More From Juba

Just a few of my favorite before and after pics...

This is Miriam

Peter, "The Tank"

Sweet Waro

Doctor

Rosiline

Baby Grace

Said

Sanyal

"Diva"

Buli

Juba

I recently spent 2 weeks with a surgical team in Juba, South Sudan performing cleft lip reconstruction surgeries on 78 patients. They came from all over the country, many from refugee camps. Among the 78, we took care of a father and daughter, and 2 sets of siblings. Our youngest patient was 6 months old, and our oldest was 60 years. I can't even imagine all the 60 year old woman, Miriam, had been through during her life. She told us before her surgery that she just wanted to be able to hold her head up, look someone in the eye, and not have to cover her face with a scarf. I so badly wanted to jump on a plane and go back with one of the groups and experience their homecomings with them. I was in awe every time a patient came out of the operating room. The transformations were nothing short of amazing. It never got old to watch them come into the recovery room and see their new faces.

The culture in which they live is not accepting of any kind of deformity. People with cleft lips are usually ostracized and treated very harshly. They are considered to be cursed or demon-possessed. Throughout their lifetimes, they have had very few people love them or accept them just as they are. These patients and their families are some of the bravest people I've ever met. They have endured things I cannot begin to fathom, and then one day someone tells them that they can have surgery done to fix their lips. When the plane comes to their village to pick them up, they have to decide whether or not they will trust white people they've never met, and get on a plane to a place they have never been. I wonder what goes through their minds when they arrive at the hospital and we poke them with things, take lots of pictures, and ask them a million questions through 3 interpreters. I hope that through everything they can see that God loves them enough to bring us to them from the other side of the world so that we could help them in such a tangible way. In addition to physical transformations, we were also privileged to watch many spiritual transformations occur. For the first time in their lives someone told them that there is a God that loves them unconditionally. We had Sudanese pastors working with our team that did such an amazing job building relationship with the patients and their families and sharing the gospel with them.

After talking with one group, almost all of them accepted Christ and they took
 off all of their amulets and charms and asked the pastors to burn them.

-Our God is a consuming fire- Hebrews 12:29

One day near the end of our time, we had 4 patients with the same name, a word that meant "deformed". They were 2, 13, 16, and 22 years old. Following their surgeries, they picked new names. John, Elizabeth, Grace, and Hannah now have new identities inside and out. They don't ever have to answer to "deformed" again. I can't really explain what it was like to talk with them as they chose their new names and the pastors prayed with them.

John, Hannah, Elizabeth, and Grace

It was such a privilege to be part of this team and watch these patients' lives change so dramatically. Here's a recap from our trip:

Here is a link to pictures. I am still working on a more organized "before and after" album from the surgeries, which I hope to have up soon!

Ready or Not

In less than 48 hours I will be on my way to Africa. Wait, didn't I just get back from somewhere? Well, yes, in fact I did.  And off I go again. I actually just realized yesterday that the trip was only 3 days away, and my immediate thought was, "I am so not ready!" I am so grateful for the amazingly encouraging and wise people around me who have reminded me that this is actually exactly where God wants me. If I'm honest, I still feel completely spent after returning from Mongolia. But then I think of the majority of our team who went back to full-time jobs and families, while I was blessed with time to process and cry and have coffee dates with friends.... and sleep. Even though I had that time, I still feel empty, and not ready to go at it again.

About this time last year, God began teaching me about being prepared in season and out, which I translate as "ready or not, be ready." I think I prefer not "feeling" ready, because I am much more consciously aware of my need to not lean on my own strength, knowledge and abilities. I tend to go to Jesus much quicker and know that I really can't do anything on my own. I also acknowledge that God is really just answering prayers I've been praying since I was little. This is what I've always wanted to do and I'm getting on-the-job training in how to do it completely dependent on Him.

I love Matthew 11:28-30 in the Message version:
"Are you tired?... Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me-watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I love that. I have a long way to go in that lesson. I know that God gives me the grace to do what He's called me to do, but I have to receive it and rest in it and "learn the unforced rhythm" of it. So ready or not, here I go.

