When Guatemala began to shut down due to COVID-19. ASELSI had to follow the national regulations and close our doors and programs at our campus in Chichicastenango. That meant the clinic and all our programs along with Bible classes and office work were all placed on hold.

We quickly shifted our on-site classes to an online format along with the virtual Bible Institute classes we have already been running online for the past three years. This allows us to keep training our students, but medical care and nutrition don’t function in a virtual-only world. Our patients need real-life medicine and nutrition for their babies.

Public transportation had closed and our patients had no means to get to us on their own…so, we went to them.

Our clinic staff packaged enough vital medicines for our chronic patients to receive three months worth of medicines, since we don’t know when the clinic will be able to open again.

We loaded up the ASELSI van with the medicines and drove out to the patients homes or nearby meeting places to deliver the medicines ourselves with our staff in masks and gloves.

In one case, our patient began to have a seizure right as we delivered the medicines he needed to prevent seizures. We provided the medicine he needed and prayed for him and his family.

We are thankful to God and the donors who help make it possible to provide these dear families with the life-changing medicines they need .

We also realized that without jobs and with our clinic closed, moms who receive the bags of nutritious food and milk or formula for their babies in our milk program would be getting desperate for the supplies to feed their babies. So, we also packed up our nutrition packets and delivered those to our milk program patients who we could find.

Our staff called the families to plan where we’d meet them and deliver their supplies, but not everyone answered their phones.

For those who didn’t answer, we continued calling even as we drove to the other meeting places.

One of the families who didn’t answer live in the village of Pacaja II about an hour from Chichicastenango, but their phone was turned off and we hadn’t been able to contact them. Their son, David, is 18 months old and has struggled to gain the weight he needs.

As Emanuel and volunteer Carlos, delivered the last bag of food, they found themselves about 15 minutes away from Pacaja II. Carlos felt like they should try one more time to call David’s family…this time they answered!

 As we delivered that bag of precious food for this little boy, his mom told us, “I was really worried because yesterday the milk and vitamins were running out.” She told us that “last night I knelt down and prayed to God, because I didn’t know how to get milk because there is no transportation and the stores are closed, but I praise God because He heard my cry!”

 She thanked us for delivering the milk right to her village. We prayed with her, grateful that God heard her prayer and responded by connecting ASELSI with her at just the right moment.

 We thank God for those of you who generously help ASELSI to continue helping the malnourished children—an ongoing problem in our area where 7 out of 10 children are malnourished (this region has the 3rd highest rate of malnutrition in the country.)

 Praise God for hearing our prayers, and even when earthly cell-phones are off, our line to God is always open!

YOUR DONATION CAN HELP US CONTINUE PROVIDING VITAL NUTRITION AND MEDICINES HERE IN GUATEMALA.

DONATE HERE.