God has been so faithful to bless me with opportunities to minister to people in His name. Not only in my community, but also in other places that are much different than the community I live in!! This trip had significantly more warning than the previous two!! I began planning for a third trip to El Salvador in the fall of 2025. I wanted to take my daughter, who dreams of being a pediatric nurse practitioner. One of my previous youth group students and family friend told me that she would like to go to El Salvador to work with the dentists. She aspires to be a dental hygienist! So my team was formed!
In the past, I have ordered all the supplies and used any money that people gave to me for the trip to offset my expenses. This time, I decided to try something new…I made a wish list on Amazon that asked for medical supplies, bilingual children’s bible books, and trinkets like bookmarks, slap bracelets, punch balloons and ear piercing kits! I was immediately blown away by the interest and generosity of our families and friends…3/4 of the lengthy list was purchased in less than 24 hours!! The entire list was gone in 5 days. INCREÍBLE!! Incredible!
The first day that packages arrived, Jeremy had gone out in the dark to get them up to the house. Next thing I knew, he was hauling a dolly full of packages up the steps and into the house like Christmas!! Other things also arrived like hand sewn dresses by a church group in my home town and hand crafted menstrual hygiene kits by a woman that I have never even met in real life! What an amazing testament of what happens when God's people work together for a common good...caring for others!
Some of my favorite things were the children’s books!! They were so much nicer than I imagined they would be and are beautifully written in English AND Spanish!! Most of the kids desire to learn English as well! I can’t wait to see the reactions!! So many things that came...toothbrushes, toothpaste, dental floss, gloves, gauze, blood sugar and diabetic testing supplies, books, storybook bibles, color books, crayons...and some outdated, perfectly fine supplies from our hospital and EMS service.
Molly's mom and my friend Hilary, came over the week before we left and helped me pack. We worked for a couple of hours, packing, unpacking, weighing, moving things around, and weighing again. We were trying to get our bags as close to 50 pounds as we could get. I think some of those supplies were breeding ounces though, because in the week to follow, I weighed them all several more times, moving and removing as I went!
God blessed us with the favor I asked for though! The bags weighed between 46-49.5 pounds each. Miracle number #1!
Miracle number 2...I was having some weird floaters in my right eye that had started a couple of weeks before our trip. As any good nurse would do, I ignored it...anticipating that it would resolve on its own...and too busy to deal with it. Though it was improving some, I decided to call my eye doctor 10 days before the trip. They felt like I should at least get it checked out before I left the country, so I drove the quick hour on my day off to have them look. The verdict was a "lot of blood," that had come from a "fairly large" hole in my retina. As providence would have it, they sent me to the city the same day where they performed laser surgery on it. When the doc found out I had been sitting on the floaters for about 10 days, he rolled his chair back, looked at me around his equipment and said "You lucky." I told him that I was NOT lucky...and he smiled and said, "yes, Someone was looking out for you from above." You will not convince me that Jesus wasn't sealing down that hole until I came to my senses to deal with it. Had it torn, I don't believe that I would have been able to make the trip.
SOOO...3 gals, 6 50 pound suitcases, 3 20 pound carry on bags...headed south to another world.
We were surprised actually to meet the rest of the team in the airport in Houston...where we determined that we would have 17 bags among us.
Sushi on the plane leaving Houston.
We are all so grateful for so much support!! We were able to budget out the money sent for different supplies, fees for the bags to get there, $1200 extra for the medicines that we will use there...I don't know where this money usually comes from, but 3 days before it was due, we were short by $2000. We were thankful that we were able to pass that along as well.
This week, we are asking for God's eyes to see things as He does. We are prayerful that people will see Jesus in our smiles...that encouragement and love will go out from us through handshakes, fist bumps, pats on the arms, and the occasional hugs. We are asking that God would help us to be a blessing to our teammates that steward and serve in His name on the daily in their country. And that through it all, He would teach us more about Himself, ourselves, and the people around us.
Thank you so much for supporting our trip and following along with our journey!!
PS...I LOVE reading your comments, but unless you have a blogspot account, it will post anonymously...so just add your name at the end and it will keep me from wondering!!