Please keep our team in prayer when you think about it. Say a quick prayer when you read this. We are hoping to do 80 cleft lip surgeries on children and adults in the next 2 weeks. Please pray for logistics, for health, strength and unity for our team. Also for everyone who will be having surgery and their families, and anyone we would come in contact with, that they would see how much God loves them through us.

Adventures Make the Best Memories

Before our team took on Mending week in the hospital back in Ulan Bataar, we ventured out into the southwest Gobi desert, near the Altai mountains, conducting screenings for children with heart defects. This year was the 10th annual screening trip that Dr. Kirk has done with the For Hearts and Souls team. Upon completion of our searching trip this year he finished screening the ENTIRE country of Mongolia, all the while teaching local doctors how to identify these children and refer them for appropriate treatment. Over the last few years there has been a significant decrease in the number of children we find that have not yet been diagnosed, which means that these children are being found and treated, or referred out to other countries as necessary. What a great SUCCESS!

There are so many stories from the week of screening, but I'm only going to highlight one here. Last year our team cared for a young boy during mending week who had multiple complications during and following his heart operation. In the operating room there was concern that he had gone several minutes with very low blood pressure when his heart went into an abnormal rhythm, and then he required electrical pacing to maintain a normal heart rate after the operation because of the extent of his heart defect. Last year he was the kiddo that kept us up all night praying, and the following morning, his heart was functioning well enough to be able to stop using the electrical pacer. He remained in the ICU several days, and then in the hospital for weeks as he recovered. 

We all told him last year that God had a purpose for his life because he had received so many miracles. This year his mom brought him to one of our screenings. I was so surprised when I saw him waiting in line, and he looked so good! We got to talk to them for quite a while and catch up on how he has been doing. Following his discharge from the hospital last year, he remained very weak because his heart rate was still extremely low and he would need a pacemaker. A few months ago, Dr. Bush and Dr. Kirk made a trip to Mongolia for some kids who needed permanent pacemakers placed, and our little guy was one of them. Having a pacemaker totally turned Eggie's life upside down, in a good way :). His mom actually brought him in because she was concerned he was playing too much soccer! He wants to be a doctor when he grows up. As we were talking we found out that both he and his mom had accepted Christ some time in the last few months. At some point during our conversation, mom stepped out and then returned with the dad. She wanted Sara to tell him about Jesus. Sara talked with the father for several minutes and then we all got to pray with him as he chose to accept Christ. I don't know how to put into words the joy that I felt that day getting to see him and his family and know that they are all doing so well.

Here are some more pics from screening week.

I felt so privileged to be a part of this final searching trip with the team. We had so many memorable adventures out under the blue sky of Mongolia. The Russian vans and mini buses we travel in never disappoint in giving us stories to tell.

We took small planes from Ulan Bataar out to Altai where we started our journey in the vans and buses to Ulistai. That first trip took about 8 hours and included 3 breakdowns. During one of those breakdowns, our Mongolian drivers actually disassembled the front end of one of the vans when the stabilizer bar broke. We thought the van would be retired, but the drivers produced a replacement stabilizer bar out of thin air,reassembled the front end, and off we went. Once night fell, our group was close to the ger camp we were supposed to stay in, but the drivers couldn't find their way. There are not exactly street signs in the desert, so once you lose daylight it can be difficult. This place was extremely remote, up and over boulders and rivers, and into the mountains. There are so many stories from breakdowns, to hiking adventures, to claustrophobic vans, to finding our way over boulders in the dark (and narrowly avoiding cliffs because we couldn't see where they were). Ahhhh, the memories! Wouldn't trade them for the world.

If you want to see more scenery pictures and camels and hiking, click here.

Mongolia Mending Week Slideshow

Please, before you watch the slideshow, take time to read the previous post if you haven't already. It will mean so much more if you know what and who you're looking at, and the words of the song will make a lot more sense.

