So I wrote this blog almost a month ago, didn’t want to publish it at first and then due to internet issues and getting back to life in Guate, I delayed it more. So without further delay, here it is:
08.01.2017
Every now and then I feel like writing a blog and so I’ll say something to Whitney about it and she sort of nods her head and probably thinks “I’ll believe it when I see it” because for the most part, she’s right. I said I felt like writing a blog post back around the middle/end of June. It’s August 1st and I’m just now starting to write this!
The thing is, I knew I wanted to write something but wasn’t quite sure what. But while getting ready to go to bed tonight sitting here at my parents’ house my theme/subject/whatever came to me. I want to blog about my wife. I know Whitney will read this and may even ask me to edit out some of the things I’ll say because I want to praise her and share a tiny bit of what only I know and see. #sorrynotsorry Continue reading if i’m being honest.. in sickness & in health
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous, for The Lord, your God, is with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9
As a Christian, this verse can be so empowering. Makes you feel like you can put on your battle armor, get on your horse, and ride into battle with your beard and chest hair flowing in the wind. But I had come to realize something else about it as I was sharing it to encourage Osman…
Osman, before his haircut
Osman was your typical teenager… he played soccer, hung out with friends, and probably even was known to get into his fair share of trouble until he was left paralyzed from the waist down after falling from a tree. I first met Osman when he came to our hospital several months ago after being discovered by my friend Donna Faircloth on a medical clinic. When I had first met him, he was quiet and reserved as he followed me around in his wheelchair and made small talk. Despite the evidence of a large sacral pressure ulcer, his mama was patient and kind and spent each day carefully changing and turning her disabled son.
After only about a week, I realized how talkative Osman was. He was not the quiet kid following me around, he would yell “Hola Wendy!” when he saw me, and he’s ask me to come cut his hair or read him a book. I loved spending time with Osman and his mom, and they shared a room with Valentine who I loved to visit with (I’ll share his story another day, as his is really good too.)
I know, terrible picture of me haha.. but here’s Osman and his mama with me in January. Don’t let his face fool you, he’s thrilled, but too cool to smile. 😉Osman with a really cool Bible that was donated
Osman returned home with his mom, and life carried on until Donna had asked me to join her team from Lighthouse Church for a medical clinic and to stop in and check on Osman. She had mentioned he looked very bad and seemed depressed. When I entered his house, I found that he was severely emaciated, his ulcers had become worse, and he was very depressed at his circumstances. He hardly even smiled when I walked in, he could barely even lift his head.
Osman in May
We brought him right back to the hospital where he could receive the medical care and nutrition he needed. Only this time, his condition was largely brought on by hopelessness. 2 years after his accident and reality set in that he would never walk again. So he began to give up. However, I wasn’t about to stand along the sidelines and watch him waste away. I read him the book of Joshua and explained to him how it meant a lot to me, how God’s promise that “I will give you every place where you set your foot” was encouraging for me to be bold enough to pick up and move to Guatemala, and how during my difficult days I really had to depend on The Lord for strength. He loved the story too.
Progress! And a smile on his face too 🙂
So day by tedious day, we worked on physical strength as well as his emotional strength. When he would tune me out and pick up his phone to play games, I would explain to him that if he kept trying, he could eventually transfer himself in and out of his wheelchair which would help his mom and allow him to move more and prevent ulcers from forming. Day by day we would do arm exercises, lifting books, bottles, and bags until he gained strength and confidence.
I laughed, as I explained it to Osman and his mom… Yeah, we look to the second part of Joshua 1:9 to empower us… but almost just as importantly, I love how it is preceded by “Have I not commanded you?” If God had the same attitude I had, it would have been in all-caps and followed by not just a question mark, but an exclamation point too… “HAVE I NOT COMMANDED YOU?!” I felt like saying that to Osman several times throughout his care when he felt like not doing his exercises for the day as he wasn’t seeing immediate results. “HAVE I NOT TOLD YOU?!” Osman came to appreciate this verse– the perpetual reminder to be strong, and the exasperated author (or in my case, speaker) who had to verbalize a little frustration through the process. As Osman leaned more on this verse, the darkness of depression lifted from him as he gained his strength.
BEFOREAFTER <3
He finally got healthy enough to go back home again, but I pray that this time he has a truth in his heart to encourage him through the difficult days. I pray he hears me harping “HAVE I NOT COMMANDED YOU?! Be strong and courageous!” as he continues his exercises to build upper body strength. I pray he knows how deeply he’s cared for, and that he will continue to grow in this.
