu, said, “I have memories of 30 years ago. No organization would come in to help us in the communities. Now we come to these meetings and it’s changing us! In the past, when children died of diarrhea, it was common. Now we have hygiene, we wash our hands, we know how to prepare healthful food. Our grandfathers are amazed to see the changes because they had no one who would care about their infirmities. This is an awakening to a new kind of life. Through little effort, I have changed my life completely.”
Isaias Suy, another community health leader, talked about the reduction in disease in his community since VIDA stepped in. “That’s why we must be grateful to VIDA for giving us knowledge,” he said. “In the past, no one told us anything.”
A large barrier to Dr. Suquen’s work through the church is the issue of integral health. Integral health is the idea that a person cannot be truly healthy without being nourished physically, spiritually and emotionally. “The emphasis in Guatemala is that the churches will save souls and witness,” Dr. Suquen explains. “But the vision is not complete! They don’t take care to study what the Gospel means. What really gets back to the Gospel - the integral Gospel - is that we are taking care of not only their souls, but their spirit and also their body, which gives integrity to the whole concept.”
Pastor Thomas Mendez has been a model pastor in Dr. Suquen’s work. He was invited by Asociación VIDA to be part of a training seminar on community health. Pastor Mendez was willing to learn something new, so he attended and is still attending. “I am now prepared to learn about other areas of my ministry,” Pastor Mendez says. “What I appreciate is the opportunity to improve in knowledge and to gain new experiences which are valuable to my ministry. Now I know what integral ministry is: there are no boundaries.”
Dr. Suquen has enjoyed watching the transformation of Pastor Mendez’s ideology. “It’s really satisfactory to see how he really cares not only about the spiritual area of the people within his congregation, but also he cares about the matter related to their bodies: health and well-being.”
“I have learned that there is not only one side of our body being empowered, but our whole body, our mind and our spirit,” Pastor Mendez said. “As I acquire new knowledge, I will be able to share something more powerful to those here.”
The result of these community health meetings is not only the education of those that attend, but it is also training for natural leaders who want to further educate their communities. Those that attend the meetings and show leadership qualities are educated further in disease prevention and general hygiene.
Luis Ajquejay is a community health promoter. When he first attended the meetings, he was not only skeptical of their value, but had also recently left his family for another woman. “When I was in this situation, Asociación VIDA came to our community to have a meeting with our leaders. In the meeting, VIDA invited our leaders to get special community health training, and I volunteered. In the meetings that followed, Axel began talking to us about God, and I knew it was the answer I had been looking for desperately.”
Luis Ajquejay became a Christian and returned to his family. He also became a leader in his community and was trained in community health. His wife, Maria Luisa, says, “Through the training as a health promoter, we have a different life because of the knowledge he has. We know how to take better care of our children and our community, and we thank God for that knowledge.”
“The goal of community health is to recover the human dignity of the people,” Dr. Suquen explains. “Also to be able to detect the primary need among the people in order to give priority to that need. We feel we are just taking care of the failure of good health because, of course, if a person is getting sick, it is because there was not prevention against such sickness. The utmost importance is preventative health.”
Scattered across the mountains of the region of Tecpan, where Asociación VIDA works, small villages exist miles from each other. Each village has its own economy, and each person is essential to its survival. The communication between the villages is limited, yet they depend on each other for certain needs.
As a woman nears the end of her pregnancy, one of the villages’ most diligent workers comes to help: the traditional midwife. As long as women have been having babies in Guatemala, there has been a traditional midwife at her side. Many of the women have chosen the profession because their mothers were midwives. Some became midwives out of necessity. But most of them have received no formal training in proper midwifery.
Jacinta Salvador has been a midwife for 60 years. “When I began, there was no equipment, so we had to improvise. We simply put plastic covers on their bed. We had no gloves, and we did our best with hygiene.”
Asociación VIDA soon recognized the need to educate the midwives. It sponsors trips to midwife conferences for those who are natural leaders. Women who attend these conferences then share their experiences with the other midwives, through VIDA-sponsored workshops. VIDA has also provided the necessary equipment and techniques for the women to do their jobs effectively and efficiently.
Dalila Par de Odoñez, who has been a midwife for 20 years, says, “We are a new generation of midwives, learning from the experiences of our elders and from Asociación VIDA.”
Even though midwives are an important part of the lives of rural people, they are not recognized as a health entity by the government. The government would prefer that women visit government health centers to have their babies. However, the health centers are located in big cities, sometimes very far from the rural communities.
“When I first began, the first two years were frightening. I was threatened several times by the government,” Odoñez remembers. “In past years, we were scared of threats. But now, we feel supported to demand our own rights because our task is so important to those we provide care for.”
Dr. Suquen has provided empowerment for the midwives by being aware of government regulations that may restrict their work. To be a government-recognized entity, all group decisions must be documented and all members must sign minutes taken at the meetings. As a result of following these rules, the midwives have united and are benefiting from knowing their rights.
“We are now different because we are united,” Odoñez says. “We are gaining confidence by changing measures in the cities.” There are rumors that a new hospital will be opening in the region of Tecpan, of which Patzun is a part. “We are demanding a place to work with good equipment and good hygiene so we can do our work. Pray that they will hear us and provide what we need.” The new hospital would potentially serve all the rural areas where Dr. Suquen works. Pregnant women who were hesitant to use government health centers would be more willing to come if their midwives would be welcome there.
At first glance, it seems as though Dr. Suquen’s staff is defined by the nurses and staff within the clinic. However, those doing the work of Asociación VIDA include pastors, community health leaders, midwives, school children and donors who keep the project going.
Dr. Suquen has a humble view of the entire project. “We are not interested in forming super-midwives, super-leaders and super-community health leaders. It’s not about that. It’s about having common people doing uncommon things in the proper way. The big difference is that we want them to be catalyzers of our ideas and our ideals and of course, our methods, in which we can work together in order to get better results working as a team and not as a person.”
Dr. Suquen’s vision of changing Guatemala is becoming a reality. The same widow who spoke about the two fires also said, “Asociación VIDA gives us what our government cannot give - a new life with knowledge. Through God’s mercy, we are starting to see hope for the future.”
The other widow said, “Through VIDA, I have been able to have new dreams. I see more reality in my new life.” This new life is centered on empowerment, health and spiritual vitality.
Laura Eisenga