Mountains and Valleys

I was planning on writing my blog post in order of events, but I'm going to go ahead and start with surgery week. Even at this point I don't really know how to articulate what I want to say, but I'm hoping it all makes sense when I'm done.
Our For Hearts and Souls team has been on the mountain tops and down in the valleys over the last 10 days or so. We started the week with Dr Kirk speaking at church from James 1. Little did we know how applicable this would be to our week ahead. I know I'm not the only one who went back to those scriptures a few times during the week. It is so hard during those fiery trials to be intentional about not losing your joy, but that was exactly what we needed. The trials started during our screening week prior to surgeries when customs was giving us a really hard time about releasing all of our supplies. They did finally release everything, but it was a battle. As we began our surgery week, we hit a trial on monday afternoon. A little boy, who we affectionately called "Munk" (and sometimes monkey boy), had several complications during surgery, and at some points things appeared as though they wouldn't end well.  In answer to the many prayers that were being sent up, he improved, made it into the ICU, and when the team arrived the next morning he was awake and off of the ventilator causing trouble :).

Dr. Ariunna and Munk

The next day I had the privilege of recovering a young girl named Ariuka. She has spent all 11 years of her life being blue, almost purple even, because of a heart defect that limits blood flow to her lungs so that she doesn't get enough oxygen. When she came from the OR into the ICU, even all of the team and the Mongolian staff were in shock because she was so pink. The best part of my day was when Dr. Rita brought her mom in and we took her over to her bedside. To see the look on that mom's face when she saw her daughter pink for the first time is one the most amazing things I ever witnessed. Her mom just kept hugging us and saying "hallelujah", "amen", and "Jesus" because it's all the English she knew. At one point, our chaplain, Lloyd came in to pray for Ariuka as he was making his rounds through the ICU. As soon as Lloyd came over and put a hand on the little girl to start to pray, her mom got up, put a hand on her head and started praying over Lloyd in Mongolian. When Ariuka woke up, she kept looking at her hands for a long time. It's almost unbelievable that one small shunt could provide enough blood flow from the heart to the lungs to make a child change colors.

Ariuka and her mom

On wednesday we had a couple of kids that didn't throw us too many surprises. And then came Thursday and a little girl named Ichko. I went back to the hotel Thursday morning to take a nap because I was working that night. When I arrived back at the hospital around lunch time, I passed a team member who told us we needed to pray because the girl who had gone first was not doing well.  At the time I got up to the operating room they had already completed the surgery, but the left side of her heart was not working. During these surgeries the child's heart is stopped and a bypass machine takes over the work of the heart until they complete the surgery. We can't take them off bypass until their heart restarts and is functioning again. The OR team had called for everyone else to come and pray, which was around the time I arrived, so I joined the team that was praying. Our OR team members watched her heart suddenly and dramatically improve while the rest of the team was literally praying down heaven in the room just next door. Her heart function improved enough that they were able to stabilize her by pacing her heart and get her off of bypass and back to the ICU.  She was in critical condition, but alive, and so we set about our night shift not really knowing how it would go. She did become extremely unstable at one point, but with some quick interventions, things leveled out and started improving. By midnight things seemed to be headed in the right direction. By 4 or so in the morning her heart started taking over instead of the pacer doing all the work. We were very literally praying through the darkness and waiting for the sun to rise, and eager for the rest of the team to return to the hospital. As the sun came up that morning, she was doing well enough that we decided to let her wake up and take her off of the breathing machine. To see her open her eyes, breathe on her own, and talk to her mom was a huge relief. (Did I mention that before they were able to get her on bypass in the OR, her heart went into an abnormal rhythm that supplied little blood flow to her brain for several minutes?) When the team arrived, she was sitting up in bed, drinking sips of water, and telling us thank you. There were many tears of joy that day. We watched with our own eyes miracle after miracle happen throughout the week, and several of them happened for Ichko. 

