EVERETT — Frank Andersen will return to Guatemala for the seventh time at the end of the month. He’s not going alone.
Andersen and a team of 18 others will bring medical supplies with them on July 30 when they leave the country to spend a week providing medical care to people living in and around Cunen, a city in Guatemala.
Andersen, who is division chief of Women and Children’s Services at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, made his first mission trip to the country in 2004 with others from his church in Dallas, Texas. When he and his wife, Jan, moved to Everett in 2006, they told the congregation at Everett First United Methodist Church about their work in Guatemala. Others from the church and Providence Regional Medical Center have joined them on every trip since.
“It’s just built up,” Andersen said. “We’ve continued to go each year and combine with people from Dallas.”
Andersen shows the people he works with a slide show with photos from the team’s trip when he arrives home. The slide show helps him explain the work the team does and raises interest in the next year’s trip, Andersen said.
One particular detail in last year’s slide show caught the attention of patient representative Beverly Carter, who works with Andersen.
She noticed the babies and young children were wearing bright, patterned cloth diapers. Andersen explained that the team brought handmade cloth diapers to help prevent illness and decrease the infant mortality rate. Disposable diapers were too impractical because they could only be used once.
“I went, ‘What?’ ” Carter, a mother of six, said. “I’m thinking in my mind, we just run off to Wal-Mart and grab our little diapers, we stick them on our children and we throw them out in the trash.”
Carter wanted to help.
She shared her idea for her Diapers for Babies project with fellow church ward members at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Everett. She also talked to her friend Cheryl Rode, of East Wenatchee, who told people at her church about the project.
The diapers couldn’t use pins or snaps and had to fit babies as they grew, Carter said. About 50 volunteers, including some from Cub Scout Troop 412, worked on making the diapers from flannel material. They cut out material, sewed wash cloths and other absorbent material inside the diapers and sewed on ties on either side to make them adjustable. Each diaper took about an hour to make, according to Carter. In all, volunteers made 360 diapers.
The diapers will be added to health kits and supplies to treat diabetes, dysentery, arthritis, scabies and gastritis, Andersen said.
“It’s not dramatic. We’re doing adult and child medical care,” he said. “I liken it to a sick call. A lot of these places haven’t had any medical care come to their region or community for awhile.”
Carter will not be part of Andersen’s team this time but she said she may go on one of the future trips. There will probably be more diapers to bring then too, she said.
“There are still people who want to do this,” Carter said. “Some women over in Wenatchee are still doing this. I think it may become an ongoing project.”
Amy Daybert: 425-339-3491; adaybert@heraldnet.com.
Diapers for babies
Learn more about making diapers for babies in Guatemala by e-mailing Beverly Carter at sixwilldo@aol.com.
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