Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Meet the Team!


So anyone that has read this blog in the last, well, EVER knows that I always try to do a quick “meet the team” post on the day of arrival. We are super-exhausted so this won’t be much, but here ya go for now:
 

Well, there’s me—Heidi Bell.  OB/GYN, although my current full-time job is in pharmaceutical research after burning out pretty hard in a busy academic practice in 2014.  My husband Matt and I had the amazing privilege of living down here in Guatemala and serving as medical missionaries full-time with the support of a group called Agape in Action out of Texas from 2006-08—the first two years out of my residency! That was intense, of course, but amazing—and I’ve had the extended privilege of traveling back down for a week every 3-4 months SINCE returning in 2008.  That means God has been faithful to PROVIDE for these trips for TEN YEARS now, y’all!  It’s been an amazing road.
 

I’m here with Dr. Kathryn Pool, who is a private practice OB/GYN in Columbus, Ohio.  We literally met for the first time today—this amazing woman responded to a post that I put out on a facebook group we are in together saying that I needed help for the June trip!  Came down here, sight unseen, trusting a person she had never met—and on top of that, shopped and scavenged tirelessly for a suitcase full of things that will be a huge blessing down here both in the OR and the homes of some missionary friends. 
 

Kathryn is here without her three teenaged daughters and husband, so please pray extra hard for everyone in her family this week!  My kids are up at “Camp Grandma and Grandpa” in Michigan for the week, so no worries there; they will probably notice we aren’t around by maybe next Monday or so… 
 

We are also sharing an apartment we typically stay in (owned by the hospital) with a young nurse named Naomi, from near Chicago in the US.  We will get to know her better over the next few days, but I’m afraid we are not great company right this minute!
 

Today started around 3 am for both of us, after very little sleep for either of us last night and a very long travel day—so we are pretty likely going to be in bed by 8pm local time and will hopefully crash long and hard!  Tomorrow will be a long day of a different sort, in the clinic—wish us luck!
 

We will also be joined tomorrow by two young nurses from Canilla, a smaller village we will visit later in the week where my missionary friends the Fickers live and work.  They will be furthering their OR training here at the hospital as we try to get the ORs up and running more regularly at the newly-built hospital out there—so pray that we don’t teach them bad habits!
 

Thanks for reading and for your prayers this week~ 

 
PS, You can read more about all of these missions at:



www.DocsForHope.org (partners in the hospital-building)

 

Heidi and Kathryn

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