When I think of strength, I think of Dulce. A young girl from Guatemala’s Corredor Seco, her father didn’t have the financial means to provide dire medical care for her.
4 years ago when we brought her to Hope of Life, I would have never guessed how resilient, intelligent, and sociable she was! Diabetes and malnutrition robbed her of many things in her life— her vision, her joy, her strength, and even her own mother were lost to these difficult diagnoses.
Through Hope of Life, she has received surgery to restore her vision, training to learn to manage type 1 diabetes all on her own, and dental care to restore her beautiful smile.
When I asked her if I could share these pictures, she latched onto me with the biggest hug. Somewhere between giggling and sobbing, she agreed and thanked me… but it occurred to me that her thankfulness needed to be directed to all of you, too.
To those who support us, pray for us, and encourage us… thank you for letting us do the work God has called us to. You generosity is part of Dulce’s story, too. Truly, stories aren’t always as hope-filled as this one, but God’s hands are always ever-present over us and the amazingly strong Guatemalans we get to work with. As we enter into 2022, we are so deeply thankful for our friends, family, supporters, and encouragers for keeping us afloat in this crazy world!
I apologize for my absence, more on that in a moment. Let me give a very brief rundown of what The Saultons have been up to this past year!
+Covid hit in March 2020 causing a complete shutdown in Guatemala. Air travel, buses, and cars were forbidden to travel, meaning thousands of men and families were put out of work right in the middle of harvest season. Families who lived on a meager $2/day now lived on nothing. Malnutrition and poverty skyrocketed. For us, we worked hard to fill in needs around the ministry. Whitney worked 24 hour shifts every 2-3 days and on her off days, Bryan would fill in cooking at the senior center. John just bobbled around completely clueless of the havoc around him. Babies, man. 🙂
+After a few months of serving very long, difficult hours (24 hour shifts in full PPE in the 100 degree heat while in your first trimester of pregnancy is no joke), we were fortunate enough to get one one of the very rare flights being offered out of Guatemala at that time. “We’ll ride it out for a couple more weeks and then it’ll be over” or so we thought.
+On July 8, 2020 my best friend Jazmyn welcomed her beautiful daughter Kira into this world. Her birth was complicated by postpartum hemorrhage, a very sick newborn with a scary diagnosis, then an alarming health complication meaning Jazmyn needed to be admitted to the hospital without Kira. Being here in the states meant we were able to step in and help her husband Jordan care for baby Kira and their 2 year old son Zuri. God was so gracious and He truly answered all of our prayers in that season! Many tears were shed, but God was so good to all of us.
+On September 28th, Guatemala re-opened their borders, allowing air travel again. We booked return tickets for our family of three, excited to return home and give birth to Flori in Guatemala. Just 2 days before leaving, we discovered Flori was no longer growing due to placental insufficiency. Carrying the pregnancy much longer meant risking Flori’s life.
+October 12, 2020 we welcomed our precious Florence Jane into our arms. Tiny, but healthy, our 4.5 lb Flori was discharged after only 3 days in the hospital.
+Early November, back-to-back hurricanes hit Eastern Guatemala devastating rural communities, roads, and completely washing out a village at the base of Hope of Life’s campus.
+In December, my sweet buddy Yolanda passed away. She was a patient of mine that I have known for over 8 years! She is already deeply missed.
+We enjoyed Christmas and the new year with our family and babies. We missed out on seeing so many people because of pandemic + preemie baby + flu and rsv season… Please feel our love, hug, and presence despite our absence! I also dealt with some pretty brutal postpartum anxiety + depression. Listen, if you are dealing with the same, Jesus is wonderful BUT SO IS ZOLOFT. Through medication, Pink Stork mood support supplements, and pressing into The Lord I think I am finally better. Could that be hope I see on the horizon?!
+In a season of waiting for Flori’s passport, my precious Granddaddy passed away. He had just celebrated 70 years of marriage to my loving Grandmother. His health had been declining, but it was unexpected. However, he didn’t suffer and we were still in the states and able to see him and take him a prime rib dinner just one week prior. For all of those things, I am forever grateful and able to see God’s goodness even in the midst of our sadness.
