On a mission
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Betsy and Pete Liljeberg are on a mission trip to Guatemala to provide health care and cooking stoves for a village in the country’s southern region. They are physicians and will take with them a host of medical supplies to restock a local clinic. The group they are a part of is comprised of volunteers from throughout the United States. Photo by Peter J. Teagle
This represents the ninth year of mission trips by the couple and their seventh to Guatemala. They work in conjunction with the Boca Costa medical mission in the area.
The Liljebergs are both physicians and say the trips present an opportunity to “use [their] personal skill set” to help meet the “huge need for medical care” in the area.
The Maya people of Guatemala are descendants of the native population that lived in the region for thousands of years prior to the point of contact with Europeans.
There is a strong economic divide in the region along racial lines, as the native Maya often live in poor villages on the periphery of the cities or up in the hills. They do not have access to the same government services and health care as Guatemalans who are descendants of European colonizers.
Betsy Liljeberg described how some local physicians will refuse to treat Maya residents, specifically mentioning an instance where an anesthesiologist backed out of working a surgery once they heard the patient’s Maya name.
Liljeberg said that this racial divide coupled with concessions to multinational fruit corporations in the region has led to substantial economic inequality, and therefore a need for these free medical services.
The group that includes the Liljebergs brings with them 50-60 different types of drugs, syringes, suture materials, wound dressings, IV solution, and a host of other supplies to treat patients and restock the local clinic.
The clinic is run by the Boca Costa group and functions year-round, though it does occasionally battle supply scarcity. The resupplying allows the patients to finish their treatments after the volunteers have left.
The Liljebergs view this mission as a component of their faith. They are members of Gloucester’s Apostles Lutheran Church and explained that the church has fully supported the mission.
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