The Miracle Fund Story

What is the Miracle Fund? The Miracle Fund was founded with the mission of providing quality health services, both locally and world wide to people without access to such care. The idea began in 1993 when I contacted an organization called “ Options”, a service that offered health professionals a chance to be of service throughout the World. Options was a service publication founded by Project Concern International, a worldwide organization which provides health care to third world countries. I learned of a project called “ Ak Tenamit”,which is Kekchi for “ The Village”.The Miracle Fund story begins at Ak Tenamit.

“ Ak Tenamit” is a project supported by The Guatemalan Tomorrow Fund. It is located about 50 miles up the River from Puerto Barrios, a major Caribbean seaport in Guatemala. Ak Tenamit is only accessible by boat. The logistics and transportation are a major challenge. I soon discovered that there were some other major challenges, that I had not fully anticipated, in my quest to bring access to dental care to this very poor indigenous population of Kekchi Mayans. These people had been displaced to these unfamiliar jungles from their native highlands by the genocide perpetrated upon the native Mayan tribes by the governing power elite. It is an old story being replayed to this day in places such as Darfur. Rigoberta Menchu, Nobel Peace Prize winner, is a Quiche Mayan who survived this genocide of the 80’s.

Many people have asked me why I went all the way to Guatemala to provide dental care to the indigenous population ?After all, surely there were enough people right here at home who had a lack of access to dental care. I have always supported such care, starting all the way back to the 1970’s when I supported the formation of the “Low Cost Dental Program” in Colorado Springs, where I practiced from 1970-1978. But the real answer came into very sharp focus for me in the jungles of Guatemala when I started seeing patients in the “Clinica” of Ak Tenamit. There was only a concrete building with a thatched roof, constructed with the volunteer labor of the Kekchi people. There was no power, no running water, no lighting, no sewer, etc. Specially adapted dental units ran off of Carbon Dioxide tanks obtained, with great difficulty, from a Coca Cola bottling plant in Puerto Barrios. (That was a whole other adventure story for which we do not have space in this article) I thought this was certainly poetic justice- Coca Cola everywhere and, finally, it would actually do some good for the indigenous population!

Finally, we started seeing patients after many months of preparation and I really began to understand why I had come all this way. Yes, there is need here at home, but in places like Guatemala, it is on a whole other level we can hardly comprehend. A simple story illustrates what I am trying to convey. We started seeing whole villages that would travel for days to reach the Clinic by dugout canoe, Naturally, we gave first priority to small children in pain. When I asked the children what their names were, all the very young ones answered in Kekchi or Spanish that they did not understand the question. They were very small, so I asked their parents and was mystified when the parents answered the same way. So I asked the project Director, Steve Dudenhoefer, why they didn’t understand and he answered “They answer that way because they do not have names.” Again, I was puzzled. Was this some sort of native custom of not naming small children? Did they just not bother? Couldn’t they, at least, “ afford” names? When I asked the obvious question- “Why??”, his answer literally took my breath away. His answer was that due to the incredibly high mortality rate of small children from various preventable diseases, the parents did not want to become too attached to the children, until they felt they had a good chance of surviving!!!! I could not believe my ears!! That answer is what prompted the formation of The Miracle Fund in 1994. The mission of the fund would be to provide health services to those with no access to such care. Further, it would support other organizations who were working towards this goal, both here at home and abroad, in third world countries like Guatemala, Nepal, etc .The Miracle Fund has directed every single dollar of its resources towards this goal, without spending any monies on “administrative” or “ overhead” costs. Those costs have been kept at zero from its inception to today.

Now, The Miracle Fund is excited to announce its acquisition of “The Guide to Health and Healing” publication and its conversion into a non-profit publication- every dollar of profit from the publication will go to The Miracle Fund to promote “ Health and Healing” throughout the World. We are very small but also very dedicated to our mission and we hope to continue to achieve a multiplying “ ripple effect” in the healing of the World. “The journey of a thousand miles is begun with but one step”, as taught by the Tao. We, here at the Miracle Fund, hope “The Guide to Health and Healing” can be another step in that direction. Our purpose will be to promote other organizations, businesses, and health professionals who support our mission through advertising in our publication. We thank them all for their support in these efforts. I am not aware of any other Boulder County publication which is a non-profit entity with a similar mission. Therefore, we are grateful to you the readers and our advertisers for making this publication possible. Thank You!

Namaste,

Dr. Stephen J. Smith, Editor of “The Guide to Health and Healing”

Director of “The Miracle Fund”