San Raymundo is a small town north of Guatemala City. It’s actually like a county, made up of many different little towns, with the town of San Raymundo at the center. In this small town there are big things happening!
Morning Glory Academy is a Christian school started by Lori in 2001. The school provides not only a solid education for its 700+ students, but it also teaches them what it means to be in relationship with our Heavenly Father. Many of the children come from broken families and don’t have a good relationship with their earthly father, so the school is all about showing them the amazing love our Father in Heaven has for us! Most of the students are living at or below the poverty level, so they attend the school mostly based off of scholarships through the ministry.
And behind the amazing things happening at this school, a miracle has taken place. You see, when Lori first started the school, she had been on the verge of leaving Guatemala. A year earlier she had been bitten by a snake, and following the snake bite she had been in and out of hospitals in Guatemala. Her leg would swell up and burn itself, resulting in third degree burns. She was eventually diagnosed with lymphedema, a condition where your lymph fluid collects in a certain area causing severe swelling. And she was told there was no treatment. No doctors knew what to do, and at times it was so bad that they thought she was going to die. When she thought all that was left to do was go back to the US, an opportunity opened up for her to start a school here in San Raymundo.
And so Morning Glory Academy was started with a total of 90 students in only 2 classrooms. Lori continued heading up the school, as teaching is her passion in life, and although her leg continued to swell more and more, the kids brought life and hope back to her. One year ago, her condition got so bad, that she could no longer lift her leg. She had seen miracles happen all around her in this community, and yet, even after years of asking the Lord for healing, it hadn’t come. She was sure she was going to die.
When she had first been diagnosed with lymphedema there had not been any clinics for it in Guatemala. However, around this time where she could no longer move on her own, she saw a commercial on tv for a lymphedema clinic in Guatemala City. She ended up going to the clinic and having to be rushed straight to the hospital, where doctors told her family she had no more than 15 days to live. However, her daughter kept pushing for them to do something. While the family had been told for years that there was no cure or treatment for lymphedema, the clinic mentioned that there was a new treatment available. The treatment was actually developed by accident (a miracle in itself) by a Brazilian Doctor. And so, with her daughter’s insistence and not real hopeful, they started treatment on Lori’s legs. The treatment is in the form of a machine which her feet are placed on. It then moves her feet back and forth to get the lymph fluid moving. And miraculously, it began to work.
Within 6 months, thanks to the experimental treatment as well as a new diet plan- eating only the food God made us to eat, so no processed foods (all part of this Brazilian doctor’s treatment plan)- Lori lost 400 pounds. This excess weight is nearly all from the lymph fluid! At the same time, another experimental medicine was treating other health conditions that had never before been able to be treated.
My team and I arrived here in Guatemala earlier this month, able to witness this miraculous change in Lori’s health. At this time last year, when another world race team was here, she was on her death bed. Now, just the other night, she was able to travel to the park for the first time in 15 years! She is back at school, taking care of all the fun things school directors get to deal with 🙂 And she is continuing to pour out her knowledge and wisdom to teams who come work with Morning Glory, telling this story along with so many more amazing testimonies of faith the Lord has given her.
