There’s an almost carnival-like atmosphere outside the small clinic. Mostly women and children mill around talking and laughing as they wait their turn before the American doctors.
The chattering stops, but the smiles don’t fade when an energetic red-haired woman walks through the crowd. The mothers and grandmothers shepherding children may not know who this woman is, but it’s obvious she’s one of the Americans. And the respectfulness of the local clinic staff makes it obvious that she’s someone important.
Karen Scheeringa isn’t a doctor or nurse or medical technician. By her hands, the throngs of ailing people in Zacapa won’t receive any direct relief. But she’s the one responsible for making them feel better.
Scheeringa, 42, is the founder and executive director of Hearts in Motion, an organization based in Merrillville, Ind., that brings medical care to areas of Central America, particularly Guatemala.
She started the group in 1990, and along with bringing medical care, she also takes ailing children to the United States for treatment. The children stay in her home in Merrillville along with her 12 children. Scheeringa has one daughter, eight adopted children and three foster children, ranging in age from 20 to 3.
Hearts in Motion offers no monetary gain for Scheeringa. Divorced four years ago, she makes ends meet with some child support, money from the state for taking care of the foster children and working two part-time jobs. During the day, she is a home health-care provider. At night, she cleans her church. While getting one full-time job probably would make her financial situation easier, Scheeringa said it wouldn’t allow her the time and flexibility she needs to keep Hearts in Motion going.
Although Hearts in Motion began eight years ago, Scheeringa has made helping others her business for 16 years. It all started when she met a woman at an airport who was bringing sick Korean children to the United States for care.
“She made such an impression on me that I said, `I can do this,’ ” Scheeringa said. “I took one of the children and went to a hospital in Indiana and presented the case to them, and they said they’d do it for free. I fostered the child. I went through the Rotary Club and asked them to help me buy her a ticket, and we just got everything in line.”
The following year, she brought 27 children to the U.S. The year after, 47.
“The next year I thought, I can do so much more if I go,” she said. “Because it was a lot of work just making the arrangements for these kids, and it was a lot of money. I thought, if I can get volunteers to help me go to these countries, have them pay their own way, we can do more in a short time.”
In addition to medical care, Hearts in Motion has undertaken construction projects in the communities it visits.
“For years, I had people who were not medical people wanting to come in and be involved somehow,” Scheeringa said as she sat taking a break in a dark, hot room in the clinic. “I just saw a bigger mission out here than could be accomplished with just medical people.”
Hearts in Motion is building an addition to Zacapa’s firehouse and has built a nutritional center for the town.
Throughout Scheeringa’s stay in Zacapa, volunteers, local officials and patients vie for her attention.
“Her personality, the love, her relationships with the people in Zacapa, it’s awesome,” said Eva Trefonas, 40, a former nurse and current carpenter from Chicago who lends her skills in both fields to Hearts in Motion. “She has time somehow for everybody and everything, and she’s never too busy.”
During its October visit to Zacapa, the medical group concentrated on orthopedic surgery and rehabilitation.
On this visit, Scheeringa helped an orthopedic patient, Maria Catalina Jumique-Saquic, whom Scheeringa took into her home four years ago when the teenager was 12.
A bout of polio as an infant left Maria’s legs in braces and dependent on crutches. After a series of operations, the teen needs only one leg brace and no crutches. Because of her stay in the United States, Maria speaks English well enough to act as a translator. She translates for the doctors in the pediatric clinic while a Hearts in Motion volunteer fixes her leg brace.
As her way of thanking Scheeringa and Hearts in Motion, Maria also acts as an ambassador to her people, urging them to take advantage of the medical help without fear.
“There are some people who are afraid to come because they say the Americans won’t treat them well,” said Maria, a sweet-faced girl who looks much younger than 16. “I tell them that’s not true. I’ve been to the United States, and they’ve treated me very well and have been very concerned about me.”
Hearts in Motion will return to Zacapa in April, when another group of doctors will perform plastic surgery on children and adults with burns, cleft palates and facial abnormalities.
“I would never in my wildest dreams consider this a luxury surgery because, number one, of what it does to these kids emotionally,” Scheeringa said. “They are absolute outcasts because of how they look. A lot of these kids that come to us with cleft palates can have faces that are open from cheek to cheek. Those kids don’t have a roof in their mouth. They can’t eat. They wear bandannas around their faces. I doubt you have ever seen a cleft palate unrepaired in America. I’ll lay money on it that no one on the team has seen an unrepaired cleft palate out of the hospital in the U.S.
“Here, we have people who are 71 years old walking into the clinic, open from cheek to cheek, wearing a bandanna around their face,” she said. “That’s not cosmetic. They have never spoken, they have no teeth — that’s consistent here.”
Although she’s worked throughout Central America and Guatemala, it is Zacapa, a small town in eastern Guatemala not far from the Honduran border, that has captured her heart.
Her devotion began with a little boy named Julio Castaneda, now 16. Scheeringa and Hearts in Motion took Julio to the United States when he was a youngster. He stayed in Scheeringa’s home for about three years while doctors repaired a hip.