This picture brings me to tears. Sweet William continues to grow and thrive. Although I so loved his precious cleft lipped smile, I love even more the world of potential that is contained in this precious miracle baby.
He gives power to the weak, and strength to the powerless. Isaiah 40:29
William’s story is just starting to be written, but you can read about where it began HERE.
I am thankful he was in my arms when his heart slowed to a barely perfusing 20 beats per minute. However, make no mistake, the glory is not mine. The glory belongs to God for having His hand over William’s life and every doctor and nurse that was present during his care.
I have started two other blog posts that I want to share with you all, but could not move forward without showing this little miracle first. More to come later this week… 🙂
For where you treasure is, there your heart will be also. [matthew 6:21]
But what if your treasures are scattered from West Virginia all the way down to Central America?
Sitting here in the Panama City airport “enjoying” an extremely long layover. As I am literally in the transition between Guatemala and USA, it so deeply resonates with how I feel- a heart being stuck in between two places that aren’t exactly right beside each other.
I am not sure why I feel so neither here nor there today. I think part of it is because we haven’t been stateside in over 6 months… and I am so so so very excited to see my nieces and nephews- to hug their necks, swing them through the air, and call them funny names. I am so excited to see my parents, grandparents, my brothers, my inlaws, our friends. I’m excited to crush a pepperoni roll from Brandywine Fox’s and eat Split Banana. Oh, American food, I’ve missed you so! Continue reading Layover Life
As I sit here, I’m so torn about what to write about… In one way, it feels like everything is exactly the same as we continue to press on and work hard. On the other hand, so many new things have happened since I last wrote. Sometimes, though, it is hard to put words to the moments spent giving therapy to severely disabled kids with your favorite short term group from California. It is hard to describe the light in a child’s eyes after receiving several weeks of nutrition. It is hard to describe the gratitude I have toward all the doctors, nurses, and administration I get to work beside in our hospital. While so much of what we do feels like “you just had to be there” type of moments, I hope so much that this gives you just a small glimpse into our every day.
Lately, it’s been a mix of mountaintops and valleys here. I am always so encouraged and filled with hope when our patients finally start to look and feel better… you wouldn’t believe the amount of love and care that is poured into them here from all the hospital staff. However, this month we have lost a few babies and one teenage girl that I had become very connected with. I’ve become better about dealing with the emotional trauma that I experience sometimes daily here, but I guess it’s something that you never just ‘get used to.’ Rather, you learn to process it in a healthy way and disconnect for a little while when it’s necessary. We did just that this past weekend and headed to a Guatemalan beach on the border of Belize to celebrate our 6 year anniversary and catch up on much needed sleep!
One of my recent highlights this month, has been watching the transformation of Doris. I will share her story below, but I want to warn you that her ‘before’ pictures are hard to look at.
Today, Doris is a happy and (almost) completely healthy 16 year old who was recently brought in on the verge of death.
Someone asked me this week if I ever get used to what I do. While I’ve certainly grown more experienced, I pray that it’s something that never becomes routine or so second nature… that holding a malnourished dying baby will always feel raw, will always have a heaviness to it, and will always move me to tears when things don’t go as expected.
…and just this week, things didn’t go as expected. Sunday, we left for a baby girl who was nearly 4 months old and weighed just 5 pounds. When I arrived, her tiny nail beds were cyanotic, the skin between her ribs sunk in and pulled together as she gasped for air, and her eyes stared blankly, lifelessly at the ceiling. Her eighteen year old mother paced the floor, worried as I quickly assessed her. The paternal grandmother wept in the background- large tears streaming from her eyes and settling into the deep wrinkles on her face that were likely brought on by a life of hardship and working in the heavy Guatemalan sun.
We carried the feverish, frail baby back to the ambulance where I immediately applied oxygen. The pulse oximeter read 52%. We rushed to the closest hospital as quickly as we could and hurried baby Heidy inside. I helped the staff to start IV access and get labs while the other nurses set up an oxygen hood and fluids. Once things calmed down, I talked with Francisca (the baby’s young mother) and prayed over them. That was the last time I would ever see them as we got the call yesterday that Heidy didn’t make it.
There are a lot of words that I can use to describe this type of hurt… but I stumbled across this Franciscan Blessing and would rather share it instead as it describes my feelings with much more eloquence, and much less curse words.
May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our hearts.
May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, hunger, and war, so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done, to bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.
