Departure on Saturday morning at 4:00am (November 20 2010)

The air in the church last Sunday was electric. The commissioning service was wonderful as the entire congregation sang and cheered in sending us off.  Never did we expect that we would be able to put together a 32-member team for our inaugural trip.  We're broken up into six smaller teams (worship, children, construction, medical, women and admin).  My Medical team is made up of myself (an RN), one LPN, an EMT, a dental tech, a hospital orderly, and a Vet tech.  No doctor.  We're quite a mixed-bag of experience so we should be able to pin-point any unexpected problems.  We're calling this a bandaid mission since there were no medical people that went in the recon trip last March.  There's no one on my team who has been before. 

I'm so excited I can hardly keep still.  Of course, there's still the little matter of packing for a week in the tropics.  The dress code down in Belize is pretty strict so we're all having to be careful with our wardrobe.  I'll be able to wear my scrub top in the villages when we go in for our health clinics so that will at least be familiar. 

I wanted to give all of you the link to the blog site that will be maintained while we're gone.

http://questbelize.blogspot.com/

There's already the logo (like that one above) posted.  There's some older photos there from the recon trip that was taken last March.

If you follow Face Book, you can check updates for the Group:

Quest Church International Missions

I don't do Face Book so I don't know what's involved in getting to that site.

Please continue to pray for our entire team.  This is going to involve a lot of contact with the Belizean people.  There's a church being built there and they have taken our church's name.  We are The Quest Church and they have become The Evangelical Quest Church.  What an honor to have our little church expand to such heights.

I've done a few posts to let you know what's going on each day and what my activities will be.  Of course, when I get back, there will be lots and lots of photos.

God's blessings

Hope for safe trip.

Weezer

A Beautiful Saturday

Oh, my sweet, sweet friends.  I can't believe it's been 2 months to the day since I had the surgery on my ankle after that freaky fall in the backyard.  I have great news to report.  I am now able to walk independently. No crutches.  No horrible black boot.  No wheelchair.  Nothing.  God has surely been working to heal me.  Your prayers have been heard and felt.  The surgeon was amazed that everything looks as good as it does.  He had expected to keep me in the boot for a few more weeks but when I sheepishly admitted to him that I had been trying it out on its own without it, he said that things were great.  Not just good, but GREAT!

I'm now sporting 13 screws and 2 plates in my ankle.  It's still a bit swollen looking but it feels great.  Still a bit weak and achey after several hours on it but all in all, I'm so thankful that things have progressed as they have.

You may have noticed that I've got a mission trip posted on my sidebar.  This time next week I'll be headed to Belize with my church, leading a medical team.   Satan has tried diligently to keep me down and from making this trip.  Early in September I had the problems with an abcessed tooth that weakened me.  Then on September 9th I had my fall, followed by surgery on the 13th.  Then I had an infection in what we had thought was another tooth but turned out to be an infection that settled into my jaw bone.  During intubation for my surgery, they had scraped inside my mouth and exposed the bone.  At one point the pain was far worse than the broken ankle and the swelling kept me from eating.

My co-lead on the medical team has had her own medical problems and is unable to make the trip.

But....

the Grace of God has healed me and I'm still going to Belize.  All that I've gone through in the past two months has me anticipating great things from this trip.  God wants me to go.

So...

for now, I'm making final preparations for the trip.  We will be gone over Thanksgiving and I ask that you continue to pray for me and the team.  We will be taking teams for construction, women and children, and a worship team, which my daughter, Jessica, is co-leading.

Tomorrow at both services at church the inaugural missions team will be commissioned as we ready ourself for our final destination of Belmopan, Belize.

All of you have been so faithful.  It has been very difficult to maintain my communications with you over the past couple of months.  I make a promise to you that I will be back in full force soon.