What do you do when you’re trying to help educate people about COVID-19 in the communities in which you work, but no one is listening? You know the people need to have some information about the disease, but your information seems to fall on deaf ears?  

Tommy Ramos of Passion Ministry in Chichicastenango, Guatemala, knows what it is like to try to provide helpful education without being heard. As part of his ministry to serve his neighbors, he and his team have gone out regularly to provide food, haircuts, education, and encouragement from God’s word to the people of Guatemala. As the country has progressed from sudden, complete shutdown to various stages of reopening, he has been there to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the people. As things changed, he adjusted, too. Initially, he served whole communities because all forms of employment stopped in those areas. Now that jobs are reopening, he is focusing more on widows and single moms. 

 We at Therapy Clinics International have had the joy of partnering with Tommy in different ways. After creating our training for our rehabilitation promoters for COVID-19, we shared the educational videos with him. This past weekend he shared the videos with the people of a local outreach. Even though he had to translate some parts (most of the people spoke K’iche instead of Spanish), he noticed a huge difference in the people’s response. People stopped and paid attention. They listened and asked questions. The children stopped playing and participated, too.

This is how Tommy describes the experience: “The videos TCI provided were a blessing to the families. As a ministry, it helped us provide a deeper message, with real life examples. It especially helped us provide needed information on COVID-19 to people in the communities in a way they accepted and understood.”

We are grateful for the work of Passion Ministry, Tommy, and his team, and the opportunity to work with them. We hope these tools will only continue to serve others in the way it has served them.