HUMANITARIAN PROJECT

Looking over plans for the clinic with
Elders Albert and Bawden
Elder Albert is a missionary who is in charge of construction

When we arrived in Guatemala Wayne's cousin, Jennifer Johnson, picked us up and took us to the Area Office. There we were able to make arrangements to buy our car, take care of all our banking needs, check with the attorneys about Wayne's dental license, rent an apartment and meet with Elder and Sister Bawden about the Humanitarian project we will be working with. All of this within the first few hours of our arrival. It was amazing. We got basically everything that we needed to do done in the first day!! What a blessing!!

Just a word or two about the Humanitarian Project. It is going to be amazing. Basically it is a project dedicated to helping the orphans in the city of Guatemala. It will be housed in an orphanage that has approximately 70 girls. The boys part of the orphanage has about 300 residents. They are constructing a dental clinic in the orphanage to take care of the residents and will be expanding to service many more orphans in Guatemala City.

Plans for the dental clinic

Because of the Church's involvement, we will also be able to service missionaries and future missionaries in the facility. Because it is a Humanitarian Project the main focus will be the orphans. The Church follows definite guidelines for its Humanitarian Projects. They make sure that they are working with local people and agencies to allow the continuity of the project. They involve many other religious organizations. We will be one spoke of the wheel in this project. Many LDS dentists have expressed interest in serving in the orphanage, but we will not be limited to using only Church members. We have had many people ask about donations to help us on our mission. We have not been able to do that until now, but as we learn more about the project, we will be able to accept donations through the orphanage that we can use.

The area where the dental chairs will be

We had the opportunity to go to the orphanage and see the dental clinic under construction. We fell in love with it immediately. They are about one month away from finishing construction and starting to furnish the building. I loved to see the girls as they would say hello to us. What a great experience we are going to have. Can you tell how excited we are???