Things have come full circle…

I hated being so vague about what was going on in my last entry but I certainly didn’t want to say for sure what was happening until I had a better idea about what was going on. And now I do, so to stop leaving it all in suspense…here’s what’s been going on.

About 2 weeks ago, I received an email asking me about me interest in a job opportunity in the States. As soon as I heard about it, it seemed right to me. An incredible opportunity. I know that life is full of opportunities and things are brought to attention every day, but there are certain opportunities that don’t come along every day – and you know what I’m talking about. Anyways, I responded by saying that I was interested but I never completely expected things to turn out like they did. Wait, that’s not really true – I didn’t expect things to happen as quickly as they have. But this is how things seem to work for me in life – not that I’m complaining.

One of the things that I had been working through was making preparations to come home; just knowing this was something essential for me to do. I actually started doing this at the end of April, 4.5-5 months out from the date I had set to come home. And the funniest part about all this: About a week before I received the email (2 weeks ago), I had written down some thoughts I was having. And I came to the conclusion, in my mind, that if I had to leave Guatemala in a few weeks, it would be difficult but I could totally do it. It was going to be difficult to leave Guatemala no matter when it happened. I also looked at my list of things I had wanted to accomplish upon coming to Guatemala and those things had been completed. Another 3 months would be 3 more months of incredible experiences but what I wanted to do, I felt had already happened. And then all of this transpired and it’s totally been a God thing.

So to update and clear things up: I will be back in Oklahoma this Saturday, like 4 days from now Saturday. My return date has just continued to get sooner and sooner, but this is for sure now. I will fly into Houston, then wait for about 2 hours, and hope on a plane headed for Oklahoma City (because that’s where home is now). And the reason for coming home so soon: I have a formal interview with the District Superintendent and the Wesley Foundation board for the position of campus minister/director of the Wesley Foundation at NSU in Tahlequah. My interview is in the evening, a week from this Thursday; hence I’m home this weekend.

For me, this has all just happened so fast. Not even two weeks ago, I was continuing on like normal, looking at 3 more months here in Guatemala – but God had different plans from my own. The sense of peace I have in my heart about this and the calling that has been placed on my heart can’t be placed into words. I’ve been enjoying every moment I have here in Guatemala for quite some time, so I don’t feel unprepared to leave or anything like that. One thing I’ve learned in my life is to step out in faith and trust God in everything, and he’s certainly blessed me immensely through doing that. Coming to Guatemala in the first place was a big step out in faith, and look at what that has brought me – incredible memories and an incredible family here.

There’s too much that I will miss about Guatemala, from the weather to the people to the mango milkshakes – there’s not enough space for me to list it all. As happy as I am about this on one end, I'm equally as sad on the other end. But I continue on here, finishing up my week and doing what I’ve done ever since I get here – taking every day for what it is and enjoying the blessings that come with each new day. It will be strange to be at home and a giant change for me, given how much time I’ve spent here. But I’ll get there with time, and with your continued prayers.

So there ya go, that’s the scoop. Much to do still in Guatemala and that’s my task for now. Much love and blessings.

Two themes this time: airplane tickets and fútbol

Okay, so I was sitting at my computer about a month ago, enjoying a cup of blueberry tea and taking a break. I had been working on our surgical inventory all morning and you just need to take a break every so often when you’re doing that type of work; the numbers start running together in your head and it really stinks when you have to recount something like alcohol prep pads or 3 cc syringes (we’ve got more than 400 of each). Anyways, I was on kayak.com looking at airline ticket prices, as this had become something I did every time I was on the Net. I mean, you never know what kind of deal you’re going to find (i.e. my plane ticket to Nicaragua) so it’s always worth looking. In my mind, I had been thinking mid-September as the right time for me to come home, for a while that is. So I started by looking at one-way flights from Guatemala City to H-Town, and like usual they were around $720 (yeah, I know, crazy…). To fly into Oklahoma City, with a stop in Houston, was $770 one-way. So on the surface, it seemed like I would be waiting until another day to buy my plane ticket. And there really wasn’t a problem with that, seeing as how it was only mid-April – 5 more months until September. However, buying my plane ticket to come home is something I really wanted to do; so that I could pin down an actual date and begin to prepare myself for coming home (yes, even 4-5 months out, as silly as that might sound). Not to mention it would allow us some time to find someone to come in and fill my place. So instead of ending my search and getting back to counting sutures and such, I decided to investigate something…