Dr Heather and Dr Minnette watching closely

Me and Ichko in the morning

There was a song we played that morning called "What Faith Can Do" by Kutless. This is the chorus:

I've seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn't ever end
Even when the sky is falling
I've seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That's what faith can do

And one of the verses:

Don't you give up now
The sun will soon be shining
You gotta face the clouds
To find the silver lining

I've been listening to this song over and over for the last few days and I'm still crying when I listen to it. The words couldn't be more appropriate for all that happened last week. If you haven't heard the whole song, you really should (and you will if you watch the slideshow).

Stick with me, I know this post is getting long, but we still have Friday to go. I slept during the day Friday and when I arrived back at the hospital I received a similar greeting as the previous day; another patient not doing well. This time it was a little 2 year old boy named Ireedui. He had a diagnostic procedure done that afternoon, and in the minutes and hours that followed we knew that things were not good. After ruling out some obvious causes for what was going on, the team doctors came to the conclusion that he had a major stroke, most likely from an air embolus. We knew that without a miracle, this precious boy only had a few days to live. His heart function was already not good because of a very complex heart defect. We spent hours by his bedside that night praying for him and his parents, and trying to keep him comfortable. In the morning when the team arrived we took time to talk and pray, this time having tears of sorrow and grief, knowing his condition had only worsened overnight. He was transferred to another hospital that would be better able to care for him later that day, and after most of us had arrived back home in the states, we received the e-mail none of us wanted to read. Ireedui went to be with Jesus; that was his miracle. There are so many things I don't understand, but I know that God is good and he doesn't change from day to day. He was good on the days where miracles meant that the children lived through their operations, and He's still good when the miracle means that one went home to be with Him. I am certain that Ireedui is pretty happy about it right now. A young man, who is wise beyond his years,  told me in response to this story, "it's awesome to think you were there with him to share God's love and to share peace in a place where none is usually found."

Ireedui

So now I'm home and trying to process all of the ups and downs and crazy extremes of last week. It is amazing how it is so much easier to remember when things went badly, and be discouraged by that, than to remember and focus on all of the great things God has done. For me, I have to be intentional in focusing on the times that God came through in huge ways last week and not let the sadness about  Ireedui overshadow that in any way. There are so many things that God taught me or reinforced in powerful ways this week, but I'll just write a couple here. Complete dependence on Him isn't optional, it's absolutely necessary. We can have all the knowledge and resources available to us, but if the Creator doesn't make that heart beat again it doesn't matter. Spiritual warfare is real. We are not strong enough to fight and win, but God is and He already has. Trusting God and believing that He is who He says is a major key to maintaining joy through the trials. 

If you read the whole thing and didn't give up, I hope that you were encouraged. Enjoy the slideshow on the next post.

It's Mongolia Time!

24 hours from now I will be hanging out in the Seattle airport waiting for my flight to Seoul. It's time for me to head back to Mongolia. This is my 3rd annual trip with For Hearts and Souls, and my 4th time to this country. These numbers seem wrong to me. I feel like I have spent so much more time there than these counts indicate.

As in previous years, our team will spend the first week in the countryside of Mongolia screening children for heart defects. We will be headed to the southwest area of the country, Gobi Altai. There will be 23 people on our team during searching week, as well as several Mongolian team members.
The second half of our trip, we will be back in Ulan Bataar for mending week. Our team will be up to 34 for our time at the hospital. Hopefully we will complete around 10 open heart surgeries, and 20 other procedures in 5 days.

Here are some specific prayer requests:

-Safe travels.
-Favor for our team and all of the supplies that will be hand-carried through customs.
-For equipment to function like it should and that our supplies would last as long as we need them to.
-Unity and grace for our team (long hours, sometimes stressful days with little sleep, so we all need supernatural grace to keep being nice to each other :). Not to mention we're just a big group of type A people.)
-That God would prepare the hearts of all the children and their families that we will come into contact with, and that we would have open doors to share the gospel.
-Guidance and wisdom for the cardiologists and surgeons as they make the final decisions on which children are eligible for surgery.
-For successful outcomes for all of the children.
-That the team would be able to sleep when we can and stay healthy throughout the trip.
-Provision in all areas.

