Life After

I have had my trip to Vietnam as a focus for some months, though it feels like a much longer time. Now, being at home, falling into the routine of my regular life, returning all the many things I borrowed for the trip, repeating the details of the trip over and over to the many interested friends and supporters, I find myself still focusing on the trip... the trip next year, that is. Though the need is astounding, I left feeling that with God's help, I made a ripple, that all the hard work and raising of funds was worth it, not just because of the trips effect on me, though I am sure there is much to say on that subject. I actually feel that I may have made a difference to more than one person, that I might have influenced many hearts and minds in this foreign land with the love of Christ and the practicality of medical knowledge. And next year, I want the ripple to be bigger, multiplicable, waves of love and relationship and earnest service. I am even now making a plan, hoping that my time in the next year will not let me grow static, but will keep my focused on service. I owe my Lord so much more than that, and yet, it is one of the expressions that he asks of each of us in different ways. I want to live up to the challenge, to "live a life worthy of the calling." Lord help me to live that kind of life.

There was doubt along the way. First of all, funding, and God provided, and I am convinced that he had a good snicker at my foolishness. Then there was the doubt that I would be able to come away with the knowledge that I have described here; people were changed and touched, not though my strength and power, but through Christ in me and the team and the power and strength that he provided. And he wants to do this in every place, every day. This makes me smile. Thanks, Jesus!

We want to get some pictures up soon. Jessica has been trying to get on the blog and load some up, but has not been able onto the blog of late. I will attempt to load a couple of mine up, but she has all the good ones, so I will load some of those up when I get the disk from her.

Thanks again to everyone that helped make this trip possible, and please realize that the ripple that was created on the other side of the world is as much a testament of you and God in you as it is proof of God working through and leading our team.

Love to all--

Amanda

Home Sweet Home

I'm so happy to be sitting in my nicely air conditioned home, drinking a really cold lemonade, and typing this blog entry. It was such a long day/night of flying and hanging out in airports, but it's finally come to an end. Poor Jennifer has one more flight to go from DC to Charleston, SC, but that flight will be so much quicker than our 14 hour flight from Korea to DC.

I think the trip was a huge success! We all had a great time and I felt like we created some good relationships for future visits to Vietnam. We will be keeping in contact with several people from the National Children's Hospital and Choung My Hospital. I look forward to giving them suggestions for improvement of their practices by sending them emails and maybe some pictures of how we do things in our hospitals.

This medical mission trip has been such an amazing experience and I really am looking forward to going back next year. I think I already said this in another blog entry, but I want to say it again. GVI IS WONDERFUL!!! They deserve so much credit for the success of this trip. They knew what orphanges and hospitals in Vietnam needed our help. Without them we wouldn't have been able to communicate very well (we probably could have survived at that National Children's Hospital, but it would have been a challenge). They were wonderful tour guides and knew some yummy restaurants to take us to. All of them are wonderful people and we will miss them till we see them again next year.

Thanks for following the blog and I plan to post the pictures tomorrow or the next day.

Jessica

Time to Say Goodbye

We just finished shopping and got some really cool stuff. Tra was a huge help--her presence alone helped us get some good deals. The worst part of the day was saying goodbye to her. She's only been working at GVI for 2 months and she did such a wonderful job helping us manage our money, get taxi cabs and most importantly not get run over by motorbikes. We will all miss her and reminded her that we'll see her again when we come back next year.

Tonight at 5pm we have a debriefing and then a chance for one more Vietnamese meal. I'm sure there will be many more sad goodbyes, but hopefully we'll be able to keep in touch through the Internet.

I think we've spent the perfect amount of time in Hanoi and I'm ready to go home to see my family and friends. There are definitely things I will miss about Vietnam, but at the same time there are things that I miss about the States. I can't wait to get home and turn my air conditioning up full blast! I also look forward to all the bathrooms having toilet paper, soap, and paper towels or a dryer. Most of all I will miss everyone from GVI--they have been amazing and I don't have enough words to thank them for all they've done for us.

Jessica

Our Last Day

Karoke was a success last night. Even though Amanda and Tra were the main karoke stars, we all got into it and had some fun. It was so nice meeting Bic last night and those of you headed to Vietnam in July/August for the orphanage trip are going to have so much fun with her. Ming was the man last night, hanging out with 6 ladies and had fun singing karoke too.