I don’t know why it works this way, but I’m sure glad it does sometimes. So for my next search, I decided to put San Diego as my destination and see what results I got back; knowing that there are only certain cities in the United States that you can fly to direct from Guatemala City (Houston and Miami being the most frequent, but you can fly to L.A, Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, Washington D.C. non-stop too) so for other destinations you would have to stop and make a connection in one of these cities. So when the results came back for San Diego, I nearly spilled my tea all over myself (that would have been smooth, huh?). The price for a one-way ticket to San Diego on Continental was $331 dollars, with a stop and 3 hour layover in Houston. It used the same flight from Guatemala to Houston (the one that cost $720) and then had a flight to leave to San Diego around 1:30 pm. I was in complete shock, thinking this just couldn’t be right. So just for kicks, I typed in some other cities out that direction that Continental flies too (i.e. Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson). And sure enough, it was the same $331 to any 4 of these cities, with a stop in Houston. It was too good of a deal to pass up. The only thing I didn’t understand was why it was almost $400 cheaper to do it this way, considering you used the same Guatemala City-Houston flight that I had been looking at for months; never seeing it for cheaper than $720 one-way or round-trip…

So the ticket I ended up buying is on September 15^th (which is Guatemala Independence Day). I leave at 6:20 in the morning and fly to Houston, with a connecting flight to Tucson, AZ (just for kicks…). When I get to Houston, I’ll go through immigration and then on to baggage claim, where everyone has to pick up their things before going through customs. And instead of re-checking my luggage on to my final destination (which I guess would technically be Tucson in this case), I’m just going to walk through the doors with all my stuff, meet up with my family, and head to the parking garage so we can leave and go eat giant burritos. Houston isn’t home anymore, so we’ll get in the car on Sunday and drive back up to Oklahoma City, because that’s where home is now (Oklahoma has always felt like home anyways). So there’s that…I’ll actually be back home in less than 4 months; it’s hard for me to believe that. In many regards, I’m looking forward to coming home – being able to see family and friends; catching up with people and such. On the other hand, it’s going to be so incredibly hard to leave this place; the place I’ve grown to love (it’s like home) and the relationships that I’ve developed here. It’s hard to explain how I feel about all of this really…so I’ll leave it at that for now.