I am hoping to update as I go. We'll see if it works out!

Thank you all for your prayers and support.

P.S. I also get to see this little guy, Temka, who just had his surgery in San Antonio in June. I was able to spend time with them while I was in Texas for a bit and took them to the zoo. Now he is completely healed and home in Mongolia. I will get to visit him and his family and see where they live. I am super excited! Love him.

All For Love... Eye Opening

When I agreed to be part of the Iraq team, I did not actually realize what I was in for. Fallujah was not part of the original plan. We actually teased Dr Kirk that he got us all to say yes and then told us we were going to Fallujah after the fact. The order of events is true, but even he didn't know that we would end up there. The entire trip was supposed to be spent in Dohuk (northern Iraq). He had been there many times with teams doing screenings and heart caths, but this was going to be my first time there. A few weeks before we were set to leave, Dr Kirk found out that it had been approved for our team to go the the hospital in Fallujah. All of the political obstacles to visas and approval were thought to be insurmountable in such a short time, but God opened all the doors and it was apparent that was where we were supposed to go.

When we were on our last flight from Istanbul to Baghdad, I had a very eye opening conversation with the guy sitting next to me. I'm sure he was pretty shocked to see an American girl flying to Baghdad and asked why I was going there. I explained to him what our team was doing, and throughout the course of conversation found out a little bit of his story too. He is 27 and grew up in Baghdad. He was returning home after going to Istanbul to see a specialist. He had minimal feeling and movement in one of his legs because of shrapnel from a car bomb. The specialist he saw told him there was no hope for recovery for his leg. It had been about a year and a half. Once he got home he would be pretty much confined to his house living with his parents. His mom had been in the car with him when the bomb went off, as well as his sister and a friend. His sister lost her life that day. As I sat listening to his story, the reality of where I was going hit me. For people in both Baghdad and Fallujah, like other war-torn areas, most of their lives have been filled with war, death, injury, and uncertainty. On top of that, no one wants to go help them because of the danger. So many times other Iraqis would say to us, "You went to Fallujah? We would never go there!" Even their fellow countrymen are afraid to go to certain cities.

I love that I can be part of a team of people who are willing to go despite danger or fear. What a great privilege it was to work with the doctors and medical staff at the hospital there. They were extremely welcoming and took very good care of us.  We didn't go anywhere without our own personal armed security team, and mostly we just didn't go anywhere. We only took 2 trips outside the hospital compound, other than to the airport. They did everything in their power to keep us safe. Ultimately God was definitely watching over us and brought us home safely.

It was also a successful trip from a medical standpoint. Our team worked with cardiologists from Fallujah, Kirkuk, and Tikrit, as well as a cath lab team from Baghdad, and completed 12 heart catheterizations in 4 days. All of the children came through their procedures well with good results. Some of them had devices placed to close defective openings, some had narrow areas widened with balloons, and others were diagnostic caths to determine if they were eligible to have surgery to correct their heart defect. Before we ever left, they wanted to know when we could come back. Their cardiac center is brand new, and the week we were there was the first time that any heart catheterization procedures had ever been done.  There were a lot of firsts for them. Hopefully we can go and work with them again in the future so that they can help even more Iraqi children.

Here is the link to some of the pictures from Fallujah.

All For Love

Why would 6 Americans travel to Fallujah, Iraq? Love. 

I had the amazing privilege of being part of this team. It's hard to put into words some of the experiences we had, but I will make an attempt here in my blog. For now, here's a quick slideshow that is a summary of our time in Fallujah (Arab Iraq) and Sulaimaniyah (Kurdish Iraq).

Next Adventure

Tomorrow afternoon our team leaves for Iraq.  I have been excited for this trip since I found out about it in April, and I can't believe it's actually here. Please pray for our team when you think about it. We will be in 2 different places over the course of the next 2 weeks and get home on July 13th.

