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John Diehl                 Originally from Santa Fe, New Mexico, John Diehl has lived in Guatemala a long time.  John ‘s first experience in a Spanish-speaking country was as a Peace Corps worker in 1973 in Peru and later in Paraguay where he worked as an agricultural extension agent and teacher of animal science.  He was…

Mindy Bowen & Dee Grems Dee Ann Grems  – a Pediatric nurse.  This is Dee’s 6th mission with MOST.  Deehas worked for over 23 years at the University of Iowa Hospital where she works with Pediatric patients, many of whom have cleft lip and palate repairs.  Dee and Mindy Mahoney make a wonderful pediatric nurse…

Dressed in a cowboy shirt, boots and belt, Jorge, the father of Idalma, age 11, fought to get his daughter operated on sooner than later. He was ready to say no, he did not want to stay, he wanted to be bumped up on the schedule. Idalma, who has had a bilateral cleft repair previously,…

Tita Translating on Screening Day Tita & Dee Grems in Pediatrics  Tita Coffman – an essential translator on MOST.   A native of Mexico, this is Tita’s second year on MOST.  Tita is currently Vice President and CEO of the University of Iowa Alumni Association.  Tita, one of the Rotarians on MOST, has been a Rotarian…

Xela Hospital A note – our internet situation is not ideal, so we will post whenever possible.  Hopefully it will be each day, but do not panic if this does not occur – keep checking back. After we posted the blog last night (it seems the internet is more accessible after 10:00pm) I thought of…

Saturday, February 25, 2012 Screening Day is controlled chaos!  By the time the team arrived at the hospital at 7:00, families were already waiting.  It was 9:00 until the screening process was ready to begin. The first station is beginning a data folder on each patient – name, birth date, contact info, etc; the second…

Nancy & Gary Pacha   Jim Arthur, Reinhard Juraschek, & Krasi Hristov  Thursday, February 23, 2012 has arrived! By 10:30am the majority of the Iowa MOST personnel arrived at the Eastern Iowa Airport outside of Cedar Rapids.  We boarded a plane to Dallas, where more of the Team joined us. Late afternoon we…

           Fondly   known as Paco, Juan Francisco Fernandez is our in-country coordinator and a man of many skills and talents.  Paco is Executive Director of Casa Colibri, a medical clinic in the far western highlands of Guatemala, which has been built and supported by Rotary club members from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Canada.  However, each year…

Gary Pacha has served as Team Leader for every Iowa MOST mission. Gary coordinates all the non-medical trip details – the travel, the lodging, the shipment of supplies. He is the liaison with our Guatemalan partners and selects non-medical volunteers and assigns their duties. Gary’s responsibilities for a mission begin months before the team leaves…

Dr. John Canady is our medical team leader and the heart of the project.  Dr. Canady has done countless missions to correct cleft lip and palate all over the world, but for the past seven years, he has devoted himself to organizing the medical personnel for the Iowa MOST mission and directing the medical activity…