Mexico City Update

We’re here! We arrived in Mexico City on Sunday morning after a rather uneventful flight. Customs was an adventure as Janell and Sarah were both stopped and our mountains of medical supplies were searched through. In the end all we lost was a few boxes of syringes but hundrends more made it though!
After the customs fiasco, our wonderful hosts Carlos and Carrie,were waiting for us on the other side and we were able to have first meal in Mexico at lovely little café on the way to the church. We are staying with Carlos’ aunt and uncle, Eva and Ezekiel. They pastor a small church in the outlying area of Chalco. What wonderful gracious hosts they are!
Yesterday we began work at or first brigade. Between Mr. Peck and Dr. Luna we got through about 60 patients, most of them children. Janell did a lot of the translating for her dad while working at his clinic station. Julie and Sarah did a lot of vital signs and triage and also worked with Dr. Luna. Alex and Zanna were “flexico in Mexico” and helped out with an unmet need by cutting hair for school children as the school year here in Mexico begins next week.
After the clinic experience we headed to a pharmacy to pick up some medications that wished we would have had at the clinic during the day. While at the pharmacy, 5 more children showed up needing medical certificates for school. (apparently they do this at the pharmacy?) The pharmacist, a friend of Carlos and Carrie’s, “invited” us to help him out with the assessments. So… There we were assessing school children on the side of the street outside the pharmacy window, why not!
While assessing the children at the pharmacy, Carlos got a call from his uncle who hosts a Christian radio show. He was inviting us to be on his show! I wasn’t quite sure how the girls would feel about this but I thought it would be a great opportunity so I said yes; after all, Mexico is flexico. What a hoot, we were on the Mexican equivalent of Focus on the Family being interviewed about missions!
Thank you to all of you who are praying for us at home. God’s hand of protection as truly been upon us and we are so blessed to be a small part of what He is doing here in Mexico.

Greetings from Taipei!

Hellow everybody, I've made it safely to Taipei. We are on a 4 hour layover between here and Cambodia. The flight wasn't bad at all, I got a window seat but nobody in the seat next to me. I got to spread out a bit and get some good sleep and still had some time to relax and read a good book. (In His Image by Paul Brand and Philip Yancey).

Right before I boarded the plane I turned to one of my teammates and said, “What am I doing?” “Following Jesus,” she answered. I must admit that I never really had any special interest to work in Asia. When I was asked to consider going on this trip my first thought was ‘no’. Now I find myself in a foreign airport with a team I don’t know, totally “pumped” for the unknown that lies ahead. How did I get here, well I hope my new friend was right, by following Jesus.

This is going to be a very different sort of trip. Not only is it a new place with a team that I don’t know at all, but I’m not in any way shape or form in charge! I never thought of myself as a control freak but I must admit that it is quite different to be placed in this position. I have a lot to learn and I have a feeling that this whole experience is going to be an exercise in listening and being prompted. Praise the Lord for situations such as these where I have no control, no idea what’s going on, don’t know the language and the only thing I can do is listen, wait upon the Lord and following His prompting.

I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane

Well folks, at this time tomorrow I'll be on plane headed for Cambodia. We'll land in Phnom Penh, spend one night in a guest house, and then head out to our final destination of Rotanakiri. We will be setting up a clinic at an orphanage which will serve the people of the surrounding area. We anticipate seeing 4000 patients during our six clinical days. The team consists of 31 people, 12 of us "practitioners" and 19 support staff.
Last weekend we had a "pill packing" party where 68 suitcases where strategically filled with medications and basic medical supplies. It was a rather huge production which took over 100 people about 7 hours to complete.
Fear not faithful readers, I am happy report that I was able to contribute several boxes of medical supplies from "the stash." Yay for finally sending some stuff out! However, it appears as though the team had way too much of certain other supplies. We ended up pulling off a supply exchange and I came home with more than I had sent out... But in my defense, the stuff I brought home were items that I had very little of that I think would be very useful in Mexico City. I'm not sure if I will have any Internet access at all while I am away, so I might not be able to update until after July 31.

Ratanakiri or Bust!!

