Guatemala

Since 1996, Dr. Axel Suquen and his wife, Lourdes, have been reaching out into the Cakchiquel Indian villages near their medical/dental clinic in Patzun, Guatemala. Their involvement in these impoverished communities includes teaching basic health concepts, providing fluoride treatments for school children, monitoring the growth of children under five, treating diseases such as malaria and preaching the Word of God.

When they recently held basic health training for 250 mothers and 525 children in the villages of Paquip, Pachut, Pachimulin, La Pila and Popobaj, they were encouraged by the initiative they saw from within the community.

"It was excellent to see the hand of God using us to take the Word of God to many by means of these activities," said Axel, a Cakchiquel himself. "The most interesting thing is that it was planned and carried out by our promoters in the communities on their own initiative. We participated just to proclaim the gospel. We praise God for this."

In the clinic, Luke Society staff treat emergency cases, provide laboratory services and offer free prenatal care. Wanting to do more than just treat disease, though, they focus much of their efforts on helping people adopt healthier practices to prevent disease.

To that end, Axel and Lourdes have been training and sharing the gospel to 40 midwives in the town of Patzun and health promoters from different communities. They recently held a retreat with some of these lay health workers. Axel shared with us about an encounter at the retreat:

"At dawn of the second say of our retreat, I had the opportunity to talk with Luis, a promoter from the community of La Pila, who told me that during this year of study of health subjects, as well as the Word of God, he had come to know Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior and now is very involved in the local evangelical church and is attending with all of his family. This was better than any prize or reward for me -- it filled me with so much joy. So, my brothers, God is working in extraordinary ways in our ministry. Thank you for your prayers; we have no doubt these are answers to those prayers."