“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8
Have you ever just felt you are watching your life from someone else’s viewpoint? That your mind is trapped in a space that is apart from your body as you watch yourself walk through the motions of every day life – wake up, coffee, work, home, eat, sleep, repeat. Rarely feeling fulfilled, simply existing instead of just living.
I used to feel this way on occasion before coming here to Guatemala. There were nights where I ached to be here– to feel the heat upon my skin, the dust on my lips, and the orphan in my arms. In retrospect, I can say that I perhaps squandered a lot of opportunities to serve and a lot of opportunities to love others during my season of waiting. I’ve come to realize that no matter what season of life we are in, especially seasons of waiting, that we are to persevere– to love God and love others with intention and purpose… even in the small things.
All this goes to say, although I’m more content and fulfilled in my work now than I’ve ever been, life here still has its difficulties. February was a hard month… we started out the month with some sick volunteers, then came a week with a respiratory virus, and we ended the month with a bout of rotavirus sweeping through the hospital and complicating our progress with the babies who came in already malnourished and dehydrated. At one point, I had worked 18 days straight (with the exception of one day of rest after a grueling 36 hour shift without sleep.) Don’t worry, Mom… I am not working myself to death, nor have I caught myself in the middle of some scheme where I am living on a ministry and they overwork me and call it “mission work.” 🙂 I am grateful that those hours and that intensity isn’t at all what Hope of Life asks or requires of me. I do this because I am finally SO passionate about what I do. I do this because last year we lost seven babies in a week due to rotavirus and respiratory viruses. I refuse to let that happen again. I will rest for several days once it is over… for now, I am running this race with endurance.
I was talking with one of my good friends who is Guatemalan and works for the ministry. He had mentioned how it must be amazing to be in the hospital and see the physical transformations and life change that happens every day among the children we bring in. That is SO true. Every day I go in to work is a new day to open my eyes to the literally miraculous things that God is doing here at Hope of Life. Every day, new milestones are achieved — a child’s diet advances, we can finally discontinue their IV because they are able to take in fluids, a feeding tube is removed and a patient has their first real meal in a month (or possibly for the first time ever), children with cleft palate repairs are finally gaining the courage to talk and sing at 3 1/2 years old, a baby takes their first steps at age 2… I pray that I never let fatigue or habit get in the way of what my eyes witness every day.
Although my joy and fulfillment in my career is greater now than it ever has been before, I have also experienced sadness and hurt in a valley that is darker and lower than anything I had ever known. When you spend an hour resuscitating a 4 pound baby and they are transferred to another hospital, you wake up in the middle of the night worried and hurting for them. When you lose a baby and you know you did everything in your power to help them, you feel futile and empty. I am thankful for the truth in Romans 8:26 that The Holy Spirit prays for us when we don’t even have the words or the capability to form our own thoughts in our moments of loss and disparity. I am thankful for my husband who knows when I need comforted and when I need space… and also when I need 2 gallons of black dark roasted Guatemalan coffee brought to the hospital at midnight. 🙂
I love what I do. Through the miracles I see, the hurt I sometimes feel, and the exhaustion that comes with all of it, I have come to so greatly appreciate the joy of living out my calling. I am so thankful for our supporters, friends, and family who encourage us and make this possible.
I feel like this post was a lot of different emotions tacked together and never really leading to a point… but my point is this– We have all been assigned to a mission, and we have all been given a purpose. For me, in this season, my mission is Guatemala. However, that is definitely not for everyone. Your mission may be to live your life in Huntington, West Virginia and to show love to your neighbor by serving in your community, supporting local nonprofits, and getting plugged into the local church. Your mission may be to live in Fredericksburg, VA and pray for missionaries and organize short term trips to help support the long term partners across the world. Wherever you are planted, we are called to love others. We are called to “run our race with endurance” and to show others the love of Jesus regardless of how tired or ill-equipped we feel. We don’t do it because we seek some ‘eternal reward’.. we do it because we have seen, felt, and experienced the transformative and renewing grace of God and want to share with others what we have already been filled with.
John Piper said it best, “If we don’t feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because we have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Our soul is stuffed with the small things, and there is no room for the great.”
I want my soul to be filled with ‘the great.’ Don’t you?
