The wife is on a medical mission trip to Guatemala.

[Rhettley]

If you only read part of this skip down to the bottom for my wife's update...
Please keep her and the group from our church Lifespring in your prayers. She has been a RN for 16 years and she felt the need to do this. A few years ago she went on a mission to Honduras. They flew to Guatemala Thursday morning and I go pick them back up in Orlando Monday night. It is a combination medical and missionary trip. As the pastor put it, "The medicine is the bait. The word of God we share is the healing."
To say I'm nervous while she is there is an understatement but at $900 a person we couldn't both go and someone needed to be with the kids here. She won't go again without me though. I'll find a way.
She's been sending me nightly emails from her phone as that is the only way we can communicate without international calling fees. I'm sure there's a better way but we didn't have time to research it and emails work OK. She's too busy to talk much anyway.
I went to the movies tonight to escort the 15 year old step-daughter and I saw Act of Valor. The movie and her email really had an effect on me on how good we have it and how much many sacrifice to help and to protect others. I type this while sitting here safe inside with a bowl of chocolate ice cream.

This is part of her email from tonight.

Tired dirty and satisfied. We saw 400 ppl today. Chicken pox out break. Tons of stuff.

Its crazy the stuff we saw today. Very sad the lack of care these ppl have. I cleaned a toe of a young women who split it with machette. Infected bad. Split to bone. Hopefully she will seek further care or die. Cancer nodules. Sad. Lethargic kids, can't walk even at age 5 due to malnourishment and worms. Sores all over. Like the posters you see of feed the children. Praise God for all we are blessed with.

[MudDucker]

Prayers sent. My hat is off to her as she is fulfilling the command to take care of heal the sick (which by the way is NOT a government job!)

[SS-342]

Thanks for the report and we are praying. Praise God we have folks who hear and answer the call!

[towman]

There are good people in this world. May He watch over her.

[CaptReelThyme]

Whenever you think a dead battery at the dock is the worst thing ever, there are people worse off. Bless your wife for what she is doing. The Capt salutes her...

[Cranfield]

The selfless dedication of volunteers such as your wife is humbling.
May she stay safe and come home knowing that a lot of people are better for having met her.

[Blue spinner]

our prayers are with her and all that are able to go and help ,we don't know how good we have it till you see it first hand as she is ,
praise God he is with them .

[Rhettley]

Thank you all for the prayers and kind words. I got to chat with her for a few minutes last night online. One of the others in the group tagged her in a photo on Facebook and posted the actual numbers of what they did yesterday. Friday was about the same. I don't know how they did it. I guess it's like feeding the multitudes with only a couple of fish and a little bread. God multiplied their talents and energy. I imagine there will be a lot of kids there talking about the funny green eyed red headed gringo nurse with metal braces on her teeth for quite a while.

From 10 to 4 we saw 480 ppl and 303 were children with one Dr and three nurses. Pictures forthcoming. Church this morning.

[Chill-N-Grill]

Prayers to your family and your wife's safe return.

[FUTCHCAIRO]

HEY RHETTLEY, THAT IS GREAT TO HEAR,YEA PEOPLE HERE IN THIS COUNTRY JUST DO NOT APPRECIATE WHAT WE HAVE HERE. MY 2 DOCTOR DAUGHTERS HAVE BEEN GOING ON MISSION TRIPS TO CUBA NOW FOR ABOUT 5 YEARS AND YOU CAN NOT KNOW HOW THINGS ARE DOWN THERE UNLESS YOU HAVE BEEN. THEY BRING BACK MANY PICTURES OF THE WORK THEY ARE DOING DOWN THERE. THEY ARE SPONSORED BY THE 1 ST. BAPTIST CHURCH OF ORANGE PARK, 1 ST BAPTIST CHURCH OF WEST PALM BEACH AND NATUALLY BY BABE AND ME AND OTHER INDIVIDUALS AROUND GA. AND FLA. GOD BLESS YOUR WIFE AND ALL OTHERS THAT ARE TRYING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THIS WORLD. GOD BLESS OUR USA.
PA
SEMPER FI

[Rhettley]

She's in safe for the night and they fly to Miami at noon tomorrow and will get to Orlando after a layover at 7:40pm. I'll be driving the church van down and will be eagerly awaiting them. They finished the clinic Saturday and the team of 3 RN's and 1 DR treated well over 700 people in two days. One of the biggest problems is badly contaminated water. Everyone there has worms and parasites which leads to malnourishment. They worm them first. They said if they could worm the two villages yearly most health problems would be solved. Of course I'm thinking, well why can't we figure out a way to get them a treatment facility for the village water???
We had hoped to both go. I'm trained to teach the visually impaired. Simple daily living skills and a crash course in mobility cane use would be beneficial for the blind or low vision. I imagine simple cataracts create a lot of problems for them. We had hoped to raise donations from the doctors at her hospital but none were able to contribute this year with all the cutbacks. The trip was presented to the church without much time for pre-planning so we didn't have much time to seek other donations. We couldn't afford to both go and she would do many more people good as a nurse than I could and she's much better at spreading the word of Christ too. We are going to talk about it when she get's back as we both decided she won't go without me again, especially when the first day of their clinic when their armed body guard (military sniper) showed up to escort them. I seriously doubt we will be going again until her 15 year old daughter, my stepdaughter, is in college. The princess hasn't taken her mom being on this trip well. She really doesn't understand the hard life most people lead in this world. She thinks camping in an RV is embarrassing and beneath her. We've got our own little mission cut out right here at home I'm afraid. Her 7 year old brother will be fine with us going by that time I imagine.