Meet the Team

(Written and posted yesterday, or so I thought until I opened the blog tonight and didn't see it there! Sorry...)

Today was, as always on the first Saturday of these trips, a loooooong travel day.  We left around 3 am, and I was very blessed to be greeted by some very good-natured travel buddies even at that horrendous hour!  I’m so excited about the team that we are traveling with this time, so here’s a quick introduction for those of you following along.

There’s “me”, of course—Heidi Bell, an OB/GYN at East Carolina University and co-author of this blog for six years now!  My husband initially started it in 2006 when we moved down and served as full-time medical missionaries in (Santa Cruz del Quiché) Guatemala for two years.  Since our return to the US in 2008, I have been extremely blessed to have the opportunity to continue making these trips every three months to serve at the hospital in Chichicastenango, Guatemala.  What an amazing gift!

Tana Hall, MD, is a colleague of mine from ECU OB/GYN and one of my best friends and strongest prayer partners in the whole wide world.  She is a very talented young physician that I was privileged to know as a resident and now am even more privileged to work with as a faculty colleague.  Her heart for teaching and her dedication to her patients as well as to the residents and students are a continuous inspiration to me.  She is originally from Wilmington, NC, and has been on several other mission trips to the Dominican Republic and Thailand but never to Guatemala.  We have been trying to get her down here with me for a good two years now, so this is a little bit of a dream come true for us and will be a huge help to me on the trip.

Kelley Haven is a fourth year medical student whose father is a practicing OB/GYN in Greenville, NC—We met her last year when she did her required rotation with us in OB, back before she thought she wanted to go in to OB/GYN as a specialty!  It was such fun to watch her fall in love with the field, and I was thrilled when she was able to work this trip/rotation in to her fourth year schedule.  She is the mother of a beautiful three-year old, Minerva or “Minnie”, so please pray for her especially this week as I am sure she will miss her dearly.

Sandy and Jared Williams are friends from our church, Integrity Church in Greenville, NC, whom we have known for just over a year or so now.  Sandy has trained as a Certified Nurse Midwife but has been at home with her kids full-time since Jared was born 17 years ago so she thinks her skills might be a “bit rusty”.  We are totally praying for a nice delivery or two while we are down there, though, to confirm that delivery skills really are “like riding a bike” and not soon forgotten.  It’s actually rare that we get to do deliveries, though, so it’s kind of a special request ;-)  She became interested in the trip when Jared (the oldest of their four children) began to express interest in a possible career in medicine, so we are praying for positive exposure for him during this trip also.  (A little bit selfishly, we are also praying that God sends us plenty of patients that need abdominal surgeries as opposed to all vaginal surgeries which might be a little much for a 17 year old guy… even a very bright and mature one like Jared!)

I am so excited that both Tom AND JANA Hoak will be in Chichicastenango this week with us—Jana has lived in Guatemala City with their girls up until July when they sent the youngest one off to college, with Tom only seeing his family on the weekends.  I haven’t seen dear Jana in over a year, I don’t think, so I’m very excited to reconnect and celebrate her recent good health news!  (Long story short, we really thought she had cancer for a couple of weeks but are very relieved to find that everything is benign…)  For those of you new to our adventures, Tom Hoak is a very talented general surgeon originally from Minnesota who has served the people of Guatemala full-time for about seven years now.

I will try to get some pictures up as soon as we take any—Sandy brought her good camera and is very excited to try to get some good shots as photography is a favorite hobby.  I’m really excited about her getting those, too!  I tend to otherwise be lazy about getting pictures, so you will have her to thank for those when they do come…

Again, please just pray for God to send the patients that need our help, and to give us the strength, patience, and love to minister to each and every one of them in a way that allows them to see a tiny little spark of a reflection of the amazing love that our Lord Jesus Christ has for them!  To Him be the glory.