From "Guest Blogger" Karen Carr!

Thanks so much to Karen for stepping up when I was whining about not feeling like typing up a blog post tonight!  It's been that kind of week-- every time there is a need on the team or for a patient or for one of the hospital staff or whomever, it just gets filled.  To God be the glory, indeed:

Today was one of those days that you just had to say that GOD YOU GET THE GLORY!! Going down 45 degree angle roadways to get to the people that need water, to standing in on a surgery for the first time all the way to washing speculums; it’s makes one smile to themselves knowing that a patient from el hospital del Buen Samaritano is all the better because of the things that we think are small, goes a long way. God’s ways are TRULY above our ways.

It was one of those days to overcome fears.  I never was fond of heights, but Mr. Snoddy, one of the leading doctors at the hospital wanted me to tag a long to interpret for him on his road trip to see about people needing water for their homes.  With tears in my eyes and white knuckles, looking over the cliff at a 50 foot drop made me realize that this whole trip isn’t about me.  It never was. It’s about going to fulfill a need WHEREVER God needed me.  Gripping even tighter coming back down the mountain and tears dried, I remembered smile on the faces of the family members of the patient that got operated on this morning post-op.  It’s about walking in faith and not fear, about love and not laziness. 

Lastly, seeing the nonstop long-working hours that the medical team has put in on this missions trip, have caused me to take a leap of faith and make missions my life legacy to wherever God would have me go to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ around the world.  Thank you to Dr. Heidi, Nicole, Dr. Dan-the workingman, Dr. Preston and the 2 Mark Snoddys (Jr. and III)

Thank you for the opportunity and for changing my life.

So for today's random assortment of pictures, we have:  Me doing my first Guatemalan laparoscopy.  

Our para-ovarian cyst that we removed, for the 2.8 of our readers who are actually interested in the surgical pictures!

Preston holding a really, really cute baby of one of our patients today-- although there really is no other kind of Guatemalan baby!

And Karen, the star of today's blog, with one of the friends that she and Mark went out to meet in an outlying village...