Long-time readers know that the first post of the week is always “meet the team”…
FIRST-TIME or new readers, WELCOME to “meet the team” that invites you to join our journey this week—there are three of us traveling together this time, and I’m super-excited to once again be blessed with two other awesome attending physicians.
First I have to tell you who “I” am, though—briefly, my name is Heidi Bell, and after finishing residency in 2006 my husband Matt and I moved down here to Guatemala to serve as full-time medical missionaries for two years. It was an amazing privilege then, and it’s been possibly even more of a privilege to be able to keep up a practice of sorts here in Guatemala by coming down for a week every three months on a regular schedule. God has been super-faithful to provide for this mission through six years on faculty of a very busy medical school, contracted pharmaceutical work, unemployment for nearly a year, and now full-time work with a pharma company. I mostly left clinical medicine in the US in 2014 for a better work-life balance, so now I live in Cary, NC, with my husband and two crazy-but-fun children- Isaac is 11 and Micah is 7. Gotta give mad props, always, to my husband and especially my in-laws, who faithfully support this mission by driving down from Michigan nearly every time I come down here to help with the kids!
I’m traveling this time with Kathryn Pool, who some of you will remember from last June! She and I met in a facebook group that we are both in—and she came down and met me in Guatemala sight unseen from Columbus, Ohio! I was so impressed that she would do that once in a lifetime, so imagine how excited I was when she said she was coming back! Mad props to her family, also, for supporting her in it. Especially with 3 teenage girls! Let’s be praying for Dad this week, right?! Dr. Pool is in practice that is fairly heavy in obstetrics and light in gyn surgery, but you would never know it by her skill in the OR. I can’t say enough about how excited I am to have her back down here!
The third member of our party should “complete us” quite nicely, I think— Dr. Milicent Triche and I graduated from residency together! We’ve been facebook friends for a while, and I have LOVED watching her three kids grow up—Ty is 14, Micah is 12, and Maya is 11. They are awesome and active, so that’s another Dad to pray for and be thankful for this week! Oh, if 2006 could see us now… SO cool to get to work again with a friend from residency. And if anyone that knew us at LBJ’s ears are burning this week, we are definitely why. Mili opened her own practice (!) in Houston, Full Circle OB/Gyn, in 2008 just two years out of residency, which never ceases to amaze me. Can’t wait to hang out with her in the OR especially this week.
Our trip got off to a rough start when my flight to Atlanta this morning was delayed and I missed my connection to Guatemala. These poor ladies have been major troopers all day hanging out in Guatemala City with mostly just medical Spanish skills. In the market, it’s not really helpful to know how to ask someone about their vaginal bleeding or how well her baby is moving, so you can imagine the stress of waiting nearly eight hours for me! We are now finally headed up to the mountains and Chichicastenango, but we will likely arrive to our beds after midnight tonight. Please pray for supernatural rest and strength since we are scheduled for a long day of clinic tomorrow.
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