Pre-Trip Jitters, (PART 2)
As you might imagine, going on a medical mission trip can be expensive. For a long time, that was my primary reservation toward us going on it. See, I'm the guy in charge of keeping up with finances in our house—some might say unwisely appointed to the position. I always feel it's my responsibility to point out any unwise spending we may be about to incur when it can be foreseen.

Nearly a year ago, I pointed out to Ashley that we would soon be nearing the end of our med-school undergraduate year and would probably only shin deep in credit card debt—what business did we have increasing that debt to thigh or even waist deep by adding 5 grand we don't have toward the base costs of the mission trip, let alone the medicines we'd need to take with us. Ashley sagely pointed out that when she went on the mission trip in 2003, we didn't have the 2 grand it cost then either, but by the time she left nearly twice that amount had been donated toward her trip and she was not only able to pay for her trip in full but also help sponsor some of the other team members and purchase extra medicine. Ash also pointed out that before she went to India in February of 1994—the very trip during which she first realized it was her calling to become a doctor—she didn't have the money to pay for it either, but by the time she left it had been provided. Her attitude then, as now, is that if it's God's will for her to do what she feels she's been called by him to do, he will provide the way. That shut me up but good. I've seen God work in this way on many occasions and should know it by heart and simply have faith. However, as the guy in charge of finances, I always feel the need to point these things out for the record, knowing full well I'll only get shown up by God once again.

Let me say, we've had an amazing amount of support behind us on this trip. Friends and family and people we don't even know have been sending us financial support and supplies like you wouldn't believe. A great deal of it has come from close family, but also from Ashley's church back in Salcha, Alaska, who've always been big supporters of her mission work and have contributed greatly to each one she's been on, including this one. We've also received support in the form of not only medicine and vitamins and medical supplies, but also toys, coloring books, crayons and candy which we will distribute at our clinic sites. Some of the story hour children at the library as well as children from a local elementary school class have also donated items for us to take to the children in El Salvador and Guatemala. And my sisters in-law, Amber and Caroline, spread the word throughout their communities, in South Carolina and Georgia, respectively, and came up with gangbusters support on that front.

While packing things up this week, Ash and I were going through a box of donations her sister Amber sent us. It was a box full of cute and cuddly little teddy bears and beanie babies and chalk and crayons and coloring books. As I was looking at one of the cute little teddy bears, one dressed in a little yellow sweater, I was struck with just how much some child is going to love that bear. Then I said something dumb.

"I sure hope the El Salvadorian kids like to color, cause we're sure bringing them a lot of crayons."

Ashley looked at me with a kind of How Little He Knows and How Much He's About to Find Out expression, then smiled and gave me a hug. I understood that as much as we've gathered to take, it's actually very little when you consider the numbers of children we’re going to be seeing. What we're bringing as far as toys and even medicine go won't get us very far. Ashley says that their 2003 mission team treated over 5000 people between Guatemala and Honduras.

"But you just wait until you see the face of some little girl when you give her two different colored crayons and a page from a coloring book,” Ashley said. “You've never seen such joy!"

"I'm going to spend this entire trip in tears, aren't I?" I said, already welling up.

"No. You will cry. But there will be a lot of happiness too."

Taking toys and similar things is not the primary focus of this trip, though. We also don't have enough medicine. These trips never do. Even packed to capacity, with two 70 pound suitcases and a 40 pound carry on bag each, we're never going to get enough medicine in to meet the demand. Fortunately, the huge swell of support we’ve been given also extends to the mission team as a whole. One of the clubs at Ashley’s med-school donated over $500 toward the trip and the alumni association donated $1000. We’re taking that with us as backup for when the meds we’re bringing run out.

I know I'm not prepared for what I'm going to be seeing. I've been told exactly what's going to happen, but until I'm in it neck deep, I won't really grok it. Plus there's the language barrier to get around, which even having taken 6 semesters of Spanish in college is going to be an enormous hurdle. Especially since I forgot all my Spanish and am only coasting on the notion that it will somehow all come back to me. We'll have translators, sure, but it would certainly help if some of us knew a few more words.

And then there's the less than comforting threat of political turmoil.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

MT-MINUS: 2
- posted by Eric Fritzius @ 11:08 AM