+The end of February and the beginning of March were crazy! We finally received Flori’s passport, we were able to book airline tickets, and receive both of our Covid vaccines. Finally, some breakthrough in this past year that has felt suffocating and dark!
Which leads me to say… WE ARE HEADING BACK TO GUATEMALA ON WEDNESDAY!
I know the transition will be hard but we are still excited to get back. Our hearts are so invested in the work God is doing in rural Guatemala! The price to pay for having our hearts in two places is that it is hard to leave, but it is also hard to stay. Although it hasn’t always been comfortable or what we expected, we have also enjoyed this slow season of being in the states. We already so deeply miss our family– John and Flori will especially miss their cousins and grandparents!
Talking about what we do sometimes feels so weird. I never want the focus to be on us. I never want the focus to be “Oh, poor Guatemala… Thank God YOU were there to help THEM.” No, the glory is not ours to enjoy. The praise goes to God alone. We just goes where He has sent us. In the same vein, because we have so many amazing financial supporters and people who carry us in their prayers, I do feel responsible to let you all know about all of the exciting projects we have supported over the past several months. Through your generosity, we have been able to regularly supply a village of 100+ families with food bags every month. We have been able to minister to mothers and families who were once patients of mine, and helped coordinate medical care through Guatemalan missionaries who travel into the regions where we work.
We look forward to keeping you posted on when we get back home to Guatemala. We’ve been gone far too long and have so much work ahead of us. We are ready to get these hands dirty again.
Until then– stay healthy, stay masked…
And know that you are loved. -Whitney
It’s pretty impossible to reduce our time here to just a few pictures, but here are just a handful of the literal hundreds that have been taken!
One of our last photos as a family of 3 <3
We were able to see our amazing friends The O’Connors. Such a fun time seeing friends who fill our hearts and souls (and tummys!)
John and his BFF Zuri!
John and his Great Granddaddy John!
Welcome, sweet Flori!
Snuggles with Daddy
Flori and her Great Granddaddy
Our last picture with Granddaddy and of course John is picking his nose haha!
Precious girl
Christmas babies
How cute?!
Family of four!
John loved the snow!
Flori and her big cousin, Sarah Jo
Aunt Rachel is a pro-snuggler
So thankful for this whole group!
Proud big brother
… and an even prouder big cousin!
Kira and Flori!
Loved seeing our friend Kleinert and meeting Damian!
She was a real life sour patch kid and the closest thing I would ever have to a little sister.
It’s ironic, really… when I moved to Guatemala I didn’t speak one word of Spanish. Yet the person I understood better than anyone else was Yolanda. A deaf teenager growing up in an extremely remote and extremely poor village in the mountains of Guatemala, she spoke her own unique sign language. Her family didn’t have the resources to care for her diabetes, so finding a school to teach her to sign was so far out of the picture that I doubt they even thought of it. It wasn’t until Hope of Life started sending her to a deaf school that she began to speak some Guatemalan sign language. Even still, she spoke her own way and it’s remarkable how well we understood each other. She wasn’t completely nonverbal though… her laughter was boisterous, the way she shouted my name was precious, and she would say (rather loudly) some pretty obnoxious things at inappropriate times… this unfortunately always seemed to happen whenever I was responsible for her and of course always in a public setting. These memories crack me up but also make me want to cry knowing I will never experience them again.
Typing this out is painful. I don’t want to put it in writing because I don’t want to believe it’s real… and I don’t know HOW to put in writing a relationship that ran 8 years deep. We weathered many storms “through sickness and in health” and I was privileged to see a side of her that not many got to see.
My selfie queen, my shadow, my sidekick, my sweet girl. I only wish I had gotten to hold your hand, braid your hair one last time, and say goodbye. I will love you and think of you forever.
I stepped outside for a few minutes today to remove my face mask. The heat index reached 110 inside the hospital, and every time I exhaled I felt like I was suffocating myself with my own hot air… meant to protect me, I felt like I was going to die if I had to breathe beneath my N95 for one more minute.