A few prayer requests:

-Safety as we travel in and through the country

-Peace and rest 

-For procedures and recoveries to go smoothly

-Equipment to function as it should

-Resources to be available

-That the children and their parents would see something different about us even if we can't use a lot of words

I am so grateful to be on this team working with 5 other doctors and nurses that I know and love. Thank you for praying!

Wow

I just returned this weekend from traveling for a week. I was in Canada, then Mongolia, then Canada again before I came home. It was quite the adventure :).
Each time I get the privilege of transporting for CHP I get so excited. I love it. It's amazing to me the opportunities God gives me to take care of children and meet all kinds of people from all over. My life is anything but boring.  This trip was no exception.

These are the 2 beautiful girls, their moms, and our translator.

Even before we set out on our journey to bring them from Mongolia to Canada for their life-saving heart surgeries, I got to spend 48 hours with my good friend, Emily, in Ulan Bataar.  You would be surprised how much fun we could cram in to such a short amount of time, especially while she was still working. Check out all of the pics and make sure to read the captions. I had a blast hanging out with Emily and visiting with my Mongolian friends as well. It was a good time!

Before I wrap this up, I want to share a quick story from this transport. The baby girl you see in the above picture is about 20 months old. While the older girl handled the transitions well and slept quite a bit on the airplanes, the baby certainly had a harder time. By the time we were ready to board our plane from Seoul to Canada, she still had not slept. Babies who are awake for 24 hours are not very happy babies.  I was a bit concerned about her and was really hoping she would sleep on the long flight. I really wanted to be near her on the flight, but the ticket agent said they couldn't change my seat. Out of 400 or so seats, there was only 1 empty one.  As I was getting the group ready to board, I told the translator I wanted the group to get together and pray. I also hadn't slept and I really needed God to intervene. Even as she was translating to the moms to get together so we could pray, the ticket agent came over to us and handed me a new boarding pass for a different seat next to the group. Immediately Matt 6:32 came to mind: "...your Heavenly Father knows what you need".  It was such a little thing, to change a seat, but it felt very big to me in that moment. So we prayed together as a group before boarding, and even before we were done, the baby fell asleep in mom's arms. The Lord knows what we need before we ask, whether little or big things.

I also got to visit another little girl from Mongolia who is leaving Canada soon to go home. We had a great time in downtown Toronto with her host family helping to support the Herbie Fund, who works with the CHP kids. I met more awesome people and ended up on a live Canadian newscast!

Here are the photos for your enjoyment :)

P.S. I leave for Iraq with For Hearts and Souls June 29th for 2 weeks. More details on this trip as it gets nearer! Guess what? I'm excited for that one too!

Things That Might Happen :)

My 2 months in Texas is almost up. Only a few more days until I head back to Colorado. It's bittersweet. The time I have had with my family has been great, but i really miss my Colorado family. I wish I could be lots of places at once, but since I can't, I seem to go from place to place to place...to place.

If things settle down in South Sudan, I will hopefully be a part of the team going in October. Unfortunately, I will not be going to Honduras this year. This particular decision was extremely difficult for me, but the more time that passes, the more I can see how I wouldn't have been able to go in July. This summer looks a lot different then I first thought it would. The reason I say these are "things that might happen" is because all plans I make seem to be pretty flexible. I think that God doesn't want me to get bored :).

So next week I'll head back to Colorado, and then the first week of June I'll be doing a transport for CHP. I get to go to Mongolia! I will be picking up a child from Canada who has already had surgery, and taking the group home to Mongolia where I will spend 2 days and then take a group back to Canada for surgery.  My mom is going to come to Colorado to visit near the end of June, and then we will fly back to Texas together. We will get back in time for my grandma's birthday, and I will be getting ready to go to Kurdistan with For Hearts and Souls for a week the beginning of July. If all of these things happen like I think they will, and nothing else comes up, I'm also hoping to go back to CAMP as Med-staff for a week in July. I worked at CAMP from 1997-2004 and I really miss it. It would be great to go back for a week.