Today we got to sleep in a little, which was wonderful, especially since we have a full day here before we start our 24 hour trip home. I just finished my last jog around the lake and will miss seeing everyone working out. It's amazing how active everyone is around here and that would explain why I haven't seen one person that's overweight. I've seen a wide variety of workouts: tai chi, badmition, massage lines, walking/jogging, workouts with sticks/swords/cloth flowers on strings and there's probably a lot more that I'm forgetting or haven't seen yet. It just makes me so happy to see how active everyone is.

This morning we're headed to Joma for breakfast, where they have some delicious coffee and food. I'm looking forward to getting another London Fog (Earl Grey and vanilla latte)--I hope we have this back in the States or I may need to get my own latte machine, so I can keep having them.

After breakfast it will be time for shopping with Amanda and Tra. I'm so happy that Tra is going to go with us and help us do some bargaining. Everything is so reasonable I feel guilty to bargain for a lower price, but I guess that's what they expect. I'm glad that Amanda has figured out how to count Dong (Vietnamese currency) because it still confuses me. Two nights ago I paid for dinner and it was 880,000. Can you imagine seeing that amount on your restaurant bill in the States--oh my! 100,000 dong is equal to 5 US dollars and I think the bills go as low as 1,000 dong, which would equal something (my brain hurts already trying to figure it out).

Alrighty, I think that's all for now. But I'm pretty sure we will post more before we leave and probably from the airport in Korea since we have a 5 hour layover.

Thanks for following the blog and I will have lots of pictures to post when I get home for your viewing pleasure.

Jessica

Choung My Hospital

Today all four of us went to Choung My Hospital, which was about an hour away from our hotel. It's a very small hospital (outside of Hanoi) compared to the National Children's Hospital that we went to earlier in the week. Here in Vietnam they have 3 different levels of hospitals, which dictates their funding and what type of medications they are able to use. I think Choung My Hospital was a level 2 hospital and they have a limited amount of equipment and supplies. We hope to provide them with some fetal heart rate monitors (they currently have one and are in great need of more) and some supplies for the operating room (maybe instruments and trays). I talked with people in the Sterilization Department and learned how they do things at their hospital. Again, I feel very privileged to have all the high tech equipment that we have in the States.

Amanda met with the nurses in the Pediatric Unit and gave a presentation on asthma. Ashley gave presentations on ectopic pregnancy and fetal heart rate monitoring. It seems they have similar practices to what we have in the States, but some things vary due to their limited supplies and medications.

We saw rain for the first time today and it helped to cool things off (a little). I don't think that I've sweat this much in my entire life and it seems to be getting hotter every day. I was very happy that our cab had air conditioning and our rooms are nice and cool.

Tonight we're going out for dinner and karoke with some of the GVI staff. It seems that karoke is a little different here in Vietnam. You rent a room and just sing with your friends. I think that Amanda and Tra will be the big karoke stars tonight, but who knows, the rest of us may be inspired to join in. We'll have to let you know how that goes in our next blog.

So we're all done with our work at the hospitals and tomorrow we get to shop and relax before we head home. I think it's been a very productive week and I'm already looking forward to coming back next year.

Jessica

More Interesting Experiences

Today Ashley and I ưent to Chong My Hospital outside of Hanoi. All I have to say is ƯOW!!! I greatly appreciate everything about St. Mary's Hospital and ưill try not to ever complain again about not having enough supplies to do my job. I also ưas reminded ưhy I ưork in the OR instead of Labor and Delivery. Ưe saw tưo deliveries, an operation and a C-section. Ashley ưas able to assist in the delivery of one baby and I took the pictures to prove it.

Ưe ate some more interesting things for lunch--frog, goat and pig. The frog tasted like chicken you just had to pick all the little bones out. Ưe both decided that banana flower ưas our favorite dish. And I'm not much of a coffee drinker, but the iced coffee is delicious--I can't get enough of it. Everyone has been so friendly and ưe look forward to going back to the hospital tomorrow.

I ưould ưrite more, but this computer keeps trying to convert my ưords to Vietnamese and it's taking me forever. Plus the lights from the disco tech, ưhere I'm ưriting this, are blinding me. I think it's time for some sleep so I can have enough energy to get through our last ưork day tomorrow.

Later Jessica