We’re weary. All of us. And we’re scared– but not in the way that we are timid creatures living in fear, but we are scared because we know the urgency and the weight of this situation and that when the time comes it will be US running fearlessly to the frontlines. Every single healthcare provider across the world is burdened, worried, and carrying the heavy responsibility to help others the best we can while doing no harm… even if it means that we are put in harm’s way.
Watching the medical system become overburdened in the United States is scary for those of us down here. I cannot count how many times I have had to resuscitate a child for an additional 30 minutes because all of the vents were “ocupado” at the first hospital we stopped at. Hearing just how loud silence can be as you intubate a baby– you see them screaming, but they don’t make a sound. What is overwhelming and devastating in the states could become catastrophic here in Guatemala where resources are less than limited.
The hard decision was made to temporarily “bar the doors” here at Hope of Life– nobody is allowed in, and nobody is allowed out. While I miss the luxury of being able to buy my own groceries or even pick up fast food on the weekend, I am willing to be part of the team doing what it takes to keep our vulnerable little babies safe… and behind the scenes, hard working Guatemalans have worked 15 consecutive difficult days to keep things running here. All masked. All gowned. All suffocating under their masks just like me.
I think the most difficult things about this quarantine, is that although we are taking aggressive preventative measures, life is still carrying on.
We are still watching babies like Santos gain enough weight so he can be strong enough for surgery.
At over 10 pounds, he has more than TRIPLED his weight in the past two months. He’s ready for surgery as soon as the travel ban is lifted!
We are still providing physical therapy for babies like Brenda whose bodies are reaping the long term damage from the devastation of severe malnutrition.
Playing with play doh to increase her strength and mobility in her right hand.I know this picture is graphic, but it is REAL. I am thankful Brenda came to us over a month ago before we had to stop accepting new admissions.
We are still watching miracles unfold before our eyes — just like sweet Franklin. Less than two months ago, he was cyanotic and in severe respiratory distress due to a cardiac condition called PDA. The Lord breathed life into Franklin’s lungs again by sustaining his little body for long enough to be rushed into urgent heart surgery. Now that he has a healthy heart, we anxiously await for him to start gaining weight. It’s going to happen, and it’s going to happen fast!
His smile! His tooth! His ever so little beginners belly! Those PINK nail beds!
And even though so much good is happening within our walls, my heart breaks for the families outside who need help. For the families whose children were starving before the government shutdown. For the parents who made two dollars a day and now make nothing as many jobs have been suspended. For the mama’s who are having to say “it’s not time yet” when their child is asking at 4pm when they can eat their first meal of the day.
We have already received word of one baby dying and many others who need our help. We are just waiting for the travel bans to be lifted, for the quarantine restrictions to be loosened, and for the world to have a better grip on things before we can risk opening the gates back up to allow others in for help.
I am begging you. If you are able to, STAY AT HOME. The sooner we flatten the curve, the sooner this goes away. The sooner this goes away, the sooner we can be out in the mountains again to bring in those who desperately need help. This is the heartbeat behind what I do and why we are here.
If this post stirs your compassion into action, I encourage you to support Hope of Life or one of the missionary families serving here. Closing the gates has also meant cancelling groups that visit here, which is a devastating blow to the ministry’s income. Were you planning to come here and had to cancel? I challenge you to pray about still donating part of your expenses. The gates may be shut, but the work is harder and heavier than ever. And even though God has called us into a season of doing work here that is HARD, it is HOLY as we are watching some truly miraculous things unfold in these children and mama’s.
I know greater things are yet to come. I feel it. I believe it. We’ve all just gotta make it through this season.
She hadn’t been in for a follow up appointment, so we were all worried. We were already reeling from the difficult news of another patient who passed away, so we were naturally guarding our hearts and expecting the worst. We travelled for hours, climbed down a steep mountainside, crawled through a dangerous rocky ravine, and limbo’d through rusty barb wired fences to get to her.
