Spring Garden Lutheran Church, ELCA

05/04/2026

Thank you everyone who helped out with the Cemetery clean up yesterday!! You did a great job!

03/14/2026

Because of the blizzard forecast and and potential bad conditions, the Sunday March 15 worship service and Sunday School has been cancelled. Please stay safe.

02/18/2026

Due to the weather, our Ash Wednesday services tonight have been canceled. We will celebrate Ash Wednesday at the beginning of our Sunday service on February 22.

02/02/2026

01/30/2026

Buenos Dias!
Tuesday and Wednesday were spent in the town of Dolores, also in the northern region of Peten. Our mobile clinic was hosted by the city municipality and local fire department. What is great about this is that the municipality actually has a doctor and a clinic that is nearly or completely free, staffed by a local doctor. But people do not tend to go see her because they either don’t know about her or don’t know that it’s free (medications are not free, however). But our team collaborated with her, and together we assessed and treated a total of 181 individuals in 1.5 days. In fact, on day 2 we arrived to clinic with about 40 more people in line than what we thought we could see in our allotted time. The thought of turning anybody away was not something any of us wanted to entertain. So we rallied, doubled down on our team work, planned to skip lunch and work a little late if needed. I was ready for chaos. But no-the room was calm and peaceful, and we managed to see every single person who came to be seen. I can’t really explain it other than I truly believe The Holy Spirit was present and working within all of us. We met some great new friends and look forward to returning to Dolores again.
Grand total individuals that we provided life-changing health care to between both clinics over 4 days: 360+

Today, we visited the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal and navigated the quaint island in Flores. We are headed back to Guatemala City bright and early tomorrow morning and will be setting up a nurses office at CLAG, the elementary school here, and providing some first aid education to the teachers.

To say I am proud of this team is the understatement of the year.

See everyone back at home for more stories to share!

01/28/2026

01/27/2026

Saludos amigos! We just finished up 1.5 days of clinics in La Esmeralda, we estimate to have seen about 180 individuals. We were able to provide care, treatment and education for the common infections, diabetes, hypertension, etc. We had the honor of working alongside Miguel, the nursing assistant and designated health promoter in the community. He was eager, attentive, and was a sponge absorbing all the information we could give him. He spent his time in the “pharmacy” primarily with our nurse Bekki doing a lot of education on medications, health prevention and treatments. We provided him with his own “nurses bag”, stocked with all the goodies (meds, dressings, blood pressure monitor, glucose meter, etc.) he will need to continue caring for his community. We gave him a journal for record keeping, and identified a list of individuals that will need some follow up attention with him for blood pressure and glucose checks.

We spent last night in the community, and we were hosted in groups of 2-3 in people’s homes. It was something none of us had experienced before in Guatemala and once again we are humbled by our privilege. Simply LIVING in rural Guatemala is just plain hard. Yet, despite their hardships they are so very kind and considerate, they are smiling and laughing with us, and their faith is unwavering.
We are headed to Dolores/Poptun for the next 2 days for more clinics. We are tired and dirty but our hearts are full.

01/25/2026

Hello friends. We arrived safely in Guatemala yesterday afternoon, after a very good day of travel. We managed to get through Guatemala customs with all of our medical supplies and team members and were reunited with Pastor Karen, Diego and Valeria at the ILAG Lutheran Center. We unpacked all 16 pieces of checked luggage containing medications and supplies, organized everything we will need for clinic and packed it all up again. Our driver is Juan Carlos and he left early this morning with the bus and all of our medical supplies to the northern region of Peten. We will be catching a small flight early tomorrow morning and meeting him up there, and then driving 3-4 hours east to the small rural communities of La Esmeralda and Dolores where we will be holding mobile clinics for the next 4 days.
Last evening during our orientation and introductions Pastor Karen asked us each to share our hopes and wishes for this trip. It became clear that each one of us, like so many are carrying heavy burdens of anxiety, distress and fear given so many heavy current events affecting both the USA/MN and Guatemala. We discussed how there is so much anger, distrust and division in the world right now. And the common theme with all of us clearly is everyone’s desire to reconnect with humankind, to see everyone as people, and to find a common ground in things and experiences that we all share. So, my hope is that as we prepare to head north tomorrow we will feel that human connection with each other, and our brothers and sisters in Guatemala as we offer our service to them in healing not just bodies, but our hearts, all in the name of Gods love.
I’ll leave you with this lovely snippet of the young ladies of Milagro House gifting us with a dance they created to welcome us.

01/21/2026

Attention parents of 5th-9th grade students:
Confirmation classes are cancelled tonight, January 21, 2026, due to the snow and poor road conditions.

Please help spread the word!

12/22/2025

Christmas at the Cabin.