Now back home, the handsome young man with shy blue eyes speaks remarkably good English. He acts as a translator whenever the volunteers of Hearts in Motion come to town. Scheeringa recalled the time when the teen even acted as an interpreter for a group of Guatemalan and American doctors discussing medical procedures.
While he still walks with a limp, Julio can now do many of the same things as his peers.
“I never thought I was going to be able to run and walk, and now I can,” he said.
It was through his mother that Hearts in Motion created a base and a home away from home in Zacapa.
“We brought him to Indiana, and he had the surgery,” Scheeringa said. “His mother was a doll and was so grateful. I had never worked in Zacapa before, and she kept saying, `You have to come, we want you so bad.’ So I decided to make a trip here six years ago.
“The people were so kind, and they were so excited that somebody had paid attention to them. Very few groups come this way because it’s hot all the time. I decided that if I was really going to make a difference in people’s lives, I would have to go places where it was uncomfortable for us.”
Now Hearts in Motion visits Zacapa twice a year.
“We built a relationship here because of one child,” Scheeringa said. “And that’s all it takes.”
Children are a central part of Hearts in Motion’s work in Guatemala. In Zacapa, it has become a tradition for the Hearts in Motion volunteers to visit the town’s orphanage. They throw a party, distribute toys and offer medical care and even bring a few of the sickest children to the U.S. for attention.
“There are just so many homeless children,” said Kim Kerbel, 38, a physical therapist from Chicago, describing her first visit to Zacapa’s orphanage. “They were just starving for attention. You immediately run into their arms, you carry them around. We gave them presents like toothpaste and shampoo. We played music for them and they were dancing. It was really wonderful.”
And Scheeringa’s work is just as meaningful for the residents of Zacapa. Her impact on the community is evident in all the affection she receives from the families she has helped. She proudly displays a wooden ring painted black and decorated with red flowers. It was a gift from a family she helped last year when she obtained a wheelchair for their daughter. The family traveled three hours to Zacapa just to give Scheeringa this small offering.
“I’m never taking it off,” she said. “In April, we were in another part of Guatemala, and it was my birthday. That morning, a bus pulled up and all these families — and these families have no money — rented a bus and drove 3 1/2 hours to bring me a birthday cake. They were all patients. Somebody remembered that it was my birthday, and they knew I was in Guatemala and they came.
“That just shows how really appreciative they are. They can’t get help anyplace else. It’s not because they love me, it’s because they love this work.”
It’s not an easy life, and trying to provide something meaningful to the hopelessly poor can seem futile.
“Last year we had some real fresh nurses,” Scheeringa said. “On the very first day, I found one of the nurses rocking on the floor of the supply room because she was so overwhelmed with what she saw. She said, `How can we do it? We can’t do it. We can’t change it. There’s so much pain. There’s so much to do. It’s like spitting in the ocean.’ Except for the Julios and the Marias. It’s a life change for them. Little by little, we can get them to grow up and help their own people.”
That’s what makes all the hard work not just bearable, but necessary for Scheeringa.
“My nickname when I was in grade school, and I kid you not, was Grandma,” she said. “That was true. I’ve always been like the protector of the downtrodden. I can’t stand pain in other people. I know I can’t fix it all, but while I’m here, I’ll do my little part.
“I have the best life of anybody that I know. I love my life and I love all the people that help me. I have little money, but I have so many friends. It’s the best life.”
Scheeringa’s drive and compassion for others have won her not only friends, but also admiration.
“I think she’s a remarkable woman,” Kerbel said. “She has really taken on a project and done wonderful things with it. You can just see it when you come here. Everyone loves her. They respect her. She’s respected. She has established a wonderful working rapport with people. I don’t think this program would be a success without all the work she has done.”
Praise for Scheeringa spills into hyperbole and reverence, but it’s all sincere.
“Goddess, saint. What need be said?” said Julius Kish, 34, a chemistry teacher and volunteer firefighter from Highland, Ind. Kish was making his first trip with Hearts in Motion to train volunteer firefighters in Zacapa. “She has endless energy. I can’t have more respect for anyone else. When God made her, the mold was broken. She can do the impossible.”
Dr. Bruce Rosen, 53, a psychiatrist from Huntington, N.Y., who keeps up his general practitioner training with Hearts in Motion, was as reflective about Scheeringa as Kish was enthusiastic.
“I think everybody on this trip feels the same way,” Rosen said. “We’ve never met anybody like her. She’s just totally devoted to helping people. She’s very unselfish, and she really understates the things that she does.
“I just don’t know how she does it. I ask her how can she afford to take care of as many children as she does, and her response is, `Life is good.’ She always feels that if you set out to do something, you can always make it happen. That’s a lesson for all of us.”
———-
Hearts in Motion can be reached at 7071 Broadway, Merrillville, IN 46410; telephone number is 219-738-2336; e-mail is hearts@comnetcom.net.