We approached their home carefully, the whole time praying she would be healthy and safe. When her grandparents saw us, they burst into smiles. “Just wait til you see Santos!” her grandmother grinned. Immediately, all my fears subsided.
Her mamá walked out of their house made of palm fronds. Santos Cecilia was in her arms with the biggest smile on her chubby face and her little belly spilling out of the bottom of her shirt! She looked absolutely perfect! We got them set up with a follow up appointment, but I was so at peace seeing how she is thriving at home.
I wish all stories were this successful. My heart longs for a world where poverty and malnutrition don’t exist. But until we see things “on earth as it is in heaven” we will continue doing whatever it takes to bring help to the physically and spiritually starving. God, protect these children until help can arrive.💛🙏🏻
May 2019 – the first photo we received of Santos Cecilia asking us to help. She was a month old and weighed under 5 pounds.
January 2020! Santos (mamá) and baby Santos CeciliaMay 2019 – Santos Cecilia’s familyDr Kyon Hood, his wife Victoria, and their family sponsored Santos Cecilia’s rescueWhat a difference several months can make!
Being on the frontlines of seeing babies grow and be saved is a high honor that I carry close to my heart. Watching their progress and sharing with others the work The Lord is doing through Hope of Life and the team at St Luke’s is one of my greatest joys. What we see is miraculous. But there is a darker side of my job that I don’t like to speak about very often…
Being on the frontlines also means you are the one there to hear a mother’s horrified crying as you carry her lifeless baby in a silk wrapped burial box. You are there to catch her as she almost collapses into the muddy hillside because grief and sadness have overcome her body… and she shakes as she sobs into your chest… and all the rain that falls cannot drown out the sight of your tears or the sound of her screams. Those moments are literally what nightmares are made of.
Today is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Day and also the International Day of Rural Women.
Could I just combine the two of these days to take a moment to spread awareness of the battle that the women of rural Guatemala face? The rate at which babies are dying in these mountains brings me to my knees.
In the past three days, we have lost three babies. One, I had prayed over for a night. One, I had prayed over for three weeks. And the other, I had prayed for over the past two years.
How deep it must hurt for you to read this post, know that it hurts even deeper for me to write it. To somehow try to formulate words for these traumatic moments, all the while knowing that their stories were beautiful even though the ending was ugly. And even deeper still is the hurt that I see in their mamás eyes and tear soaked faces. Maybe one day I will share their full stories, but today my heart hurts too much to write.
If nothing else— know that these babies didn’t die in vain. My friend Julia Homan said it best… “if this narrative softens the heart of even one towards those who look/talk/believe differently, then their short life will have served a great purpose.” Allow these stories to fuel you with a fire to have compassion for the women in Guatemala. Allow them to break your heart with the understanding that government corruption, violence, and a lack of support have left them without help and without hope… and babies are dying because of it. We cannot turn a blind eye to what is happening here in the Corredor Seco of Guatemala, these babies need our help. We pick up and push on to be harbingers of hope in this dry valley of hurt. And I share their painful stories so that their lives serve a great purpose.
One thing I know for certain, is God weeps when He sees what I’ve seen these past few days. And if you, too, have experienced loss and this day stirs up your emotions as well, He weeps with you too. He is close to the broken hearted. (Psalm 34:18)
Each of these three babies were deeply loved.
You are loved, too.
-Whitney
Erickson was 15 days old and weighed just above 3 pounds. Hope of Life set out for him the moment we heard of his case, but he passed away the next morning in a different hospital. His malnutrition was so severe it had already started shutting down his little body. Baby Rufino was 2 months and only 5 pounds. Along with malnutrition, he was suffering from pneumonia and his body was too weak to fight it despite several weeks of antibiotics and admission into the NICU at Chiquimula. And maybe the most difficult of all was the loss of our sweet Deisy. She gave me so much hope that things would be okay… but a long battle of chronic complications took her from us. She was loved by so many… even by my own mama. Allow each of these images to break your heart… so that these little lives will have served a great purpose.
