Nicaragua 2013

   The Columbus Medical Mission Team, Nicaragua 2013, met September 9th.  Everyone came with ideas for an even more exciting trip.  The dates are February 7-17, 2013.
   We will be fundraising and set December 9th as the date for our spaghetti feed so mark your calendars!  Details with the time and place will follow.
   Team members returning for their 4th trip to Nicaragua are Karl & Sue Tillinghast and Dean & Carolyn Athey.  We are very excited that Tamra Boettcher, ARNP, will also be going with us.  She was on the first trip to Nicaragua and has been anxiously waiting to return.  We have 1 and possibly 2 persons who are working out details to go with us, as well.  It's going to be a great team!
   Once again, we're partnering with the California team.  The leaders of that team are Keveta Anderson and Suzie Smith.  We don't know yet who will all make up their team but we do know that Dr. Rich Bergstrom and Dr. Mark Nichols are the physicians who will be going.  Dr. Bergstrom is an ENT specialist and Dr. Nichols is a general surgeon and both have been on several medical mission trips to Nicaragua.  We had the privilege of working with them last February and are looking forward to working with them again. 
   We continue to ask for your prayers as we plan for our next mission trip to Nicaragua. 
Carolyn

CONSIDERING MISSIONS

I've spent the last few days at our national Academy of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery meeting in Washington DC and as always am coming away with new thoughts and ideas.  The past couple of years I've gone to every cleft course offered.  One course led to my getting additional training at the University of Arkansas with cleft surgeon Dr. Lisa Buckmiller, who has extensive cleft training and who has done missions throughout her career.  She is who invited me to Guatemala with their team.  The trip was awesome as I could work with 3 other cleft surgeons who you read about on earlier blogs from October 2011.  I was trying to decide what to do next when I found Dr. Fletcher's mission in DR Congo.  Although I have another opportunity to return to Guatemala, I decided the trip to Africa had so much to offer, that I have decided to go there instead.  One of the main factors primary factors in this decision is the opportunity to teach the local physicians.  Dr. Fletcher has been working hard for years to improve the level of health care in the poorest country in the world.  I attended several hours of humanitarian meetings in DC and every one of them made the point of how important it is to teach.  There were stories of setting up ENT residency programs, literacy programs in slums, and training the local physicians in every way.  A couple of groups 'put themselves out of business' by returning year after year, bringing supplies and training the local doctors to the point where they aren't needed to do the surgery as they have well trained specialists. None of my previous missions focused on training, and  each time I talk to Dr. Fletcher about what surgery we might do, he reminds me that it has to include teaching.  They have Family Practice residents and medical students with a fair amount of book learning, but very little 'hands on' experience so we probably won't do the large numbers of cases, but rather a smaller number, but allow the Congolese doctors to do as much as they can. Dr. Fletcher, himself, does some ENT surgery so we'll teach him as much as we can so he can use to teach more incoming doctors.
We will also have the advantage of an American trained general surgeon who can do followup care.  This is a huge advantage.  Missions always leave you with a sense of concern about what will happen to the patients after the team leaves, so this will be a great help.
One of the humanitarian speakers so aptly pointed out that there are lots of people who say they want to go, but in the end, the time, the money and the 'outside your comfort zone' factors limit who actually is able to take the leap of faith to go.

John and Nila Novotny in Guatemala 2011

The meeting has me more inspired than ever for missions and now has given me some additional tools to help organize things and places to look for donations.

SENDING SUPPLIES

Today I packed up 4 boxes of supplies and will send them UPS tomorrow to North Carolina for Dr. Fletcher to take to DR Congo.  Large supplies can be shipped there by cargo ship and will actually get there via Belgium.  I'm not sure how long it will take, but Dr. Fletcher is returning to Congo in October.  We'll still be taking some supplies of our own in February, but this uses up things we've had in storage that we were unable to take before.  It's fortunate that I spoke with him today as he mentioned a need for tracheotomy tubes.  It turns out I have a small stockpile in my office that have accumulated from patients who no longer needed them so was able to find a good home for them.  It also includes some unneeded GYN instruments and laparoscopy equipment that our hospital can't use. NN

DR CONGO AND NICARAGUA

We have now branched into two teams.  Next year, 2013 will find two separate Columbus Medical Mission Teams traveling to two different countries, so the blog may be a little confusing.  We will try to keep them labeled correctly so you know which is which.  It looks like both trips will be in February so that will only add to the confusion, but it's a good time of year to travel to the tropics.  Everyone in Nebraska can attest to that.
The DR Congo team will be participating in a Webinar about the Congo later this month that is put on through the Presbyterian Church Missions.  We haven't done that before, so are waiting to see what more we can learn.  Dr. Fletcher has been traveling around the country speaking about the Congo all summer and has given our name to other interested participants, so we'll see how that works out.  I'm meeting with one next week at our national ENT meeting.
There are so many mission opportunities out there and so many people interested it's sometimes hard to keep focused.  Each one has unique characteristics and we're anxious to see how the Africa branch pans out.  Both teams will be following the other and praying for a successful trip.

Nicaragua 2013

    We are happy to report that Columbus Medical Mission Team will be returning to Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, in February.  After our last trip in February, it was uncertain if we would be going back but we have gotten the word from the leaders in California that it's a GO! 
     It doesn't seem possible that this will be the 4th trip that CMMT members have traveled to Puerto Cabezas.  For those of us who have been privileged to go on these trips, it has truly been a blessing to be able to serve so many needy people in that region.  The people in that area have found a place in our hearts & with God's help, CMMT will return for however long he wants us there.
   We will be starting to have team meetings to assemble the team, discuss fundraising, etc.  So please stay tuned for more details as they become available.  Dean & I will be doing a couple presentations soon about our trips to Nicaragua.  If there are any groups, clubs or organizations who would like us to talk at, please feel free to contact us (276-0638 or 276-0640).  We love to tell our stories & share our experiences with everyone. 
Carolyn Athey