A last minute change in plans, I love those. So apparently this last week the leaders the New Life Cambodia Medical Team have found themselves in quite the predicament. It seems that process to get all the permits to set up clinic in Krava, as per the original plan, was taking much longer than anticipated, hefty bribes were also being demanded. We as a team don't have the money to pay the bribes anyway, so it was off to find another site.
On Sunday we received confirmation from a leader in Ratanakiri that we are able to set up clinic there. Ratanakiri is in the northeast corner of Cambodia on the border of Vietnam and Laos. It is the poorest area of all of Cambodia and inhabited by mostly tribal people. This is great news for us as we will be able to serve in the area with the most need. Unfortunately, this also means that we will need to go through 2 interpreters; one will translate English to Khmer, and one to translate Khmer to the local tribal language.
I am told that Ratanakiri is mountainous jungle, unlike the rest of Cambodia which is mostly flat. Scott, our team leader, describes this trip as an Indiana Jones adventure.

The Talking Head

This summer is my first attempt at teaching a class that involves distance education. In attempt to make the material easily accessible to all the course participants, it was suggested that I make a lecture/demonstration video.
Some good friends of mine run a sort of media ministry out of their home that includes radio broadcasting and filming. Last night I went down to their place to film the first of my 5 lecture series. In spite of how much I hate cameras, things were going well and I was nearly 2/3 of the way finished when suddenly the camera man says "cut."
What was the problem, I was on a roll? As it turns out the one day I actually wore color, it just happened to be a long sleeved green shirt. What's wrong with that, you ask? We were filming in front of a green screen, I would be nothing more than a talking head and pair of hands! While that might actually be funny for the first few minutes, we decided that overall it would be way to distracting.
"Take 2!"

Top Ten

A teacher friend of mine is listing her top 10 ten favorite moments of the school year as she counts down to the last day. I thought that was a pretty neat way to end the year. Unfortunately, my school year has already ended, but here are my top ten anyway. (in no particular order)

1. I was once late to my own class, when I arrived I found the students diligently doing clinical paperwork. I apologized profusely and the first response I got was this "Therefore there is now no condemnation..." Wow!
2. On the very last day of clinicals I let the students off early, we went to lunch at Red Robin and then for a walk in the park.
3. During clinical a student ran out of a room to find me in the hall to tell me patient wouldn't wake up. I walked in the room to find the patient nearly in respiratory arrest as she was "over medicated." It wasn't the students fault as she wasn't the one who gave the 2 mg of dilaudid, but we got give narcan! The students then made up a lovely song about it. "Nar-can, you don't have to put on the code light, Nar-can..." It was quite a learning opportunity.
4. A picnic with cheerios and milk at the Kirkland waterfront in the dark after pinning all because we thought the end of year was "anticlimactic."
5. I had my Mexico City students over for fish tacos once to discuss assignments and expectations for the class. One of the students looked her keys in the car and got stuck at my house until 11pm. We ate cheesecake and had some pretty great "rice krispie treat" exchanges.
6. I was rounding the students at clinical one morning and noticed I didn't find one of them on the floor so I asked another student where she was. "Miss M, you just sent her down to the OR about 10 minutes ago." Apparently I asked again a little later that day. Now every time I forget something they just respond with, "Where's Rachael?"
7. The interesting comments the students made during my lecture entitled, "Shock and Awe: Declaring Rapid Dominance Over States of Hypoperfusion"
8. The Christmas party in the skills lab and our clinical evaluations.
9. Hearing, "Miss M., I got the job!"
10. I had spoken in another professors class about my adventures in Rwanda. Later that week I found a bag of coffee from the Bourbon (an amazing coffee house in Rwanda) with a little note, "Ms. M., Just a little to get you by before you go back!"
What an amazing and blessed school year! I will remember it fondly always.

Oh Kitty Where Art Thou

Thursday evening I had a friend over for dinner. Since it was a really hot day we decided to dine on the back deck. Little Kosha insisted on coming with us. I was a little hesitant at first as heard from her previous owner that she has always been an indoor cat. I finally gave in. Afterall, I would be outside to watch her and I have a six foot fence; during the time it would take her to scale the fence I could run over and grab her.
As we sipped our smoothies and chatted, Kosha sniffed around the yard but finally got so hot that she settled under the porch for shade. As I brought her water dish out only minutes later, NO KITTY! There was a small gap under the gate near the edge of the porch which must have been where she got out.
We looked for her for quite some time and I continued my search the next day, still no kitty! I live next to a large wooded area inhabited to coyotes so I was starting to wonder if she had perhaps become dinner. Afterall, only weeks ago a neighbor's cat had befallen that very fortune.
But alas, very early this morning I heard banging on the back side of the house. I thought it was the wind blowing stuff around on the porch but when I looked out the window there was no wind. As I went downstairs I could see a silhouetted figure hanging from the screen of the sliding glass door, there she was. Too bad she can't talk and tell me all about her grand adventure.