When I woke up at 5am, I had already decided my mood for that day. I wish I could give you some fantastic missionary answer and tell you that despite my circumstances, I had chose joy… but I hadn’t. I was irritated. My face burned hot with anger, a trait that I unfortunately inherited honest from my Dad.
The night before, a transformer had blown, leaving our house and many others without power or water. The nighttime temps of course were in the 90’s, the air was still, and mosquitos kept zipping in through the windows and persistently buzzing around my face. I covered myself up with the sheet and got hot. When I’d uncover myself, the mosquitos went into attack mode on my arms and legs. Have you ever tried to sleep when you’re frustrated? It’s a vicious cycle of being angry that you can’t sleep, and not sleeping because you’re too angry to do so.
I learned in the morning that my frustration could become a vicious cycle too. When I got ready, I carried my frustration to me into work. I was tired, sweaty, covered in bug bites, I clearly had gotten ready in the dark, and I somehow managed to sit in a puddle of cat urine on one of the outdoor couches. I hate cats. At this point, my attitude was as ripe as my odor. Everything stunk.
It wasn’t until I pulled up the demographics of the baby we were going to get that I realized what an ungrateful piece of work I had presented myself as that morning. You would think that I live a life of 24/7 gratitude when you see the things I see on a daily basis. I love where I’m at, I love what I do, and I’m thankful we have air conditioning.. but it’s amazing how quickly I unraveled after a night without electricity and water.
We were heading to a really remote village La Ceiba in the mountains of Camotan to pick up a baby in a village that I’d visited many times before.
“Did you notice where we’re going?” Alfredo had asked me. I shook my head yes.
“How about the baby’s last name?” I opened the message with the baby’s demographics.
“He has the last name as Valentin,” I responded. It was then that I found out we were traveling to pick up the nephew of one of my patients.
The words in bold I had written that day were both salt and salve to my wound. It burned, knowing how I had acted like a petulant child that morning. It healed me, knowing that The Lord had provided me this 2+ hour long journey to pull myself back together. I bowed my head and prayed as hot tears welled up in my eyes. “Lord, I know it’s only 7AM and I have acted a complete fool. Please let me honor Valentin and honor you in how I carry myself today.”
When we arrived to the small house made of palm fronds, sticks, and plastic tarp, we were greeted by the same brother and sister in law who had presented Valentin to us. Only this time, we were there for their malnourished son. We all started crying as we reminisced Valentin’s earthly body. Though very sick for the last few years of his life, Valentin carried on a legacy of joy and great faith through every one he ever met. He never complained– despite years spent in severe poverty, severe sickness, and severe pain.
The Roque family — Valentin’s brother and sister in law and baby Victor. He is 2 years old and showing signs of moderate to severe malnutrition.
Could I ever be like Valentin? Could I ever be full of joy despite my circumstances and surroundings?
Romans 12:2 says “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
Renewing of your mind. As I sat in the back of the ambulance, holding Valentin’s sick nephew, I realized how things truly come full circle. I pray that my mind is constantly renewed with joy, with gratefulness, and with patience. That even when I’m exhausted and covered in dirt, bug bites, and dry cat pee, that I don’t allow negativity to creep in. How dare I even for one second have the right to be frustrated, knowing later that day I would be face to face with a family that lost their young brother and was now struggling to provide for their malnourished baby. May we never forget the blessings in our lives. I pray my mind is renewed and the overflow is thankfulness, even, and especially, on the hard days.
We’ve all heard the cheesy story about the starfish, right? Here’s a condensed version — a father and son are walking along the beach, and there are hundreds of starfish that have washed ashore. The starfish are dying because they are out of water. The kid begins throwing them in one by one, the dad makes a remark about how ‘you can’t save all of them’ and the kid replies ‘yeah, but I saved that one.’