There's so much more, but that's the basics. Every day is an adventure.

One Step at a Time

I'm really glad God knows the plan. I have to remind myself that He is not surprised by the changes that seem so sudden to me.

I tried to mentally prepared myself for the possibility that the trip to South Sudan could be cancelled due to the recent increase in violence, but I underestimated how disappointed I would actually be if it were to happen. I received the phone call this morning and have been on the edge of tears since. My heart was so set on going. The hospital that we were set to work in is setting up tents for the influx of patients that they are receiving, so even if we went they wouldn't be able to give up the beds and operating room space for non-emergent patients. My thought: let's go anyway and help the hospital staff with their extra patients. I wish that was the way it worked.

The bright side is that I get this extra time with my family, which has been really good. There is another trip for later in the summer that has been presented to me and I will update the blog if I end up going. I have only known about it for a few days so I haven't made a decision yet, but it looks promising. For now, I am sticking with my plan of being in Texas for a few more weeks. God seems to be stretching my faith further and further in a lot of areas, but especially in the area of not having a plan. I keep hearing a replay in my head of something Ps. Aaron Stern has said so many times: "The bible doesn't say that God's word is a spotlight to my future, it says 'it's a light to my path'." A lot of times we only get to see our feet and where we need to take the next step. I so wish I could have a spotlight...

Getting Ready for S. Sudan

Barely a month until the Sudan trip! I can barely contain myself :). I am so excited about this opportunity.

I was officially done with work as of a few days ago. The end was kind of rough. The ICU has been super busy, and it's hard to leave knowing they need help. Even so, I know I am right where I'm supposed to be. Looking forward to some much needed time with my family and then off to Sudan!

Here are some prayer requests from my team leader. This will be the second cleft lip project team SP has sent to Juba, so I asked her about specific things to pray for that they had run into the first time.

1. Pray all our supplies/meds are able to be procured without too much of a challenge and will get through customs okay. Pray especially that we will be able to procure compressed tanks of oxygen and get it to Juba so we have enough o2 for the surgeries.

2. Pray that anesthesia machine works well. We rely on this machine to work well for the week of surgeries and we do not have a backup for this machine.

3. Pray the power supply is consistent and that the backup generator works well.

4. As we try mobilize patients, pray that people who need this surgery would hear about the team coming to Juba and be able to be helped. Pray that just the right amount of patients come for surgery- not too few, but not too many which would overwhelm the system!

5. Pray for our team, that we would work well together and be a light to the patients and staff we work with at Juba Teaching Hospital.

6. Pray for our Sudanese Pastors-Robert and Justin, who will be ministering to the patients during this week. Pray they would have many opportunities to point our patients and their caretakers to Christ.

Unexpected Happenings

These last few weeks have been a whirlwind of decisions and changes in plans. What I thought this year would look like is turning out to be completely different than reality. Not bad, but unexpected. I've gotten pretty used to a lot of unknown in my life, but I have times where I don't handle it as well. These last few weeks definitely fall into the category of not handling it as well, but I'm coming back around to a better perspective of everything. I know that God has a plan, that it's good, and His timing is perfect. One day at a time I remind myself to trust instead of worry. So here's what's been unfolding...

I had originally hoped to extend my contract at work through the end of May like I did last year, but found out a couple of weeks ago that they weren't offering extensions. It actually happened that by that time, I had already made the decision not to extend because I really feel like I need to go back to San Antonio and spend some time with my family. Within 24 hours of those decisions I received an invitation to be part of a surgical team to South Sudan in May, which I accepted. The team is through Samaritan's Purse (the same organization as Children's Heart Project), and we will be doing cleft lip repairs for a week. This trip will take place during my time in Texas, and then I plan to come back to Colorado Springs at the end of May. So in 48 hours, my vision of the next 2 months changed drastically.