You are loved,
Whitney
Sweet 2 month old Dominga was brought in weighing under 4 pounds. Can’t wait to get a picture to show you all how much she’s already grown. <3Precious Deili was sick with both a respiratory virus and rotavirus. Thankful Bryan came to serve an overnight shift so that I was able to rest. <3Deili isn’t completely out of the woods, but she is feeling MUCH better!Erik was brought in for malnutrition as his mama, who was also malnourished, was unable to produce breastmilk.After a few short days, Erik was more alert and gaining weight.Gloria’s father contacted us for help after finding out his daughter was being abused by her stepfather. She was afraid of being touched, but is now safe and reunited with her biological father.Gloria’s precious cousins who received assessments as well as food bags donated by Hope of Life.A group donated this Bible, and Valentin was so happy to receive it and read it to the other young boys in his room.Osman loves looking at the pictures in his Bible.
Bradycardic, hypotensive, hypothermic, hypoglycemic and septic… when we found William, he was just over a month old and just barely 4 pounds.
Along with a myriad of other problems, he was suffering from marasmus, a severe type of malnutrition. His mother was unable to produce breast milk as she, too, was starving. The area that we brought him from was very familiar to me, and locals call it “Corridor Seco” or “The Dry Corridor” as it’s in the middle of a 6 year drought and food / clean water is hard to come by. In fact, just 2 months prior I had been to the exact same village about 4 houses down to bring back another kid.
I was already emotional going into the trip. We had originally set out to bring back a premature 3 pound baby, but had gotten word that she had passed away before we could make it to her. In the midst of all that happening, we had gotten the call about William.
He looked terrible when we arrived and I was immediately worried that he would not make the difficult journey back. He was cyanotic and his legs felt like ice even in the warmth of the Guatemalan heat. My fears were confirmed less than 10 minutes into the journey… I was frantically performing CPR on his tiny body, the whole while desperately crying out to God to please let him survive, that I couldn’t bear to lose another one in the same day.
The 2 1/2 hours back to Hope of Life was one of the longest 2 1/2 hours of my life– with many resuscitations performed. Even when we arrived back here, I was performing CPR while Dr Ana Lucia successfully started an IV after the 8th attempt. (And we’re good at IV’s too.)
When we transferred him out to a higher level care hospital, I feared that I may never see him again.
Today… he came back to Hope of Life. His momma and I both burst into tears when we saw each other.
Here are some before and after pictures:
Here you can see his dehydration, cyanosis, and lethargy. His blood sugar was 20 (yes, you read that right, 20.) when we brought him in.
Discussing with his mama that if he didn’t come back today he would die.Preparing for the long journey.TODAY! He is alert, stable, and bien precioso💛
A week or so ago, I was talking with the Safe Haven Families… and Patti Monk and Jessica Holt had said “we witness miracles every day here… miracles of healing and provision. But the BEST miracle we see is when we see a spiritual transformation… when someone passes from death and comes alive in Christ.”
I pray that one day William and his mother may come alive in Christ, and I am so. very. humbled / emotional / happy that William has survived to have that opportunity one day.
All glory to God,
–Whitney
Update Feb. 7, 2018 (one year later)
William is happy, healthy, and back home with his family. 💛💛
You are the God who works w o n d e r s [psalm 77:13-14]
I remember one time when I was young and sitting on the bench of my daddy’s 1976 red Ford truck as we drove up our long, winding dirt driveway. It was winter time and I was telling him how excited I was to see my cousin Krystle in a few days. “I can NOT wait!” I exclaimed. I remember him looking over and smiling at my anticipation. “I can’t wait either,” he’d tell me as we drove along. It wasn’t long until my excitement turned into frustration, because for a seven year old, days can feel like years sometimes. He would tell me “You know, Whit, we spend a lot of our lives waiting. We’re always waiting for something.”
I am sure when he said that, it was something to get the pesky seven year old blonde headed kid out of his bubble and to stop asking so many questions… and I doubt when he said it, he realized how much permanence that statement would resonate with me. It’s so true though. We seem to always be waiting for something…. waiting for tomorrow.. the weekend.. next month… five o’clock.. Christmas.. vacation.. the list goes on. While in Guatemala, I was counting down the days until I could get back to the states to see family. Now that I’ve seen everyone, I am counting down the days until I get back home to Guatemala. Although I’m a bit homesick for our house, the kids, and the warmer weather… I’ve got to remind myself how important every moment is while I am here in the United States. How every moment of “waiting” isn’t wasted time, when we are waiting on The Lord.
THIS ARTICLE was posted just the other day about how Anne Frank’s diary inspired some victims of Guatemala’s civil war to tell their stories. It makes my heart ache that I have stood face to face and hand in hand with women with similar stories. I have watched mothers carry 5 gallon buckets of water on their heads as they carry baskets of fruit under their arms and a line of children linked to their other arm. I have watched mothers hiking barefoot up mountains, carrying their babies in makeshift carriers. I have watched mothers cradle their malnourished children in their arms as they pray to a God that they have only recently heard of for a miracle. I have watched as mothers carried their limp, nearly lifeless babies toward us, begging us to help them– and with tears in my eyes, I’ve had to turn mothers away when we were too full to take others in.