It’s playoff soccer time here and so things are pretty intense. Xela has a great team, and although we normally flop in the big, important games, it certainly hasn’t been the case lately. We finished in 4^th place (out of 12) in the regular season and you have to finish in the top 6 to make the playoffs so we’re there. The top 2 teams have an automatic bye to the semifinals while the other 4 teams compete for the other 2 spots. The system that they use for the playoff games here is called ida y vuelta, which really just means you play two games, with each team getting a chance to play at home. So you can lose a game, and still be okay, but you have to score more goals than the other team to advance to the next round. So for instance, we were playing Heredia in the quarters. We lost in Heredia 2-1, which meant that we needed to not only win the following game, but score more goals. A quick insert: They closed the stadium in Xela for two games after the end of the last regular season game, because of various altercations between fans and players (it wasn’t the first time it had happened). So Xela’s home games were moved to San Marcos, about 1.5 hours away. So needing a big victory, we got it; a 3-0 victory over Heredia – moving us onto the semifinals. So we’re in the semis right now playing against Municipal (los Rojos) – one of the 2 teams from Guatemala City. Xela has 3 big rivals – Communicaciones (Las Creams), Marquense (San Marcos), and Municipal – so this is a pretty big deal – as are our rivalry games in the US (pick your sport). Municipal finished in 1^st place in the regular season, and they’re usually always the team to beat. So anyways, last night was the 1^st game in San Marcos. I don’t go to every single soccer game here, but every playoff game is a must-go. So we left Xela last night about 5:00 for the 8:00 game in San Marcos, riding on a bus with a whole bunch of crazy Xela fans. Municipal is supposed to advance on, and even though we’re good, we’re definitely not favored to win. So the game was absolutely crazy and awesome. It stayed pretty tight early, although we got a goal right before halftime. Municipal came out and got a sweet goal off a corner kick about 5 minutes into the second half and then things got more interesting. About 10 minutes into the second half, one of the players on Municipal turned around a cheap-shotted one of the players from Xela, giving him a red-card, putting Municipal a man-down, and provoking an already intense verbal war between our fans and their fans. People started throwing stuff (which finally died down) and a few fans had to be escorted out of the stadium by the policia. Things remained at 1-1 for most of the second half and then with about 10 minutes left in the game, we scored again off a header from a sweet pass, giving us the lead 2-1. And not even 5 minutes later, another sweet cross from the sideline, about 20 yards out into the center, another header and another goal. We were going absolutely crazy – you had to be there. The atmosphere and the ambience was incredible – especially considering everyone had to travel to San Marcos for the game. A big 3-1 victory puts us in good position to move on to the finals (Xela hasn’t won a championship since 1996 and hasn’t been in the finals for about 6 years so this really is a big deal). The next game is on Sunday at 5:00 in Guatemala City, and I probably won’t have the chance to go – especially with work and such the next day – but we’ll see. Like I said, we have a 2 goal cushion, so if we can get one or two goals in the game on Sunday, we should be moving on. The 2 game suspension will be over, so if we advance to the finals, the first game of the finals will be Wednesday next week in Xela, and I should have the chance to go…exciting times here in Xela.

Speaking of exciting times, things are about to get much busier here for our project. We have a surgery team arriving today. Everything is covered personnel-wise for the week, so I won’t be in the O.R. and helping like I did with our last surgery team. I will be going to Camanchaj for the day tomorrow to help with triage/scheduling for the week, and then coming back home. We’re still having clinic work on Monday/Tuesday, with smaller numbers of patients (since things will be crazy with all the surgery stuff going on). Wednesday I’m back in Xela and then we have a team arriving to Xela on Thursday around lunch time (another reason why I’m not staying with the surgery team – I’m responsible for this team). I’ll spend Thursday through Wednesday with this team (we’re doing rural clinic Fri/Sat and then Mon/Tue) and then get ready for the next team, arriving in Xela the day after the previous team leaves. I’ll spend a week with that team, doing rural clinics in and around Xela. The nice thing about those two weeks is that we’ll be in and within an hour or two of Xela, so I won’t be as worn out from traveling. But after those teams leave, we have a large team of 30+ people, so they’ll be split up between two different sites. Cuñen (where we’ve just begun construction a new clinic – hopefully to be fully-operational in 2 years or so – it’s about 2.5 hours north of Camanchaj so it’s far away) and San Antonio (no, not Texas. It’s about an hour south and 30 minutes from Xela – out of the mountains so it’s hot and humid there (kinda like Texas)). I don’t know where I’ll be yet, but this is taking place immediately the second team leaves (are you lost yet?). So the next month figures to be busy (these teams take us up through the 15^th of June). The good news is after that we don’t have any teams for 3 weeks (there was a team from June 29-July 7 that had to cancel for some reason). I’ll spare you the craziness of life after July 7 for now.

But I’m still feeling really great (haven’t been sick in a while) and doing just wonderful. During the 3 week break from teams, I’ll be using anywhere from 4-7 days to take a small vacation of sorts. The clinics will remain pretty busy but I have to renew my passport one more time (I need one more 90 day stamp to make it to September 15^th) and I have to do it before July 3^rd so the timing is perfect actually. Right now, I’m looking at either flying to Roatan (off the coast of Honduras) or flying to Costa Rica and combining a short trip to Panama with it. They have some sweet airline deals to both places. Any suggestions on what I should do? J  Either way, by the next post, I’ll know what I’m going to do.