I’ve come to realize how true that really is. A few weeks ago, I shared on my instagram a story of the ripple effect that helping others has. I’ll share it below:
Several months ago, Hope of Life rescued a little baby girl named Estefani. She was malnourished due to feeding problems related to a birth defect. Months later, she is healthy and now awaiting a surgery date to repair her double cleft lip and palate. Her precious mama told us about her neighbors who just gave birth to two tiny, precious twin girls. “They are chiquititas, como Estefani!” she reflected on when Estefani was first admitted into our care. Yesterday, Hope of Life arranged for the little 4lb babies to be brought in. They are our third set of twin girls this year, and I’m so proud of Estefani’s mama for making us aware of them. This is why you do for one what you wish you could do for everyone. Helping others is not some sort of debilitating crutch that leads them into a life of dependancy… Rather, giving help is an extension of your hand to lift them out of their current situation. If it is done in grace, love, and with some education, it can truly change future generations. Empowered people empower people. [Acts 20:35]Continue reading How to Save the World
“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.” -William Wilberforce
Today was Yennifer’s “going home” day. As morbid as this may sound, I never thought we would see this day.
I remember vividly the day she was brought in. I wasn’t even sure she was alive at first. She was 6 years old and only weighed 9 pounds. “How is this even possible?” I thought to myself.
Her skin was dry and flaking off in areas, her pulse was thready and beating at 38 beats per minute, her breathing slow and still. I choked back my own tears as we undressed her to do a full assessment. She didn’t stir, she didn’t fight, she didn’t even wince. She was much too weak for any of that. Continue reading This is rural Guatemala.
Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
It never takes long… when I pull out my small, see through bag filled with nail polish, the hospital mamas all come running toward me for a manicure. I wish I was able to describe to you how much they love this small act of being pampered. These are mamas that have lived tough lives– having dropped out of school, raising several children by the age of 18, and carrying gallons of water on their heads for miles when they are home in their village. The moments that I am painting their small, dirty, hardworking hands are some of my most cherished moments in Guatemala. It gives me a moment to speak to just them and get to know them personally… rather than my usual sweep through to ask medical questions about their babies. Having their nails painted is more than just some frivolous act of vanity. Rather, it is an opportunity to speak into them of how important they are and that they are loved.
This day was particularly exciting because I had finally replaced some of my old nail polishes with new ones I had received from the students in Ms. Kleinert’s class at Freedom Middle School in Spotsy, VA. As we meticulously lined them all up on the table, the mamas and little girls were enamores by the new packaging and fun, glittery colors. One of the more clumsy mamas excitedly reached across to grab the popular color, and we all watched as the color slipped through her fingers and shattered onto the floor.
The table of mamas all gasped, and she immediately bent down to try to scoop up the glass shards covered in paint and somehow salvage what was left. While I knelt down beside her to convince her it was okay, she looked at me with tear soaked guilty eyes. She was frozen in fear from a history of being abused. “It’s only nail polish, it’s okay!” I attempted to reassure her, as I reached out my hand to help her back up. But the expression on her face was as though she had committed the world’s worst crime. My heart shattered that day just like the nail polish.
John 12:1-11 is a beautiful story of a girl named Mary who intentionally broke open an expensive perfume to wash Jesus’ feet. Using her hands and her hair, she anointed his feet out of an act of love and service. This perfume was a rare gift and incredibly expensive. The small bottle that she used cost a year’s wages!
Those who were present during this moment judged her and called her wasteful for pouring out all of her precious gift. “The expensive perfume was wasted!” “You could have sold the bottle and given the money to the poor!” Despite what critics would say, Mary’s gift wasn’t wasteful. It was worship.
How many times have I allowed a critic’s opinion to interfere with my worship? I can remember when I had shared my crazy dream of living in Guatemala with others, and they responded with confusion, eye rolls, and disappointment. I don’t know where I would be now had I listened, but I know my heart would still feel a restless longing to be here in Guatemala had I stayed. While there are fleeting moments of me being a heroic nurse and saving lives, the majority of my time spent here are the small moments of holding hands, wiping up broken nail polish, and wiping up tears. It’s allowing myself to be broken and poured out in an area of the world that is desperate to hear about the hope of a God who would die and rise again for each of us.