THIS VIDEO shows details of a recent rescue that I went on… where these people aren’t just people with sad histories and stories that you read about in books or on the internet… but they are people out in the mountains in Guatemala that I have held the weight of their bodies in my arms and carried the weight of their stories in my chest. The thought of young children being raped, abandoned, sold into slavery, or orphaned because of poverty, desperation and sin isn’t just a harrowing statistic. It’s a girl with a name whose nails I paint in the hospital. It’s a mother with a name who asks if I can buy shoes for her kids. It’s a boy with a name who hugs me and calls me “Memmy”– which is his own word for a mix between Mommy and Wendy, and truly, he could call me whatever he wanted and I would still give him all the love I have.
So although I am enjoying precious time with my family here, I. can. NOT. wait. to get back to the sweet people of Guatemala that I love so much. In an effort to turn this very brief season of waiting into something productive, I have made a NEW PAGE with donations that are needed at the hospital at Hope of Life. Here’s how to use this!
1. Go to our Current Needs page
2. The best way to get the supplies to Hope of Life in Guatemala is to bring them yourself or send with a team coming down!! If you are unable to do that, you can send them to Hope of Life International in Rhode Island, clearly marked for Whitney Saulton a CRN. It would be helpful to include money to help with shipping expenses.
3.. Biggest needs right now? Diapers and ODT Zofran!!
4. Share The List with your friends, church, and groups you know who will be traveling down here!! If you would like to contribute a financial donation to purchase supplies here, that may also be done… but items are usually cheaper / easily purchased in bulk in the US. For details on how to financially contribute, email whitney7788@gmail.com
Many of the Mayan mothers are afraid to look at the camera or smile…It takes time, perseverance, and trust to break down walls and build relationship with them.Faces once housed with fear and pain now shine with hope and happiness.Even to “the least of these” you can see every day the promises that The Lord is carrying out here in Guatemala.I truly believe 2017 is the year of greater things to come!!!! <3
Choosing contentment in where I am… thankful to be here with family and that they fill me up with so much love that I am able to take the overflow of it back to Guatemala with me <3 2016 has been a beautiful year of hope and healing… and I think 2017 has even better things to come. Thank you for being a part of our journey <3
As we are approaching the end of the year and a full year of being here, we have so many different things to reflect back on and be grateful for this year.
Guatemala has been everything we expected it to be, but even better. We’ve gotten sick, we’ve learned Spanish (and a little bit of Spanish sign language and Kaqchikel), we’ve made many new friends, and we’ve witnessed miracles. We’ve settled into our jobs and roles here and finally got settled into our home in late August. When I look back on this year, I am overwhelmed with all God has done for us, in us, and through us.
We are so grateful for our supporters… without you, none of this would have been possible! You have prayed for us, encouraged us, and held us up in the moments where we’ve gotten discouraged or tired. Although we’re looking forward to a visit back in the states, I’m already excited to come back in 2017 and hit the ground running with our ministry.
There are a few exciting changes going on with what we do… A few new volunteers are coming in 2017, so that will allow me more time to do a few other things within the hospital. I am planning to start an English class one night each week for the hospital employees, and I also want to be more intentional about doing devotions with the moms within the hospital. Bryan and I also want to start routinely visiting the senior center to sing songs with them, we’re hoping to do this every other Sunday.
Our biggest change is going to be how we are receiving our donations. We have partnered with an organization called Mission Quest that is run by missionaries and for missionaries, and they will be handling all of our financial donations. This is such a big blessing because it will relieve some of the burden of the work for Hope of Life in 2017, and it will also allow us and all of our sponsors to access what contributions have been made. Possibly my favorite thing is that we have our own link, so the money will easily go directly to us.
To give a tax deductible donation, go directly to our site at missionquest.org/118
You can also mail checks and find additional ways to easily give here.
Tomorrow, I plan on posting again for tangible donations we are looking for in 2017, so stay tuned for that!
We pray that you are being blessed through our ministry just as we’ve been blessed through your generosity.
You are loved.
-Whitney
This picture brings me to tears. Sweet William continues to grow and thrive. Although I so loved his precious cleft lipped smile, I love even more the world of potential that is contained in this precious miracle baby.