So there you have it. As usual, life is exciting, busy, and ever-changing here in Guatemala and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Much love and blessings. Que les vaya bien.

How miserable I would be if I hadn’t learned to be so flexible…

It’s been a crazy past two weeks or so, well, a little less than that actually. I had one night to rest at home, after returning from Antigua, before I had to leave again to meet up with ateam. I had known this for a while, so it’s not as if it was a surprise or anything like that. The plan for the week was to spend Monday at the clinic inCamanchaj, and then spend the rest of the week up in the mountains around Chichi. But how often do things go according to the plan, at least here in Guatemala.Well, I should preface it with this: I’m sure that things went just fine for the team but the week ended up being a lot different for me than I had planned. When we have work teams here, our clinics still maintain their normal schedule;no matter if the group is here in Xela or elsewhere. So the question of who was going to cook for our clinic staff on Wednesday and Thursday in Xela came up onTuesday afternoon. Our usual cook was out with a different team and her cuñada(sister-in-law), who normally fills in when Maribel is gone, was not available to help. The team that I was working with had been here before, many times actually, and everything seemed to be under control. I said that I would comeback to Xela to cook for the group – it was easy enough for them to findanother translator; a local community person that spoke Spanish and K’iche would suffice for the other 3 days. So I left really early Wednesday morning from Chichi to come back to Xela, stopped to get some things at the store and went to the clinics to prepare lunch. It certainly made my week a little crazier, but on the other hand, it was nice to be back at home; to be able to sleep in my own bed and such. Wednesday and Thursday ended up being relatively quiet days at the clinics, which was wonderful, so I could step out of the pharmacy around 11:30 to go upstairs and prepare lunch. Normally, things are so busy that it’s not possible; hence the reason for having a cook. A God thing? I’m thinking so…

So everything ended up working out great. By the end of the day on Thursday last week, I was literally ready to collapse from being so tired (3.5 hours of basketball after work, on top of not much sleep will do that to you). And for most of my weekend and into this week, I haven’t been able to sleep very well. Not really sure why, but I guess it happens from time to time. Either way, by Monday morning, I was not feeling well (just achy) and I was exhausted. I try to avoid taking medication if I don’t have to, but knowing that I had a busy week in front of me, I took some Naproxen and some Benadryl Monday night, upon returning home. It sure helped, so I did it again last night. Actually being able to sleep helps tremendously (it was almost as if I had forgotten), especially when you’re in desperate need of it. At least now I feel like I can make it through my week, and that’s what’s important.

The upcoming weeks (well, almost the rest of my time here)figure to be extra busy. We have another surgery team coming in 1.5 weeks, but this team is only doing surgery (the last surgery team also brought a dentist and a couple of doctors so they spent a couple of days in Santa Cruz del Quiche doing clinic work). So chances are I’ll only be there on Sunday during pre-op and triage day to help translate for them. Otherwise, I’ll be working at the clinic and such. We have another team showing up while the surgery team is Camanchaj so it will be my job to work with them. Did I mention that things are getting busy? It’s a little hard for me to even keep straight; the importance of taking every day as it comes can’t be underestimated. Not to mention things seem to change from day to day (the plans and such).

It’s hard for me to believe that I’ve already been here for more than 7 months. In some ways, it seems just like yesterday that I was sitting in the internet café close to where I lived upon arriving here (aka the box), sending out an update letting everyone know that I had arrived safely; wondering to myself what I had gotten myself into and how I was going to survive for an entire year. And now, I’m trying to soak up every day for what it is; knowing that my time here will be over before I know what’s going on. In my mind, September always seemed like it was so far away, and it’s really not the case. Before I can blink, May will have come and gone (just like April did), and I’ll be that much closer to coming home. I’ll be sure to share the story with you in my next update, but I do have a plane ticket to come home and it’s going to be in September. So yeah…next time. Que les vaya bien :)