Thank God for a smooth travel day so far! Our 4:00 am scheduled taxi showed up about 8
minutes early and patiently waited, loaded our 200+ pounds of luggage in the
car and cheerfully drove us up to RDU airport.
Then the most stressful part of the morning: weighing in the bags! One *might* have tipped the scale at 51
pounds, but the very nice lady who had been called in to help as the computers
were having issues cheerfully let it slide.
As a bonus, she was scheduled to work our flight and knew it would be
overbooked—so she went ahead and checked our carry-ons through to our final
destination for free and we were all kinds of LIGHT weight going through
security!
Both flights have been smooth, and we are excited to get our
shoes on Guatemalan ground in the next hour or so at time of writing! I’m also super-extra-excited that Dr. Tom
Hoak will be there to pick us up—I haven’t seen him since February and it
always feels weird being there when he is not like we were in August…
Guess I should tell you who “we” are. For the new readers, I am Heidi Bell—I had
the privilege of living in Guatemala with my brand-new husband Matt from 2006 –
2008, and delivering our firstborn son there in 2007! Talk about a place that gets in to your heart
and never lets go! Since moving back to
the U.S., I have had the unbelievable privilege of being able to continue
women’s health surgeries about once a quarter for a week each time—now going on
well over twenty trips since 2008 and counting!
I love the continuity of care of having patients I have been seeing for
years and years, as well as the ability to really follow-up on patients and how
they did after surgery—a privilege often not afforded other short-term missions
teams. I do OB and Gynecology care, and
mostly surgeries for pelvic prolapse most weeks. I love The Lord, my husband Matt, kids Isaac
(8) and Micah (4), and especially my in-laws who come down from Michigan to
help take care of them during these trips for continuing to make them happen!
I was given an unexpected gift from God a few months ago
when I put out some feelers with local NC OB/GYN residency programs for
interested travel partners. I couldn’t
believe it when the Wilmington/New Hanover (SEAHEC) program said they had a
fourth year resident that they could send!
Julia Posey showed up at the house last night cheerful and calm after a
long night shift and day, and her very sweet and easy-going spirit is sure to
be a blessing to many this week. I’ll
pray that she has a GREAT surgical as well as personal/spiritual experience
this week and hopefully can encourage others from her program to come in the
future! I’m sure she will be missing her
husband Darrell and four-year-old son Landon this week, so prayers for her and
her young family please! Also, she is in
the process of interviewing for jobs all over North Carolina right now so I’m
sure she’d love some guidance…
Now the plan is land in Guatemala, hope to get all our
luggage through customs unimpeded (there’s a new political party in power now
after recent elections, so hopefully they won’t throw us any curveballs!), and
drive on up three hours or so to home, sweet home for the week in
Chichicastenango. We’ll then probably
grab some groceries and pay-as-you-go cellphone and internet time and then
likely crash. Hard. Both of us are
running on fumes sleep-wise, so hopefully tonight will be very restorative
before a long day in clinic tomorrow!
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