I don't really know a lot after that. The trip to Honduras is in July, and Mongolia will be in September. Both of these trips are on the table right now. My budget is a lot different than I thought it was going to be since I'm not working the extra 2 months I thought I would. Those paychecks would have paid for both trips completely. God knows where I need to be and when, and He has always provided what's needed. It would break my heart to have to pick one trip or not go on either. Please pray that I would have wisdom and direction about where I need to be.

Recently we had a guest speaker at our church and she talked about gifts in unexpected packaging. It's certainly not the first time I've heard this preached, but it came at the right time for me. I needed a reminder that even though this wasn't what I had planned at all, God's plan is certainly better than mine. So although I won't be working the extra 2 months I was hoping too and I am unsure about my trips to Honduras and Mongolia, I do get priceless time with my family and the privilege of being on a surgical team to the South Sudan, along with whatever else God has planned that I don't know about.

I suppose that's it for now. I am really excited about spending several weeks with my family, and my sister and I are planning to get away for a few days while I'm there. I have actually never been on vacation so I am super excited about this :).

Whenever I find out more I will pass it along. Even though it's been a bit challenging to have lots of things change at once, I am looking forward to whatever God has in store for the coming months.

Honduras Recap

I love surprises. I love giving them more than getting them, although that is good too. It is even more exciting when you have no idea what a big deal it's going to turn out to be. My trip to Honduras earlier this month was one of those occasions.

I had the privilege of taking a little girl, Katherine, home to Honduras after her heart surgery. She’s 7 years old, and definitely one of the happiest kids I ever met. She had a grin plastered from ear to ear pretty much the whole way home. She was sooooo excited to see her daddy. On the way to Honduras we had to stop overnight in Miami. It had been decided that we would surprise them and get a hotel on the beach instead of by the airport. We knew we wouldn’t have a lot of time, but thought it would still be fun for them, and me :). All the way to Miami God took care of so many little things, even some we didn’t ask for. Free checked bags, seats together on the planes, pre-boarding on all the flights, a free upgrade in our rental car, an upgraded hotel room less than 2 blocks from the beach, discounts on meals, and the list goes on. When I told the interpreter that we were staying a night on the beach, she almost fell off of her chair right there in the airport. I cannot even begin to describe the look on her face. That was when I found out that none of them had ever seen the beach or the ocean. Katherine and her mom were equally excited. They live in the mountains of Honduras and it would be expensive to travel to the coast. I also found out that the interpreter, Karla, loves the show CSI Miami and was thrilled to get to see Miami in person, especially the beach :).

We arrived to our hotel late at night, so I proposed the plan of getting up to see sunrise on the beach. We got about 5 hours of sleep before getting up and heading out. Karla looked like a 5 year old on Christmas morning. It was so fun to get to experience this first with them, and God took this opportunity to remind me yet again that we are supposed to be like little children. Sometimes I just take myself and everyone else too seriously. God has helped me to grow so much in this area, but I still require frequent reminders that it is okay to be excited and maybe even fall off of a chair as a result of that excitement :). Check out the pics from the beach here.

After sunrise on the beach, we headed back to the airport for our last flight. Katherine changed into a skirt for her daddy and could not stop smiling. When they were reunited she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. The rest of us were...well...definitely crying.

Since I was in Honduras already, I hopped on a bus to La Ceiba so I could visit Jeff and Julie Hines (the missionaries I lived with the summer of 2010) and a few other friends. Bonus! It was so good to see them even though it was short. I had really been missing them and especially wanted to see Gabi. When we were there with the team last summer I didn’t get to see her very much. She is doing so well and was really smiley for me all weekend :). It was a huge blessing to me to have some time with the family without any kind of agenda or specific work to do. It was nice to just be. These are the pics from my visit.

So that’s my Honduras recap. I know there’s some extra details, but that surprise story is worth it. I can’t imagine how difficult it is for these families to be apart during a major surgery praying your child comes home healed.

Everyone keeps asking me where I’m going next. Nothing on the horizon at the moment, but you never know when that will change :).